Amazing looking Youtube video

[brassplyer]

This girl's HD videos always look fantastic. Amazing that it still looks like this after YouTube encoding. I've seen a lot of 1080 HD Youtube videos that don't look nearly this good.

What's the trick to getting it to look this clean?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUSdtJc_gqM

[racer-x]

Shallow DOF (dept of field) compresses very well as only a portion of each frame is in focus. It also helps that there is very low motion.

This is easy to do with a DSLR and a good lense.........

[sanlyn]

It's too red.

[jagabo]

They start with clean, high quality HD video, not noisy, jittery, VHS crap.

[TreeTops]

Not overly red here. A tad orange maybe.

[El Heggunte]

......

What's the trick to getting it to look this clean?

Sorcery

[sanlyn]

Not overly red here. A tad orange maybe.

Nope. Red. Look at the hair. But, yeah, there's some pumpkin-colored people there. But it's sharp and clean, uTube considered.

[brassplyer]

It's too red.

Either your monitor is off or mine is - everything looks excellent here. Skin tones look like skin, the guitars look fantastic right down to the inlays.

[brassplyer]

......

What's the trick to getting it to look this clean?

Sorcery

Is there a plugin for that?

[brassplyer]

They start with clean, high quality HD video, not noisy, jittery, VHS crap.

?

Not sure I get the impetus behind this.

[sanlyn]

It's too red.

Either your monitor is off or mine is - everything looks excellent here. Skin tones look like skin, the guitars look fantastic right down to the inlays.

Yours is off. The video samples you've downloaded in other threads were usually too red. But if you like it that way, don't change anything. Here is an example of the usual method for testing and calibrating a monitor or TV: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/eye_one_display2.htm

On the other hand, maybe the producer wanted things a certain way, or maybe uTube messed with the original colorspace. Who knows?

The original source was sharp, clear, with very little noise or artifacts. Can you use plugins to get this effect? Not with an inferior source. That source was HD, which does not mean it was a "bigger" frame than the usual dirty crummy discolored noisy crappy VHS tape, but it had higher resolution and more video data to begin with. But the short answer to the question, can you get something that clear and clean with plugins and using an inferior source? No. Can you make SD look like HD? No. Can you make VHS tape look like DVD? No. But can you take a poor source, nurse it and improve it, and make it look "better"? Yes.

[jagabo]

They start with clean, high quality HD video, not noisy, jittery, VHS crap.

?

Not sure I get the impetus behind this.

Video with little noise compresses much better than noisy video.

[brassplyer]

It's too red.

Either your monitor is off or mine is - everything looks excellent here. Skin tones look like skin, the guitars look fantastic right down to the inlays.

Yours is off. The video samples you've downloaded in other threads were usually too red.

I don't remember, are you the guy who keeps bleaching out the purple from stage lights that's supposed to be there in screen shots or is that someone else?

[sanlyn]

That's someone else.

Look, anyone can use filters to look like that uTube video. All you have to do is denoise until fine detail has been sawed off, then oversharpen, oversaturate, pump up the contrast, crush the darks, blow out highlights, and have a plastic looking product -- just like the video you linked to. But I understand that this is all the rage now. It's just a few steps away from looking like oriental anime. I don't see why you have such a hard time understanding what kind of plugins are used to get those effects. But given a good digital source, it's not difficult.

[jagabo]

I agree with sanlyn that the contrast and saturation were pumped up. The reddish hue may be an artistic choice (to make it look warmer). They shot under bright studio lighting to get low noise video. They shot with a good, low noise camera with big glass and wide aperture (low noise, good DOF) and may have also applied some noise reduction filters. Finally they sharpened the video introducing over sharpening halos.

[brassplyer]

Finally they sharpened the video introducing over sharpening halos.

Would you post a screenshot of where you see an example of an oversharpening halo in the video I linked to?

[racer-x]

Many people that do this for a living use pre-defined "Looks" for Magic Bullet or whatever they use. They usually download them or create/modify custom looks. The video dude probably gave the client various example looks in the form of frame shots.

This is the look the client liked and that's all that matters, isn't it.............

[jagabo]

The video dude probably gave the client various example looks in the form of frame shots.

This is the look the client liked and that's all that matters, isn't it.............

Yes.

[sanlyn]

I agree. What the client pays for (or what the user wants for him/her self) is what the result should be. Had I been the hypothetical client here, I would have turned thumbs down on this version and cancelled my advance payment. I don't care for posterization, crushed darks, or watching pictures of people who seem to be using Crisco on their hair and look like computer-generated plastic figures. But that's the current style, just as overdone soft-focus was the style for portraiture, glamor, and movie closeups in the 1920's and 30's. I didn't see much excessive halo effect in the video, but there's plenty of dayglo red, crushed blacks with no detail, invalid chroma peaks and blown highlights, posterization, and an overscrubbed look with lots of low-frequency sharpening of what was left. I don't care for that look, but some people do. As racer-x mentioned, pricey plugin packages feature pre-set effects of all kinds. So I guess if it was OK and laudible for Picasso to paint nekkid gals as triangles and bug-eyed half circles, typical music video effects are valid...and the more the creator gets paid, the more OK and laudible it must be for those who enjoy that sort of thing. I see it used often on commercial TV in flashback and dream sequences.