I tried this VV3 by using Gaussian Blur -> Sharpen. I found a nice balance between the two the looked great. The problem is that when rendering back to a new DV file, my 93 minute project took 4 days. :(

Thanks for the info. I'll try using both filters with VirtualDub and the Gaussian Blur with Sharpen.

Ron

I downloaded the current installation of VirtualDub tonight and tried to open AVI files I captured with VV30a or AVI files I rendered using VV30a. VirtualDub immidately comes back with the error:

"Could not locate decompressor for format 'dvsd'(unknown)".

How do you use VirtualDub with files AVI files from VV30a?

you need to get ahold of a vfw dv codec. Mainconcept has a good one. It can be found at
http://www.mainconcept.com/products.shtml

I have found that the best thing to do is to transfer the video (either from a dv camera or capture card) and pre-process it with virtualdub,..then edit it with vegas. Try to stay away from editing a video, and then run virtualdub through it. Pre-processing is best. I have made some crystal clear video's (church projects) using this technique.

Try the Median filter in Vegas.

from Vegas online help:

This plug-in is another method of blurring an image that works by averaging values between groups of pixels. The size of the group of pixels to be considered in this effect is determined by dragging the slider or entering a value in the text box (range: 1-10). This effect produces more of a smudged appearance that looks a little bit like a water-color effect at higher pixel values. At lower values, it can be used as a correction filter to remove noise.

Thanks liquid324 and SonicEPM. I'll try both of those suggestions.

Liquid325,

Are you saying that with the Main Concept VWF DV codec, I can open up my new clips in VirtualDub, apply my noise reduction filters, then save them back out to the same DV codec? In playing with VirtualDub last night, I could only save using codecs I wasn't very impressed with. If I could save them back out to a DV codec that VV30a could read, that would seem to be a good solution.

Thanks,
Ron

yes, once you have installed the mainconcept dv codec, then simply goto the compression menu and select the mainconcept dv codec. It is not the exact same codec that vegas uses, but it is still an excellent dv codec. Mainconcept's dv codec is a decoder and an encoder so it does both jobs for you. hope this helps.

Thanks much!

Hope you don't mind me jumping in here but I have a similar situation with a low light video noise. I tried the virtualDub filters and it did help a lot but then when I edited them and encoded them with TmpegEnc(DVD file) they were no longer crisp. A lot of artifacts that do not show up in my other encoded files. Would you mind telling me the settings you used(in V.D.) and if you made the Mpeg file with VV3 or not.

I ran it thru VirtualDub and re-saved it as a .avi file with Mainconcepts DV codec(the one i bought from Mainconcepts not the one in VV3) and then edited with NLE and saved it again as a .avi and then encoded with TmpegEnc.

I'm wondering if it is because I have made 2 .avi files.


Thx in Advance

Its been awhile since I used VirtualDub for that purpose so I can't recall the settings. BTW, if you like that application several people have written even more advanced filters for it over and above what comes with the default install and most are free for the price of a download. Look for them on the web using VirtualDub filters for your search phrase or something close to that. Most of what VD can do you can do equally well in Vegas. The one exception may be VD has a few filters that do more special purpose things with regards to cleaning up some noisy images.

VD can open most MPEG and AVI type files. So if you are going to use it, I would suggest you use it in preprocessing before bringing the file into Vegas Video. Doing that I had no problems working further on the file in Vegas Video.

mainconcept's dv codec has an option in it's configuration page called fastest, turn this off. I used the internal temporal smoother in VD (keep it low or you will have a ghosting effect) and a filter called 2d cleaner. Please refer to my link above for the link to it. Its default setting is 10, i normally change it to 5. Billyboy made a very good point, there are so many types of filters out there, but i have found that for the source material that i use, these work best. Thank you, Billyboy for agreeing with me that pre-processing is best. I use VV3a's Mpeg-2 encoder for my final output-Svcd's.

since I still have a video to clean up. I would be very interested to here success stories with any of the VD filters. I have a low light avi file that I Have tried cleaning up which works fine with VD but when I encode it to MPEG, it looks worse than the original. I'm pretty sure however that I used VD after editng the avi file not before. Hope someone has some good advice(like they usually do here) about this.


Have a great day!

I posted a fairly long post in the MPEG-2 manual thread yesterday on what I do.
From what I've learned through extensive trial and error is there is no magic bullet. No one solution will fix everything. Each situtation depends greatly on the source file quality, ultimate playback vehicle and bitrate you render at. Each can have profound effects on you final success or failure in successfully removing or greatly reducing/fixing problem areas.

For example don't expect playback of DV grade material played back on a PC to come anywhere near the quality of viewing the same file rendered to a DVD disc and played back through a set top DVD player on your television. It ain't going to happen.

Another comment frequently seen in the forum is someone saying that their video, lets say a video rendered to VCD format at 352x240 looks "good" when played back on their PC while the same file looks like crap when doubled in size or worse blown up to full screen size. Well duh... of course it does! Its the same thing that happens if you start with a small jpeg and blow it up two, three or four times normal size. You end up with pixel soup obvious stair stepping rough edges. Keep in mind the typical screen resolution for your PC monitor is between 92-104 DPI. When you render to a VCD or DVD disc for playback on your TV the built-in decoder does a much better job of expanding the image to fill the TV screen without totally messing up the quality. Because the bitrate is so much higher for DVD, the difference between VCD, SVCD, XVCD and DVD is striking assuming you start off with good high quality source material.

BillyBoy.

I guess I should be more specific. I know there are to many filters and variables but I'm looking for some basic success stories of what you used for the Topic covered here "Low Light Video noise in a DV file" What filters at what setting and what was the outcome based on your usage. For example and this is only my situation but if others have had the same problem, how did they solve it.

I have a dv video captured from my camera where certain portions of it were shot under low light and have noise in it from such. The video was inside of a big outdoor tent and the worst parts are as the sun starts to go down. Once the sun goes completely down the noise actually gets a little better I guess because the white balance adjust to the darker room.

If anyone has had a similar situation, how did they preprocess the video in VirtualDub? Like the answer that liguid324 gave.


Have a good day.