Searching for good and FAST (!) Noise Filter

[rawi82]

Hi.

I´m currently converting old Simpsons VHS-Tapes (often recorded in Long Play mode) to VCD using TMPGEnc. I´m capturing using a very good Panasonic S-VHS Recorder connected to my Pinnacle PCTV Pro with S-Video cable. I use iuVCR (704x576 PAL, PicVideo MJPEG Quality 19) but i still have a lot of tape noise depending on the source. In Virtual Dub i cut and resize (bicubic) to 704 x 576 and frameserve to TMPGEnc. I tried Flaxen´s VHS-Filter but its very slow. TMPGEncs built in noise reduction is excellent but it increases the encoding time by 4-8 depending on the filter strenght. My Duron 900 (256MB RAM) takes 1h30 per episode without filters and 6-9 hours with noise filter on! Quality gain and encoding time don´t match this way.

So, does anybody know a good and FAST (!) Virtual Dub Plugin for noise reduction? Or any other way for fast noise reduction?

Greetings and happy new year.
Raphael

[kenmo]

Just currious. Did you find a VDUB alterantive to the Tmpgenc noise filter ?

[kitty]

I would look for a virtualdub filter
http://www.geocities.com/shawnroy03/virtualdub_filters.html is one place.

An alternative is a time bse corrector or other hardware signal cleaner between the VCD & cap card.

[TheInformer]

Here's a link to some information you might find useful in regards to filtering in VirtualDub:

http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/vdub-filters2.htm

[kenmo]

No offense to anyone here but when someone posts an question like this I believe he is not wanting urls BUT is asking for the personal experiences of readers here whom have actually used these filters in VirtualDub and how in their honest opinion they compare to Tmpgenc's noise filter.

At least that is what I would appreciate for an response and not a bunch of urls. A simple Google search will turn up these web pages. Again I do not mean to offend anyone.

Cheers

[bunyip]

I do a lot of capture/conversion of ageing PAL VHS tapes and of course de-noising is essential. I've compared the TMPGenc filter with the available VDUB filters and found the most efficient to be the 'Dynamic Noise Reduction' filter by Steven Don.

Providing you keep the threshold at a reasonable level it cleans the noise quit efficently - as good as TMPGenc.

The filter is fast, you don't see much effect on the encoding time (although frameserving from Vdub always adds some time).

If you want to try it is available here .. (sorry kenmo - another url)
http://www.shdon.com/fvideo.html

[kenmo]

Thanks for the information and the url. I believe this was the kind of information the originator of this post was looking for. Good first hand information from the knowledgable and friendly readers here...

I for one much prefer this type of a reply. I mean if I was buying a car I can read all the Car & Driver, Motor Trend, Road Track reviews in the world. What I really appreciate more is the comments of someone whom actually owns the model of car I'm interested in.

Cheers

[dphirschler]

There are several noise reduction filters... but most come at the expense of encoding time. You gotta pay for it somehow I guess... anyways, here is a lit of my favorite filters:

Chroma Noise Reduction
Video Denoise
Temporal Cleaner
Smart Smoother
Vertial Smoother
Warp Sharp
Levels

I've found that the Lanzcos resize filter is better for cartoons as it seems to preserve the lines better. Also, use the Cartoon filter to darken the lines slightly.

If you are making VCD, then you are in luck because you can clean up a lot in the resize. I've found that resizing just after Video Denoise is better, and then do the Temporal Cleaner and the rest on the smaller frame. Also, keep in mind that you may not need all these every time.

And don't forget to Inverse Telecine!


Darryl

[fravel]

Have you tried VirtualDub's proprietary Noise Reduction Filter in the Video Menu of the capture GUI? It's a realtime filter that can be applied as you capture with very good results, that is if you have a fast machine with plenty of memory. This filter is in version 1.4.13 and other recent versions of VDub.
Good Luck!

[kenmo]

I don't use VDub to capture. I use VirtualVCR as VDub will only capture at 640x240 and will not cap at 640x480. I use VDub to frameserve and editing.

[fravel]

kenmo:
What doesn't let you capture at 640x480 in Vdub? VirtualDub can cap up to 768x576 using "set custom format". It all depends on the drivers being used and the computer. Actually, I've captured with VDub at 640x480 with no problems, using the btwdm drivers and a cheapo Cybermail card.
Well, I hope you the best in solving your prob.

[kenmo]

I use Windows2000 Sp3 and an ATi TV Wonder (PCI version) and the ATi drivers. VDub will bark "unsupported video format" if I select anything x480. However in VDub I can capture anything x240.

I tried the alternative drivers (BTWINCAP) and they make my system very unstable (ie: frequent freezing, BSOD upon boot up). Using the ATi drivers my computer is 100% stable, NEVER crasahes...