Editing video (cleaning)

[ultraman36]

Hey is there a way to clean video up? I have some old vhs boxing and wrestling matches that i want to put on dvd. I saw this website
http://www.neatvideo.com/index.html?snim

What are some good programs to use or can someone point me in the right direction to start looking. Im looking for peoples personal experiences or info from someone you know who has used a certain product. For instance does premiere pro have and tools that come standard with it. thanks for any info

[guns1inger]

Go to the restoration forum and start reading. Plenty of material there on hardware and software techniques to do just this. But set you sights at a realistic level as to what quality output you expect.

[mats.hogberg]

Moved this to Restoration.

/Mats

[redwudz]

If you wanted to experiment for free, you could try VirtualDub or one of it's variants. I use VirtualDub Mod as it accepts MPEG video. Unfortunately VirtualDub only outputs AVI format. But it has many filters available that might show you what is possible in the way of restoration.

[pyst]

Unfortunately VirtualDub only outputs AVI format.

You can frameserve to tmpgenc for mpeg output.

[guns1inger]

I have used the neatimage product for some still work, and wasn't that impressed. The results were soft and inconsistent. If their video filters work in a similar vein then I wouldn't spend money on it.

Before putting up the cash, I suggest you have a play with avisynth and some of it's very good noise filters - convolution3d, peachsmoother etc. You may well find that with a little extra effort you can get the same (or better) results without actually paying for it.

[lordsmurf]

NeatImage was designed for pro dSLR cameras, and really need a correct noise profile to work well. Though I'd have to say, even without a profil, it tends to do pretty well. Another alternative is Noise Ninja.

Restoring still images is fairly easy. Video is a bit more tricky.

What is the exact error (or errors) you see? Each has it's own solution.

For STRONG filters: Hardware is available, TMPGEnc has some good filters, and VirtualDub has some good filters. For softer filters, Procoder, Premiere, Vegas ... most good editors and encoders have some.

[guns1inger]

We had the profiles - even tried creating our own. Maybe expectations were too high ?

[lordsmurf]

We had the profiles - even tried creating our own. Maybe expectations were too high ?

Maybe. It depends on your needs. It's intended for home use or news work. But to be completely honest, digital photos are fuzzy already, regardless of MP. I'm always doing sharpen work around features like eyes. NeatImage is something you want to do early in the darkroom, not later.

[swiego]

Try NeatVideo. It's slow, but phenomenal. It brings to video the magic that neatimage has always brought to stills. They finally have a more affordable home version. I just love this product - grab the demo and give it a try.

I tried numerous other virtualdub and avisynth scripts and filters, and none came close.