Can I fix this grainy XHA1 footage???

Randy Brown wrote on 9/6/2010, 10:55 AM
I thought I was shooting all manual at -3db (using a Canon XHA1) but something went wrong....I shot about 25 inteviews ...some look fine and some look awful...very grainy... I was turning the camera on and off instead of lock/stand-by like I should have but I wonder if someone can tell me what I did wrong ..or suggest something to do in post.
You can see the difference here (look at the interviewers hair) Picasa Web Albums - 11666245405752992... - Drop Box

Comments

ushere wrote on 9/6/2010, 3:44 PM
links?
RedEyeRob wrote on 9/6/2010, 3:58 PM
Purchase Neat Video plug in for Vegas. Works really great to clean up noise or grain. $99 for the HD version.

http://www.neatvideo.com/
Serena wrote on 9/6/2010, 5:32 PM
Try noise reduction in http://www.mikecrash.com/index.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=13Mike Crash filters[/link]. Works well and is free. I haven't been able to locate your clips (a direct link would be useful) but you might have had the camera set to auto gain. Noise reduction tends to also reduce sharpness, so be careful with settings for each clip.
John_Cline wrote on 9/6/2010, 10:09 PM
Mike Crash's noise reduction filter is a temporal filter which looks for differences between frames and if the difference is below a certain threshold, it will either average or lock those pixels over some number of frames. It works fairly well but you can get some odd temporal artifacts.

Neat Video is a quite sophisticated spatial filter with a temporal component. It samples the noise, much like an FFT audio noise filter and removes just the noise that matches that signature. It costs $99 but is very well worth it. It is a "must have" tool in my arsenal. (As is Izotope RX for audio.)
Randy Brown wrote on 9/7/2010, 9:55 AM
oh crap, sorry guys I forgot about this post until now.
http://picasaweb.google.com/m/photo?uname=116662454057529924036&id=5513857079735994818&aid=5510519801431746657&start=1&authkey=Gv1sRgCOzPrdD8ra35Cw
Sorry about the link earlier i thought it was a direct link.
I think this did happen due to me experimenting with the camera and I must have turned on the AGC on the clips that are messed up.(the shade and highlights were constantly changing with fast passing clouds and I didn't see the noise in the LCD or VF.)
So I tried the Neat Video trial...it is indeed incredible I just have to go back to the manual to find out why it's only correcting the selected area?
Thanks very much everyone,
Randy
Jeff9329 wrote on 9/7/2010, 10:33 AM
The Neat Video trial only works on limited area, I believe.

I agree Neat Video is a great product. It can nearly perform miracles.

There are some limitations and you need a fast computer, but overall, excellent product, must have.
Randy Brown wrote on 9/7/2010, 10:56 AM
Hmmm, I can't see anything I'm doing wrong according to the manual. Can anyone tell me why only the middle is processed when rendering (about 10% of the total)?
Thanks very much,
Randy
Randy Brown wrote on 9/7/2010, 11:29 AM
The Neat Video trial only works on limited area, I believe.

Oh that would explain it then...yeah I agree it's definitely worth $99...just the auto settings worked a miracle for me!