Wedding video low light noise - gutted :(

[-=carlos=-]

Hi all, my first post here and it's under pretty dire circumstances so I really hope someone can help me.

I purchased a Samsung VP-D230 palm type MiniDV camcorder around 4 years ago and it's remained pretty much unused until recently for my wedding. I was married about a week ago now and my wife's brother filmed the occasion for us. At any time in the past the camera has been used it was outdoors and gave me as good a picture and sound quality as i could want.

This is an example of outdoor footage at original res in bmp so file is just over 1MB (Link removed due to bandwidth and issue resolved) (edit - jagged lines are not present when viewing - is this interlacing??)

I captured the wedding video over firewire using movie maker at DV rates and the file is 15GB for around 1hr15mins. I was pretty shocked however when I came to view it as seen (Link removed due to bandwidth and issue resolved). Infact we were absolutely gutted...I didn't pay over £200 to upgrade from an old analogue camera for this kind of problem! In the old days you never had this kind of issue with low light noise and i'm starting to wonder why I ever bothered but that's not going to rescue me now!

I read another post on this forum (which is how I found this place) from SatStorm who was helping someone clean up an old VHS so I gave his settings a go in VDub as follows:

- Static Noise Reduction (default setting, 6 )
- Frame Merger ( 2 )
- Dynamic Noise Reduction ( 8 )
- Sharpen ( 6 )

This is the result at around the same frame above cleaned up (Link removed due to bandwidth and issue resolved).

Is this the best I can hope for? Did I use the right filters for this or should I have used others?

Thanks so much for any help people here can give, it means a lot to me to try and get this video as best as I can.

Carlos

[Captain Satellite]

"In the old days you never had this kind of issue with low light noise and i'm starting to wonder why I ever bothered but that's not going to rescue me now!"

In the old days did you shoot with that kind of backlight to totally throw off your intended subject. In my opinion you didn't have a prayer with that backlight, that more than anything ruined this particular shot.

I think you did quite well in your attempt to clean it up.

[nzo]

Check THIS out.

[-=carlos=-]

"In the old days you never had this kind of issue with low light noise and i'm starting to wonder why I ever bothered but that's not going to rescue me now!"

In the old days did you shoot with that kind of backlight to totally throw off your intended subject. In my opinion you didn't have a prayer with that backlight, that more than anything ruined this particular shot.

I think you did quite well in your attempt to clean it up.

Well since it was me getting married it would have been kinda difficult to shoot this at the same time but I'll pass your comments on!

[-=carlos=-]

Check THIS out.

Ouch $50 for damn plugin. The vid is important to us but I really dislike companies that charge heaps for downloadable software. The transmission medium of the internet should mean they can charge less than packaged software, not more!

I have however given the demo a go and the quality of cleaning is better than my previous attempt with the free VDub filters but I'd still really love to give VDub a go so if anyone could take a look at the above and offer any kind of advice it's appreciated.

[Captain Satellite]

Check THIS out.

Ouch $50 for damn plugin. The vid is important to us but I really dislike companies that charge heaps for downloadable software. The transmission medium of the internet should mean they can charge less than packaged software, not more!

I have however given the demo a go and the quality of cleaning is better than my previous attempt with the free VDub filters but I'd still really love to give VDub a go so if anyone could take a look at the above and offer any kind of advice it's appreciated.

Kind of makes me wonder how much this video really is worth to you. You came in here asking for help and people are offering it to you. Now that it means that you may have to shell out a few bucks, you start to squirm. I know how much a camcorder costs, I know how much a wedding costs, I know how much this tape means to you. How can you whine about fifty bucks? I've seen some very good solutions offered to you here but it appears that you don't want to spend any money.

In this age whether you d/l a product or purchase it boxed, the price has little to no bearing on the price. You are getting the same software that functions in the same manner.

[zoobie]

backlighting can be awesome when used properly...and a nightmare if not
fog machine is optional

[-=carlos=-]

Check THIS out.

Ouch $50 for damn plugin. The vid is important to us but I really dislike companies that charge heaps for downloadable software. The transmission medium of the internet should mean they can charge less than packaged software, not more!

I have however given the demo a go and the quality of cleaning is better than my previous attempt with the free VDub filters but I'd still really love to give VDub a go so if anyone could take a look at the above and offer any kind of advice it's appreciated.

Kind of makes me wonder how much this video really is worth to you. You came in here asking for help and people are offering it to you. Now that it means that you may have to shell out a few bucks, you start to squirm. I know how much a camcorder costs, I know how much a wedding costs, I know how much this tape means to you. How can you whine about fifty bucks? I've seen some very good solutions offered to you here but it appears that you don't want to spend any money.

In this age whether you d/l a product or purchase it boxed, the price has little to no bearing on the price. You are getting the same software that functions in the same manner.

Ouch, bitten twice by the same person in the space of a few posts.

Could you also just point out please where YOU personally offered me help becasue i'm having trouble seeing it for the sarcasm and flaming.

I'm OK with buying it if it really works but the help i've asked for is VDub settings and plugins for now since I can actually play around with them and possibly learn something at the same time.

[Captain Satellite]

backlighting can be awesome when used properly...and a nightmare if not
fog machine is optional

I couldn't agree more, zoobie. In this particular instance, the camera metered the backlight as well as the subject resulting in his intended subject being underexposed. Agreed?

[Paul_G]

Not to rub salt in your wounds but i am amazed you would not do tests before using the camcorder to film such a important day, before i filmed my sisters wedding i did loads of tests indoors and outdoors to get used to the camcorder then filmed the big day and it looked fantastic (sound was a bit low but goldwave to the rescue and took out peoples horrible coughs).

[SCDVD]

I have some friends who are professional event videographers. Do you mind if they use your picture as an example of why their service is worth it? - Just kidding. Your problem isn't low light. The backlight is a killer. It fooled the camera into underexposing the subject. You are probably going to have to settle for some grain in your video after you use an editing filter to adjust the brightness, color and contrast. The problem with low end camcorders is they are fully automatic with respect to exposure. A better camera would have allowed for manually setting the exposure on the subject and let the light in the window burn out. You can't get any whiter than white anyway. One of the first things to master with either camcorders or cameras is setting the correct exposure when there is a backlight. An auto setting is going to be thrown off by the backlight every time. You even have to be careful when using a meter to hold the meter so that it measures the brightness of the subject only and doesn't have the backlight in its measurement area.

[Soopafresh]

I think there's hope to make this look significantly better. Need a 10-20 second clip of ORIGINAL unprocessed footage.

[jagabo]

The Neat Video filter that nzo pointed out works quite well. Download the free trial and check it out. It has time and frame size limitations so you'll have to crop your frame down to use it. But that will give you an idea what it can do.

You'll also need to work on the black level, contrast, gamma etc.

[SCDVD]

The optimum solution is a two step approach. First adjust the brightness, contrast, color and gamma in your video editor for the best appearance. This will leave the video even grainier than it is now. Then, step two - Use Neat Video to minimize the grain. If you are careful, you can wind up with something that looks fairly decent. Your video isn't so underexposed that you have lost too much detail.

[DB83]

Your video is important to you and everyone who is replying is trying to help you.

I would echo what an earlier post said and take a short sample of the original footage at DV quality and upload that to some free hosting service such as Rapidshare,Megaupload or Yousendit.

Post the link to the footage here and let us take a look at it.

If this is the only movie you will need to encode, you may even get away with a free demo version of a real video editor with built-in filters.

[MJA]

filming sunlight from the window did this ?

[Soopafresh]

Just making a note to myself about suggested settings for dark backgrounds.

HDRAGC(coef_gain=1.5,coef_sat=0.8,min_gain=1.5,avg _window=1,corrector=.7)

You can bring a lot of detail out of the darker areas, within reason.

Original



Enhanced

[Des]

Hi Carlos,

First off, Congratulations on your wedding! (Come on everyone where are your manners?)

I think you've done a great job with the VDUB filters, but you should probably consider buying the plugin suggested above. You can't redo the event so now is not the time to pinch pennies.
An alternative would be to let Soopafresh take a crack at it. I have not personally needed his help, but in reading this forum for the past several years I can tell you the man knows his stuff! Frankly, I find him amazing (and I love the avatar ...which is from...)

I'm in the photo business so I see these situations a lot, like I've said it's once in a lifetime so the money is secondary. I had a similar situation when I got married 6 years ago. Only my brother put the camera away after the service and I had to yell at him to get it for our first dance (he missed it

Anyway, I had two 8mm camcorders on tripods, one in a loft behind and one facing us. They did OK, but the quality was far from high level. Fortunately being in the photo business I had a ton of great photos (4000!) to choose from so I created a video of photos, used the audio from the video along with choice songs, and then some video (like coming down the aisle from the loft point of view) to fill in to create my final wedding video.

It's certainly not what I had in my head before the wedding, but in the end it's quite representative of the day. Sometimes it's best to work with what you have rather than fight what it is.

--dES

[zoobie]

I had the same problem once...The person in the foreground was washed out with a white sky in the background. My solution was to replace the light background with dark. This brought out the person in the foreground...

[vhelp]

Hi carlos,

I wouldn't worry so much about the grain just yet. And I'm not gonna lie to you and sound like
I know everything, cause I don't. But what you have is a bit tricky to manipulate or trick,
into a 'normal' 'like looking shot. It could prob be done with some trial n error work from some
one who has some skills in such matters of image/filter manipulations, but even instructing
you on those techniques would prob cause you to faint or something But serious. Its prob
gonna take some effort to manipulate/trick such scenes to look like they were shot, properly.

As for the grain. It would prob not be notice'able when viewed on a tv set. But, when it does
come time to encode it to an mpeg dvd, there is where you might have a little problem, though
that aspect would mainly intail the overall bitrate configuration strategy.

But, if you can get the first issue with the video looking more or less like a normal video, then
you could focus on a high bitrate CBR encode and see how far that will get you in terms of
quality without pixelation or other artifacts in your mastered dvd.

One thing I might consider is the origin of the source video, and what means are you outputing
the video to for playing and then capturing to your HDD. The point I am trying to make here is
that you want to make sure you have the best 'transmission' video, from:

Tape -to-> Play_Device -to-> capture_device -to-> HDD

Now, the reason behind the above is like this.. the grain in your video (as posted from your pics)
could be minimized if the proper match (above) is used for the transfer from tape all the way to
the hdd. You see, some player devices will exhibit fundemandal (internal/external) noise into
the video. This could be the player device and/or the capture method to your hdd. Now, you
may not be setup or equipted (financially or other) to fine-tune this aspect of the project that
I am trying to lay out here before you. So, what you have been able to accomplish so far is
prob your only means to go from tape all the way to hdd.

Posting a few seconds worth of un-touched (raw) video is your best hope for improved member
suggestion(s) to say the least.

The filtered exampe you posted did show some improvement, however. So, there's hope in some
aspects of your video project.

However, your video situation is unique and interesting. Best of luck to you,

-vhelp 4497

[halsboss]

Yeah, mate, even I'm interesting a fiddle with it cause I have similar same problems and would like to compare results with others... combo of avisynth filters such as HDRAGC, mvdegrain2, fft3dfilter can do stuff but don't expect miracles.

Be really REALLY interested to compare outputs with the result from the "neat" plugin run over it.

As others said, use vdub (with video copy and audio copy settings) to clip/save and post a couple of 5-10 sec clips including that you've shown a pic from.

[2Bdecided]

It could be a lot worse.

BTW, have you watched it on a real TV, rather than just on the PC? Lots of problems that are obvious on PCs are near-invisible on good old fashioned CRT TVs, though they can be magnified by newer LCDs with the sharpness boosted, which is a typical factory default setting certain to ruin all but the best pictures.

NeatVideo has a unique algorithm which works well if you use it properly, and is especially good at getting rid of noise which has some kind of pattern to it. Not necessarily a visible pattern, but a mathematical one. The noise from consumer camcorders falls into this category, so train NeatVideo on a noisy video of a plain sheet of paper shot with your camcorder, and it'll know exactly what type of noise your camcorder produces and be best placed to remove it.

That said, the results from VDub look fine as far as removing noise goes. The "problem" is the kind of fog over the image. Just accept it as a soft focus effect that you'd pay £1000s for and be pleased you got it for free!

I would agree with the request for 5-10 seconds of the worst footage, unprocessed - someone here might have a really bright idea.

Cheers,
David.

[-=carlos=-]

Hi all thanks for the kind and helpful replies, I have just got back from work and have skim read above and will try to put up some unedited video shortly this evening. (UK time)

The quality of the above samples is pretty much an example of how it goes most of the way through the film unfortunately but i'll find a clip that demonstrates a variance if I can.

[-=carlos=-]

OK this is 10 seconds of DV quality avi from the church where I got the main pictures above so that you can see this in relevance. 35MB

http://rapidshare.com/files/82300832/clip1.avi.html

Just as a note - the mini-dv tape was brand new incase anyone thought it may be tape degredation.

The next clip I am uploading is another 10 seconds from later on in a different location with no prominent or overpowering lightsource but the same problem occurs.

[-=carlos=-]

Next 10 second clip of the chapel (different venue) where I chose this because there is no camera movement and no direct overpowering light source.

http://rapidshare.com/files/82304321/clip2.avi.html

Is it just my make of camera is absolute rubbish?

[Des]

Is it just my make of camera is absolute rubbish?

The problem is that most consumer level DV cameras don't capture enough light. The imaging sensors are very small compared to older format cameras like 8mm, vhs, etc. They used to brag that those units where '0' lux and so forth but you don't read about that now on DV cameras. The sensors are something like 1/8th of an inch instead of the 1/2 inch or so older formats were. When the units get small somethings got to get reduced.

--dES

[halsboss]

Just as a note - the mini-dv tape was brand new incase anyone thought it may be tape degredation..

No. And the capture should be fine - DV via firewire is digitally captured so unlikely for losses there.

[halsboss]

Had a little try at it with combinations of fft3dfilter, DeGrainMedian, mvdenoise2, hdragc, limitedsharpenfaster. All turn out to lose too much detail for my liking. Post a query over at Doom9 in the avisynth usage forum and hope a master like scharfis_brain or Didee and many others has a look... they do absolute wonders. Of three tries I think the least fuzzy is the bottom one (all frame 187 of clip1):-

[Soopafresh]

Here's the best I could do with clip1

test1-proc.avi

[jagabo]

VirtualDub: cropped to 640x480 (the Neat Video demo won't work over 640x480), S shaped gradation curve to bring out a little detail in the mid tones without blowing out dark and light areas, Neat Video, a little saturation reduction:



It could use more work (and I ignored the fact that the video was interlaced) but this should give you some ideas. I tend toward less noise reduction than most others here.