I guess I'm late to find out about this plugin, but I came across Neat Video and just purchased it. I tried it on a small piece this morning. I haven't really read the manual or understand how to tweak anything, but here is some HDV footage where I used Neat Video on the left side.

I shot this on my XH-A1 with the gain up pretty high (don't recall if +6 or +12), and so there is a lot of noise behind the dancers on the wall, which falls off to black.

I did a left/right comparison of the show, and have to say I am very impressed with how it eliminated so much of the noise w/out significantly degrading the image:

http://www.mostlymagic.tv/neat_filter.mov

(clip is about 72 megs in size and is quicktime HDV)

EDIT: If you can't play HDV and see it in 1080, here is a 720 version in h264:

http://www.mostlymagic.tv/neat_720.mov

Here's an even better, more dramatic example: http://www.mostlymagic.tv/neat2.mov

is so clean that you can't even see the video! I've tried on three different PC's and all I get is a box that says you need some special codec to watch it. It does play the sound though.

Well it's HDV right from my FCP timeline, so maybe it requires a codec not present on a PC? Don't know.

Here is a 720 version which is h264. Not as big/dramatic as the HDV one, and the 720 actually shows some banding on the Neat Video side that's not in the original, but I think you can still get the idea:

http://www.mostlymagic.tv/neat_720.mov

It is because he used a quicktime codec "hdv8" that is only available in FCP for mac.

EDIT: nice footage. I think it shows an effective application of NV.

Based on nearly unanimous and enthusiastic, if not wildly positive, reviews of NV, I also purchased it. I was not disappointed! A little care and attention in building a noise profile, combined even with conservative sharpening with NV that DOES NOT result in edge halos, can give a stunningly clean image.

For instance, some raw footage that I shot in a dimly lit video arcade was essentially unusable at +3dB gain, and completely unacceptable after raising gamma in post: the noise practically overwhelmed the image. I then applied NV and -- wow! -- I could "add" several stops of light in post (using MB Looks) to make the arcade look brightly lit...with no noise whatsoever. I was absolutely shocked at how well it worked.

One review that I read opined that NV is about as close to a miracle plug-in as one is going to find. I can't disagree.

$0.02,
Steve

Well, I've got the latest version of quicktime pro on all three machines so it should have the latest codecs. I think it's more a FCP mac to PC thing.

THe 720p version works but you're right, it's difficult to see the difference.

Hopefully this one is a little more evident, it's 720 h264. Look at the wall behind the dancers. On the right side, original footage, the noise is dancing as much as the dancers. On the left, the Neat Video filter, it's a lot better. And look at the stage floor, noise WAY down:

http://www.mostlymagic.tv/neat2.mov

I'm sure once I start to understand the various options, that I can make this even better. This took me like 10 seconds to put on the filter and make a crude adjustment, which I don't even know if it's the right adjustment. I can see a lot of uses for this filter in low light situations where it gets grainy.

I love how you split that, looks real nice!

Thanks, you can really see the difference in this last clip.

Yeah looks really good

I agree, and at the risk of sounding like an AD for neat, it will work with progressive as well as interlaced vision, and has a whole heap of presets, as well as user tweakable.

I use it a lot on night news shots of fires, to get rid of the noise.

Ben

I'm curious as to whether any of you use this on all of your clips, or just those shot in lowlight?

I'm curious as to whether any of you use this on all of your clips, or just those shot in lowlight?

Yes, Paul, I have begun to use NV on all of my clips: indoor, outdoor, poor and good light. Not surprisingly, the noise reduction is most dramatic for low light shots where electronic noise is the most conspicuous.

I tried NV on footage of a brightly lit (full sun) tropical island, using a featureless sky as a canvas for modeling the electronic noise. The before and after images were not too striking. Still, noise in the bright (and properly exposed) blue sky was gone and the image had an overall 'clean' look with all of the original detail. It was more of an organic impression instead of the stunning difference I've seen in poorly lit shots when NV was applied. Does that make sense?

I tend to color grade a lot with MB Looks. I find that footage, poorly lit or otherwise, cleaned up with NV responds very well to grading in post, in fact better, than the raw footage with noise.

I've also played with the sharpening features of NV. According to the manual, applying sharpening to (raw) footage with noise can wreak havoc on the image quality, such as by introducing halos around edges and making everything look "video-like." But I found NV's sharpening, and the manual states as much, that noise removal BEFORE sharpening can give very attractive, accurate, and effective sharpening, i.e., no exaggerations or visibly artificial looks.

So, I tried VERY conservative sharpening values on my shots, both poorly and well lit, and found the resulting footage to look very clean and naturally sharp. I shoot with a preset in the A1 that has sharpening reduced almost to zero (i.e., SHP = -4), and so I don't feel bad about adding some sharpening in post if I feel like it.

Steve

Thanks Steven. How does NV effect render time?

Thanks Steven. How does NV effect render time?

It DRAMATICALLY increases it (I have a pretty modern rig with a stock Q9550 CPU). Previews are ridiculously slow, too (I edit on Vegas 8.0(c) and 8.1). Any review of NV, in fact the manual itself, will tell you this because the noise reduction algorithm is very processor-intensive. So I went in with eyes open. Combined with MB Looks (also a massive render hog), NV on my clips make renders just crawl. The sterling result, however, is worth it for me. I'm just a hobbyist who makes videos no longer than about 15 minutes apiece, so the massive spike in render time is OK for my purposes.

Steve

NV works very well, I like this plugin. I don't use any of noise reduction features of A1, it's better to give a time to NeatVideo.

Yes, it is VERY slow when rendering with MB. But the results on noisy footage is totally worth it. Interesting idea to put onto footage w/out obvious noise. Going to play around with that. I can't imagine putting it on EVERY shot just because render times involved on any project of significant length. But on shorter stuff...thanks for the tips. I still have to read the manual and figure out how to get the best results. But clearly I got great results with my first few shots here, knowing very little.

Wow! I just tried NV on a clip from my HV30 that was shot mid day of someone talking to camera. But when viewed on an HD monitor, there's a touch of noise in his forehead, just a touch that I can see at times. Probably wouldn't have noticed if I weren't looking.

So I added the NV filter and played around with the forehead area. The result is a slight softening to the shot, like a nice soft filter, and the forehead looks fantastic, even took out some slight wrinkles from the 70-year-old subject! Looks perfectly natural though. I can see uses for this filter on footage that doesn't have a lot of obvious noise.

Wow! I just tried NV on a clip from my HV30 that was shot mid day of someone talking to camera. But when viewed on an HD monitor, there's a touch of noise in his forehead, just a touch that I can see at times. Probably wouldn't have noticed if I weren't looking.

So I added the NV filter and played around with the forehead area. The result is a slight softening to the shot, like a nice soft filter, and the forehead looks fantastic, even took out some slight wrinkles from the 70-year-old subject! Looks perfectly natural though. I can see uses for this filter on footage that doesn't have a lot of obvious noise.

Pretty nice, eh? You probably appreciate from the manual or even from your own trials that if (1) your noise profile is lousy and/or (2) you use too much noise removal, then subjects, especially humans, begin to look pretty plastic. Gads, that's WAY worse than having noise to begin with, IMHO.

The best I can get my noise profiles is just over 80% or so, and with these I don't really see the softening you mention, probably because the profile is accurate. In any case, I use the noise removal and sharpening, if any, pretty conservatively, even on brightly lit shots like you describe.

Steve

I'm curious as to whether any of you use this on all of your clips, or just those shot in lowlight?

NeatVideo saved me from the jaws of death on a job a few months back. The brief was, 'no internal interviews', so I didn't bring my lighting kit. Big mistake. 1st interview they wanted inside. The VT was grainy as hell.

I went researching for 'noise reduction' and found someone else in a forum somewhere bleating on about it being the best thing since sliced bread.

I don't like buying plug ins, but if I submitted the work as it was to the client it's highly likely he wouldn't have paid me.

I have used it since, as an artistic compliment. Obviously it softens the image, so it can make a subject look more pleasing to the eye. As such, it can grade an image giving it a more organic appearance.

Chris

Does NV stack well in the effects department? I use MB Looks, and I would apply that effect after the NV, if I were to buy it. Can you use your NV plugin and your MB Looks plugin on the same raw footage, or do you have to render out the NV-affected clip first and bring it back in the timeline for other effects?

Does NV stack well in the effects department? I use MB Looks, and I would apply that effect after the NV, if I were to buy it. Can you use your NV plugin and your MB Looks plugin on the same raw footage, or do you have to render out the NV-affected clip first and bring it back in the timeline for other effects?

Aaron,
I edit on Vegas 8.0(c) and I place NV in an FX chain BEFORE MB or anything else, both on the same clip of raw footage. The NV manual says generally that it won't matter when in an FX chain NV is applied, but I verified for myself that in some instances it does matter. For example, MB Looks can really bump up colors, gain, or both, and when that is performed first on noise, the results look awful, with the resulting magnified noise not being as effectively removed as when NV is applied before MB. In Vegas I checked this easily by simply swapping the order of the FX: sometimes it made a visual difference, sometimes not. I guess my conservative nature has me put NV before any other effect.

$0.02,
Steve