free Mike Crash NR vs Neat Video

Laurence wrote on 4/5/2010, 2:43 PM
I have some footage from my Canon SX-1 IS that was shot in a church and zoomed in from the balcony. It had quite a bit of moving cmos noise in the picture. I tried Neat Video on it and almost gave up because it still didn't look very good. Then I tried the free Mike Crash video noise reduction plugin that I haven't used since I got Neat Video. Wow what a difference. It looks way better, at least on this footage.

I know that I have worked with a lot of footage that Neat Video was spectacular on removing the noise from, but in this particular case, the free Mike Crash filter is just so much better. It renders faster too. I really don't understand this.

Comments

Marc S wrote on 4/5/2010, 2:48 PM
When you take your noise sample in Neat Video is your Vegas preview window set to "Best"? It makes a difference. What was your sample quality percentage in Neat video?
Jøran Toresen wrote on 4/5/2010, 2:59 PM
Laurence, I really wish you could post this on the NeatVideo Forum. If you give Vlad (the author) enough information, I'm almost sure he can find a solution to your problems.

Jøran
Laurence wrote on 4/5/2010, 3:24 PM
That's a good idea. I've never been there. I'll have to check it out.

Keep in mind that I have been spectacularly happy with Neat Video in the past.

Yeah I know how to use Neat Video and had the preview in the highest setting for a good noise sample.
backlit wrote on 4/6/2010, 7:57 AM
Laurence,

I've run into the same situation as well as the reverse. What I've concluded is that when the clip has a fairly large area of consistent color, Neat does an outstanding job. If the clip is very busy with color, motion, and textures, then MC and the noise reducer from NewBlue work the best. So for my mostly underwater footage, I end up using a all three at different times.
I should note that I am not removing true noise from the video rather the particles in the water. These NR plugs can't tell the difference and do a very good job of making the water look very clear.

David
Laurence wrote on 4/6/2010, 8:55 PM
This camera (the Canon SX-1 IS) has something weird going on with sharpening or aliasing that makes the noise in low light generate these big blocky moving square patterns. Neat Video can't seem to deal with this and can't find a large continuous block even when it looks like it should be able to.

For some reason, the free Mike Crash dynamic NR seems to really nail whatever is going on in low light with this camera and almost completely fix it. It's fast too.

I suppose what I'll do is just use the Mike Crash plugin with low light footage from this camera and use Neat Video or New Blue for everything else.