Neatvideo

[unclescoob]

Someone once told me that they would "never let any of their videos near Neatvideo" for the cleaning up of grainy footage, as the default settings can ruin rather than improve video.

So here are two questions:

1. If the default settings may ruin video, wouldn't creating a profile for the video and tweaking the settings then improve it ? Is that the implication?

2. If Neatvideo is a "ruiner" of footage, then are there any suggestions for any Avisynth filters that can perform just as well, if not better?

Quite frankly, Neatvideo seems to work wonders for my videos (with tweaking) but I'm open to suggestions.

[yoda313]

I hate to say it since I don't know the program personally but I'll go ahead and say it:

If it works why change?

As long as you keep your original footage backed up so you can go back to it in the future if you need to then stick with what works.

All things in video for personal use only have to live up to your standards. If its professional and you are being paid by others to work on it than its a different story. But if you are just doing this as a hobby for yourself than what is good enough for you is all that truly matters.

But just backup your originals to be safe so you can retweak in the future should you so desire.

[unclescoob]

I agree with you Yoda. I'm also willing to try out other filters just for comparison. Are there any Avisynth filters that are really good at cleaning up video without leaving blocky artifacts? I've tried Deen and Degrain but they're "eh"

[Noahtuck]

Someone once told you ?

Well that definitely swayed me....
Nothing like a single person out of 100's to make a testimonial....
LOL!!

It's kind of like the negative review i once saw on newegg about a motherboard & ramm combo not recognizing more than 3gigs of ramm when he installed 8gigs, yet the idiot who left the negative said he was running windows 32bit.... DERR!!!!!

I also know someone that buys the cheapest memorex, noname, dvdr media from the grocery store because they say they have never had a problem with it, yet they have only owned their first dvd burner for maybe 6-8 months.
LOL!!

Seriously though, i have used it for at least a couple of years for special projects and i have seen many before and after examples where people have used it and i love it!

I have seen it take VHS footage from the 70's & 80's and made it look as if it was recorded within the last 10 years along with some different color tweaking etc.

It did kind of suck running it on my old 2.5ghz & 2.8ghz single cores, understandable, considering what it is doing, but on my 3.0ghz quad it runs pretty damn fast.

[jagabo]

Neat Video works very well for some types of noise. It's trainable and very configurable so you don't have to overdo it. It doesn't work for some types of noise -- like dirt, dust, and scratches on film (RemoveSpotsMC() works well for that). Like with everything else, just use the right filter for each problem. Also check out MCTemporalDeNoise().

[unclescoob]

Well Noah, to be a bit more specific in regards to that "someone" who told me without putting the spotlight on anyone...it was a videohelp.com regular and he made that statement in one of my other threads. This is someone who seems very knowledgable so I kinda wanted to see what others who aren't noobs thought about it.

Oh well, I guess everyone does have their preference.

Jagabo, thanks for the tip. I'll try those out.

[poisondeathray]

Are there any Avisynth filters that are really good at cleaning up video without leaving blocky artifacts? I've tried Deen and Degrain but they're "eh"

Denoising (by itself) shouldn't leave "blocky artifacts" - you probably don't see "blocky artifacts" in the preview before you encode - unless you're doing something wrong.

It's usually the combination of over-denoising and encoder/encoding settings (eg. inadequate bitrate, poor encoder, no dithering or too little grain remaining)

[unclescoob]

What is a good dithering filter for avisynth? I've tried finding them online and am having trouble.

[poisondeathray]

try gradfun2dbmod or dither and use higher bitrates , or don't overdo the denoising

[unclescoob]

Cool, thanks poison. Will do. I'll let you know how it goes.

[hech54]

Oh well, I guess everyone does have their preference.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and opinions are like a§§holes - everybody has one.