Guest post by Brady Betzel
a talented online editor

As a professional Online Editor, also known as a Finishing or Conform Editor, I'm constantly looking for the most resource-efficient, cost-effective, and high-performance workflows. Editors like me often work with demanding video formats such as RED, ARRI, and LongGOP-based media, which can bog down render speeds and put a heavy strain on both GPUs and CPUs. The difference between a professional editor and an amateur isn't always that huge—amateur editors often have fewer limitations and can create visually stunning content. However, it’s usually at the cost of time: neglecting factors like conform times and render speeds.

What sets a professional apart is the ability to identify small workflow inefficiencies that save time (and money), knowing when to move on, and always delivering the highest quality possible.

There are many talented Directors of Photography (DPs), Directors, and Cinematographers out there, but even the best can’t entirely eliminate video noise from their footage. Low-light conditions and poor-quality camera sensors are some of the main culprits. When you’re watching videos on Instagram, the footage may look great—thanks to the small screen. But take that same content and view it on a larger, high-resolution, color-accurate monitor, and you’ll notice things like video noise, gamma flickering, or luminance flickering. Many times, we overlook these flaws, especially if the story is compelling. But these imperfections can still detract from the viewing experience, especially when you're working with professional-grade content.

Scopes. Before Neat Video 6

This is where Neat Video’s noise reduction plugin comes in. It’s one of my go-to tools for cleaning up footage—whether it’s a school project filmed at dusk with my son’s iPhone (vertically, of course…ugh!) or a freelance project where the producer isn’t sure what’s wrong with the footage. Neat Video is my secret weapon for giving footage a polished, clean look, which is essential for building a strong foundation in post-production.

Scopes. After Neat Video 6

Neat Video 6 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

Neat Video 6 is a major leap forward in terms of performance. It’s optimized to take full advantage of your new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, offering faster denoising and flicker reduction, even on less powerful systems. By better balancing CPU and GPU usage, Neat Video 6 increases efficiency and improves render speeds. This is a significant upgrade over Neat Video 5, particularly in multi-device configurations.

In addition to hardware optimizations, Neat Video 6 also delivers smoother interaction with popular video editing software like DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro, which helps increase playback and render speeds.

I know this may sound a bit like a sales pitch, but honestly, Neat Video is a tool I love to use. The improvements in Neat Video 6 save valuable time -- time that can be spent either with family or working on additional projects.

Testing Neat Video 6 with the RTX 5090, 4090, and AMD Radeon Pro W7900

To really test Neat Video 6’s improvements, I conducted some practical tests using Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve 19. The goal was to see if Neat Video 6 would outperform Neat Video 5, especially when paired with the latest GPUs: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090, 4090, and AMD Radeon Pro W7900.

While the RTX 5090 isn’t compatible with Neat Video 5, I was able to compare Neat Video 6 on the RTX 5090 with Neat Video 5 on the RTX 4090 and the Radeon Pro W7900. I used two versions of DaVinci Resolve: the beta version (19.1.1) that supports the RTX 5090 and the latest public version at the time of testing (19.1.3).

For consistency, I tested several video clips from professional cameras and performed basic color corrections in a 3840x2160 timeline. The clips included:

• ARRI RAW: 3840×2160 24fps – 7 seconds, 12 frames 
• ARRI RAW: 4448×1856 24fps – 7 seconds, 12 frames 
• BMD RAW: 6144×3456 24fps – 15 seconds 
• Red RAW: 6144×3072 23.976fps – 7 seconds, 12 frames 
• Red RAW: 6144×3160 23.976fps – 7 seconds, 12 frames 
• Sony a7siii: 3840×2160 23.976fps – 15 seconds

I ran six export tests for each of the three sequences and three GPUs:
DNxHR 444 10-bit OP1a .MXF file, DNxHR 444 10-bit .mov, H.264 .mp4, H.265 .mp4, AV1 .mp4, and an IMF package using default settings.

In my work, deliverables often include DNxHR, ProRes, or IMF files, while screener and social media versions are sometimes exported in H.264. For each test, I used the same clips with different noise-reduction setups: Neat Video 5, Neat Video 6, and DaVinci Resolve's Ultra Noise Reduction.

Render Time Results

Here’s a breakdown of the results for the three GPUs tested. The numbers reflect the time it took to render and export the clips.

The data shows a significant improvement with Neat Video 6 over Neat Video 5, particularly in terms of render time. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, for example, showed a reduction of about 35% to 40% in render times. For a one-hour-and-30-minute project, that could mean saving up to 91.5 minutes of render time! That's a huge time saver and could easily cover the cost of Neat Video 6, priced at $149.90 for the professional version. Keep in mind you will want to have a DaVinci Resolve Studio license, which has a one-time cost of $295. You can find out the differences between the free Resolve and Resolve Studio on the Blackmagic website. If you're an AMD user, the render time savings with Neat Video 6 are between 20% and 46%—impressive in its own right.

Improved Playback Speed

In addition to faster render times, Neat Video 6 also offers better playback performance. With the CPU and GPU loads being more balanced, I was noticing a smoother playback experience and GUI responsiveness. I made sure to turn off proxy media or cached media during testing to get the most accurate results. In previous versions, real-time playback was often challenging to achieve. But with Neat Video 6, I was able to lock in real-time playback without issues on my setup:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16-Core Processor 
• RAM: 64GB 
• Storage: 1 NVMe SSD, 2 SSDs

Conclusion: Upgrade or Try Neat Video

If you're still on the fence about upgrading from Neat Video 5 to 6, it’s a no-brainer. The improvements in performance, faster denoising, and better integration with editing software make the upgrade well worth it. Plus, with automatic optimizations, you don’t need to manually tweak your settings every time you change frame sizes or projects.

For those new to Neat Video, I can confidently say it’s one of the best third-party noise reduction plugins out there. It intelligently distinguishes between video noise and physical scene elements, and offers advanced features like HDR color space adjustments, flicker reduction, and artifact removal—all while being easy to use.

In my personal experience, Neat Video 6 outperforms built-in noise reduction tools like Resolve’s Ultra Noise Reduction, especially when it comes to removing noise without introducing artifacts like flicker. The Neat Video 6 Pro edition for Resolve one-time purchase price of $179.90 gives you lifetime access to the same version of Neat Video including incremental updates (you can also get Home edition only for $99.99). Keep in mind that when Neat Video releases a new major version (like changing from v5 to v6 for instance), you can upgrade to it for about half the price.