Denoising is a tough nut to crack by any video editing program, even photo editing programs on stills have a hard time.

Select the timeline and hit shift m.

@bitman I thought in an era of high powered computing, we were well past that. I have a Skype interview that I cropped and shrunk a little so as to have a black frame. The interviewee is in low light so there is noise. I used the Vegas denoiser and wow that just killed the preview. I then tried the BCC Noise Reduction and that was not much better. Denoising may have to be applied prior to rendering as a work around.

@RogerS I will try that Roger tonight, thanks.

Vegas denoiser is brutal- it's so slow I can't even render anything with it. NeatVideo actually plays back in real time for me with a modest GPU.

@RogerS Do you know anything about the Boris FX Noise Reduction? The Continuum package is not cheap and it is moot if getting rid of noise kills previews. I have the Noise Reduction BCC unit from a Vegas deal, unless I got it wrong. I would forget getting full Continuum if previewing is no longer viable.

I also have DaVinci Resolve and denoising video on that was not that much better.

There are a few denoising programs out there, you think Neat Video is the best? Would forego BCC then.

That really sucks about Vegas denoising as I like the results. I do not need anything fancy as it is a Skype video, but if I cannot edit further due to cruddy playback... I expect better from Vegas.

The interview footage is 4K and the output I need is 1080p, perhaps one work-around is to grab the interview and just do the noise reduction/denoise into 1080p, render and use that. Now here is another issue. Skype audio generally sucks, so I have the interviewee record audio separately on another device and send that to me. There is a risk of audio/video being out-of-sync if I stitch the HQ audio later. What would be the best approach here?

I don't have or know anything about Boris. HOS had a good denoiser in it and looks easy to use.

NeatVideo is affordable and really leverages GPUs. I think there is a trial.

The reason the newer denoise plugins use GPU acceleration for the Previewing is that they are computationally intensive. The very simplest denoise algorithms are kernel matrices, which chew up memory and always want more. Wishing for anything more convenient is just that -- a wish.

@Musicvid Vegas is doing a promotion with Boris FX, where you get Continuum, full suite. If parts of Continuum are too intensive for a system, it sort of begs the question of why bother to get it at all. I figured denoising is a reasonable ask and found that is not so. What else is an issue, then?

Boris is computationally intensive. Denoise never has been easy or reasonable; it was worse before. The mathematical threshing of even the most basic denoise algorithms can take hours. Vegas has hardware video Preview acceleration to help with this.

If you are asking for a better solution I'm afraid I don't have one to offer except for the obvious Prerender that @Dexcon pointed out. Hardware has always been behind the demand curve by 18-24 months, so I agree, our expectaions are a factor.

@Former user Why don't you upload a Skype sample to Drive or Dropbox for us to play with. There may be ways to deal with it other than Temporal Denoising; some of us actually specialize in this kind of stuff.

@Musicvid Vegas is doing a promotion with Boris FX, where you get Continuum, full suite. If parts of Continuum are too intensive for a system, it sort of begs the question of why bother to get it at all. I figured denoising is a reasonable ask and found that is not so. What else is an issue, then?

Vegas Denoise is inefficient and slow, using 100% GPU(rtx3080) while not achieving much. BCC denoise is inefficient due to only being able to use the CPU but is much faster. Using default for both at 1080P30, Vegas denoise is 1fps, BCC denoise between 17-30fps (CPU only up to 75%use (Ryzen5900x). I can't comment on quality. I don't use either of them.

I also tried Neat NR, on Resolve, after discovering it had disappeared from Vegas after returning to a previous version, it uses 75% GPU at rock solid 30fps. Would need to confirm this is true of Vegas if you were interested in NEAT.

@Former user Thanks. It would appear that " @Dexcon Wins, Fatality." in this Mortal Kombat for effects. Just do the one effect, render and re-use that footage.

@Musicvid I use Vegas capture to get the Skype interview. Is there an optimal setting for capturing or re-encoding? It just occurred to me that the footage codec Vegas spits out may be problematic for editing.

I have tested Vegas Capture and although its options are limited, I have experienced no abnormal temporal noise problems, at least not that would require a kernel or AI denoise filter during editing. I have experienced some compression (spatial domain) artifacts as a result of streaming services who cheat with abnormally long GOPs and low ABR. I would like to determine if that is what you are experiencing with Skype. Unfortunately, denoise filters won't do very much good there.

Since you have said (I think) that neither noise reduction solution you have tried has worked "that" well, I am merely interested in seeing if something else is at play.

Once again, can you provide such a capture via a link to Drive or Dropbox? I have some time available to help this week, but not as much past that.

@Musicvid Nahh, Vegas capture is great and does not give me any visual noise. It is the subject who is poorly lit that has the poor camera capture. However, I have had bad experience editing in the past with poor, compressed codecs.

Here are the specs on what capture outputted :

Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID                                 : mp42 (mp41/isom)
File size                                : 4.60 GiB
Duration                                 : 1 h 21 min
Overall bit rate                         : 8 070 kb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2022-09-21 17:09:36
Tagged date                              : UTC 2022-09-21 17:09:36

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Main@L5.1
Format settings                          : CABAC / 1 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP                     : M=1, N=30
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 1 h 21 min
Bit rate                                 : 8 069 kb/s
Width                                    : 3 840 pixels
Height                                   : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 30.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.032
Stream size                              : 4.60 GiB (100%)
Encoded date                             : UTC 2022-09-21 17:09:36
Tagged date                              : UTC 2022-09-21 17:09:36
Codec configuration box                  : avcC

I will look into sending you a chunk of the Skype video.

@Former user You may want to try the TOPAZ tool: "Video Enhance AI" to deal with Denoising. Their video enhance tool is primary aimed on upscaling, but also does enhancing (as the name suggests - such as denoise). Regarding denoising, Topaz should know something about denoising, their photo denoise tool (Topaz Denoise AI) is one of the best denoiser for stills, only rivalled by DXO's deep prime denoiser for RAW.

@bitman Thanks, I will put Topaz on my list of things to acquire, but it is not cheap either. Boris FX BCC is kind of on the list next, but Topaz looks useful. A third party denoiser, at some point, is also a necessary investment. Neat Video, Magic Bullet, whichever. Will need to look closely at them.

@Former user Hi, Yep Boris Noise Reduction does slow the playback, maybe down to 8-12fps on my system, but Vegas Denoise drops it to 0-3fps, at least Boris is sort of watchable before Shift-M or Shift-B is applied,

I find most of the Continuum effects fairly kind to Vegas, they play back well.

Everything BCC on this list is Continuum, if you want me to try anything in particular let me know 👍

@Former user I got the 4 topaz tools for 169$ on their 2021 Black Friday everything bundle discount, including an extra coupon discount, so you may want to hold out until BF.