New Version: Neat Video v4.0

John_Cline wrote on 5/6/2015, 1:40 AM

New major version: Neat Video v4

The new major version 4 of Neat Video improves the visual quality and adds new features to achieve even better noise reduction results.

Main improvements:

> Higher quality of noise reduction
> More accurate processing in scenes with changing luminance or chrominance: fade in/out, camera auto gain control, etc.
> "Dust and Scratches" filter to remove film scratches, dust, impulse interference
> "Slow Shutter" mode for video containing repeated frames
> Better sharpening quality: less halos, sharper edges
> "High Quality" mode for better detail preservation and sharper image (at the cost of reduced processing speed: 1.5-4 times slower)

Optimized workflow

> Several source frames accessible directly in plug-in window provide a choice of frame for profiling
> Restructured filter settings: better navigation, greater flexibility and easier experimenting
> Improved preview takes all temporal and spatial filters into account
(to adjust filters individually and in combination; to avoid roundtrips to host application for checking the final results)
> "Variants" of filtration to visually compare results achieved with different filter settings
> New filter preset collection to solve typical filtration tasks

Faster processing and more responsive GUI

> Preview is updated faster when filter settings are adjusted
> Multiple optimizations have allowed to preserve the speed of processing despite its greater complexity
> "Skip Neat Video Processing" option to temporarily disable all instances of Neat Video filters

Neat Video Web Site

Full List of Changes in v4.0

Comments

redpaw wrote on 5/6/2015, 12:54 PM

thanks John!

did you try it out yet?

*love the plugin, but their website is a mess... it took me about 10 minutes to find out where to do it and how much it costs to update from v3 ;/

Byron K wrote on 5/6/2015, 1:20 PM

Thanks John,
I really like and use NV a lot, upgrade price of $50 bucks isn't bad so I made the purchase.

I'll play around w/ it and see how it is.

Grazie wrote on 5/6/2015, 1:28 PM

Kha-Ching! - Done.

Grazie

flyingski wrote on 5/6/2015, 2:05 PM

Darn, I just bought 3.6 last week. Hope they will let me have the new version! I love what it does for 8mm film captured with my Retro-8.

Grazie wrote on 5/6/2015, 3:12 PM

Flyski! You might have good news, check their Upgrade options about recent purchases.

G

flyingski wrote on 5/6/2015, 3:34 PM

Yep, Vlad sent me a new license with in an hour of my email request. Very classy operation and a great product.

Grazie wrote on 5/6/2015, 4:13 PM

Good! - Vlad is on the ball.

G

John_Cline wrote on 5/6/2015, 6:43 PM

This new version might even be enough to get John Meyer to change his opinion of Neat Image. It is a significant update.

johnmeyer wrote on 5/6/2015, 7:49 PM

This new version might even be enough to get John Meyer to change his opinion of Neat Image. It is a significant update.Ah, you remember. I really want to like Neat, because the AVISynth stuff is a lot of work to use ... sort of like having to go back to DOS to do certain things.

I guess it's time to take the trial out for a spin.

Grazie wrote on 5/6/2015, 11:51 PM

No FX-ing:

New Neat Video 4 + NewBlue ColorFast:

Liking the GPU and CPU acceleration optimization tools. So easy I can use it! There doesn't "appear" to be so many levers to pull, but I'd need to spend more time to see just what they've done.

First impressions, from a non-DOS person, liking the simplicity of the User interface and the recognition that I do have a GPU able to be tweaked.

Would be real neat if SCS took on board that GPU optimization tool-set - really!

Grazie

flyingski wrote on 5/7/2015, 12:22 AM

I'm running the filter now on a still image sequence created from a film capture with the Retro-8 and am delighte with the grain reduction and sharpening. 4.0 still doesn't work the CPU very hard but the GPU assist really works. I'd have to run it on a sequence I worked earlier with 3.6 to give an exact number but I'd say 4.0 is at least 3 times faster. I have not tried the dust & scratch setting yet because this set of film is really clean.

Yes, John it is well worth a test drive...and essential with the Retro-8, which I'm lovin'

Grazie wrote on 5/7/2015, 1:20 AM

I'm almost certain that someone using the AVISynth stuff would get some rather spectacular results. Can't wait to hear/see the results. I suppose that any comparisons would have to be put side by side or some form of particle/noise comparison s/w to identify the qualities of each.

NV4? - Great work NV!

Grazie

vtxrocketeer wrote on 5/7/2015, 8:58 AM

NV 3.0 had a "no lag" mode, presumably to accommodate the clunky hand-off between NV and Vegas whenever temporal filtering was used. I didn't see such a check-box in NV 4.0 nor any mention of "no lag" in the features list. I bought and tested (and loved!) NV 4.0 on some footage, but haven't investigated audio/video slipping when temporal filtering is engaged. Can anyone confirm?

johnmeyer wrote on 5/7/2015, 11:50 AM

Looking at the results that Grazie posted reminds me of why I have never warmed up to Neat. Yes, the noise is dramatically reduced, especially in the dark sky, but so is all the subtle detail, most notably in the grass on the rights side of the frame, near the horizon, and in the animals themselves. They now look like a watercolor rather than a photograph.

As I've posted many times, there is a difference between noise reduction and noise elimination. I can show you many, many tools that can eliminate noise, but which do terrible violence to the detail.

Here is a somewhat similar noise reduction project I did for a forum member last fall. Here is the original:

Here is that original, after I applied color curves and color correction:

And here is that same frame after I applied noise reduction:

Note that there is very little loss in detail (I am hard pressed to find any at all), although a small amount of noise still exists.

You can right click on this link and download my "after" version to see what it looks like in motion:

Noise Reduced

I also was not impressed with the dirt and scratch removal of the new plugin shown on the Neat site.

However, despite my negatives, I really do need to download it and see if I can get better results than what I'm seeing so far in the posted examples.

Grazie wrote on 5/7/2015, 12:38 PM

John thanks for your feedback. I too am aware of the loss of detail. I don't think your skill-set, with the magic you pull off, is at risk.

Grazie

OldSmoke wrote on 5/7/2015, 1:34 PM

I just installed V4, upgraded from 3 and I find it amazing.

@John
Give it a proper trial. It can be adjusted to almost anything and there is no need to loose detail. It takes practice to get it right but it is an excellent tool. I would never be able to that with scripts; it would take me way too long to learn that.

D8 tape:

Before

After (Neat 4 + Color Correction)

johnmeyer wrote on 5/7/2015, 1:45 PM

OldSmoke,

That is pretty good looking, although some of the detail on the boy's sleeve, just above the elbow, is gone. Having said that, there is always something I can find no matter what tool is used. It is why I keep looking and why I'll definitely try Neat v4.

I still think we should find a really good test clip, and have various people take a whack at it.

OldSmoke wrote on 5/7/2015, 2:06 PM

[I]I still think we should find a really good test clip, and have various people take a whack at it.[/I]

I agree.

BTW: Where do you see a detail loss on the sleeve? I thought that the plugin showed new detail on his shoulder that wasn't visible before.

John222 wrote on 5/8/2015, 11:35 AM

I can't wait to try this on some files that were converted from VHS.

vtxrocketeer wrote on 5/8/2015, 12:08 PM

NV's basic training video on 4.0 advises aggressive temporal filtering (3 - 5 frames) and leaving the spatial filtering on default, at least as a start. The default spatial filtering is set to 40%, which in my testing (and history of using NV) is quite a bit.

I prefer to use no more than 15-20%, when necessary for noise reduction, to avoid a plastic look. Sometimes it's possible to preserve tons of detail but the overall image still looks plastic. Yech.

johnmeyer wrote on 5/9/2015, 9:13 AM

I prefer to use no more than 15-20%, when necessary for noise reduction, to avoid a plastic look. Sometimes it's possible to preserve tons of detail but the overall image still looks plastic. Yech. That is precisely my gripe: plastic. For a spatial denoiser, Neat is one of the best, but the temporal portion has never seemed to me to be even close to what I can get with other tools. Every Neat-treated video (as opposed to still shots) I've ever looked at seems to suffer from this same artifact.

But, the noise sure is gone.

redpaw wrote on 5/13/2015, 3:20 AM

can someone reproduce this problem with v4:

if you have two (or more) tracks and you add the effect to the whole tracks rather then the clips,
if the clips are on separate tracks there's a black frame inserted on cuts?

Grazie wrote on 5/13/2015, 5:41 AM

NV works by adding it to the Event, not the Track. Now here's a thought, what would happen adding NV to a NEW Nested Veg and import THAT into the live Project.

Grazie

redpaw wrote on 5/13/2015, 6:36 AM

it works if you add it to the rack as well.
it was working perfect in v3.

it works ok now as well, just adds those black frames on cuts