Neat Video Vegas - stutter

questions about practical use of Neat Video, examples of use
Joran
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Post by Joran »

So, how can you implement (or how have you implemented) temporal filtration in NeatVideo for Vegas as long as "Vegas is not able to serve any frame besides the current one"?

Jøran Toresen
NVTeam
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Post by NVTeam »

By keeping in memory previous frames.

Vlad
Joran
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Location: Oslo, Norway

Post by Joran »

Vlad: " By keeping in memory previous frames."

Is this the reason for the reported problem with audio out of sync?

Jøran Toresen
NVTeam
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Post by NVTeam »

Yes, the lag is an inevitable consequence.

Vlad
Joran
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Location: Oslo, Norway

Post by Joran »

Thank you so much. I am impressed. Your help and involvement is excellent!

Jøran Toresen
Swanny
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Post by Swanny »

I would also like to know a contact at Sony to remind them that this is a real issue for us. Thanks
MoldCAD
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Joined: Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:39 pm

Post by MoldCAD »

Any new development on the Vegas issues?

I'm a new NV user, and I must say this forum thread made me worried. It seems that for years, the NV plug-in for Vegas Pro has not been a fully functional product (not being able to properly do temporal adjustment - no matter whose fault this is), and yet it's sold for the same price as the other fully functional versions !!!

With all due respect, I believe but this kind of limitation should be stated explicitly with the Vegas plug-in version, in Neat Video on-line shop web page... And the price should be lower accordingly.

From what you quoted, SCS is offering new possibilities to 3rd parties through the File I/O SDK. Why aren't Neat Video using it? Any chance this will change in the near future, and we Vegas users will be offered a free upgrade?

Sorry for ranting, but I'm a bit disappointed. And yes, I'm well aware SCS support is very difficult to work with...

Piotr
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Post by NVTeam »

1. The problem is in Vegas itself. This is confirmed by Vegas developers.

2. There are some hopes recently that Vegas itself will be fixed.

3. Once it is fixed, we will make sure Neat Video fully utilizes the Vegas capability that is yet to be added.

4. We do not plan to charge for such an update per se.

5. The problem itself is already described in the Neat Video webpage and in this forum.

6. We always try to help our users by informing them, explaining the technical issues and offering workarounds where we cannot ourselves fix the problem of the host application. If you are looking for a workaround, please contact support [at] neatvideo.com, we will offer an instruction that can help.

Vlad
MoldCAD
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Post by MoldCAD »

Dear Vlad,

As I said, I didn't want to sound harsh. It's just that I'm having lots of problems in how Vegas is handling my nanoFlash files (augmented noise), and MXF format in general (crashes due to memory hog at playback/smart render).

I have spent several weeks to conclude that the high bitrate nanoFlash files - while obviously giving less compressions artifacts, like mosquito noise and macro-blocking - inevitably augment the noise so that a good NR post is essential (never thought of it before, as the 35 Mbps XDCAM EX encoder smooths the node along with fine detail).

So, I tried the (FREE) DNR from Mike Crash. Well - it's free, but doesn't work in 64bit, nor does it offer so man great features that Neat video does. I was particularly thrilled when I read about the built-in sharpening capabilities, and all those tweaks available in the Advanced Mode...

So, I bit the bullet and purchased the licence - I must say I'm absolutely impressed by the capabilities of the Neat Video plug-in!

However, after having read this thread and performing lots of tests, I am sorry to report that:

- With temporal filter on, there is considerable shift of the video output. Since the audio is not shifted, this leads to A/V sync problems

- Turning temporal filter OFF gets rid of the shift/sync problem, but de-noising results are much, much inferior than those with temporal filter on, and the radius of some 3 frames or so.

Well, I hope you're not mad at me. Please understand m frustration when NV added to the complexity of my Vegas problems, and keep me informed on how things are developing;

yours,

Piotr
NVTeam
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Post by NVTeam »

I fully understand your situation and extra complexity caused by these shorcomings of the software tools. Unfortunately many tools are not perfect and often we just have to deal with that. We - I mean both you as user of such tools and us as developers of some of them that have to work with other tools developed by someone else.

The effects that you have described were discovered and discussed some time ago in this forum by other Vegas users, by us, and we also managed to get some information from Vegas developers. I tried to keep the forum members informed about that communication with Vegas developers and to show how difficult it was to get any useful information from them. On the bright side, there are some signs that our mutual effors in this thread may bring some fruits in the foreseable future and Vegas will be improved to address the limitations of its plug-in API. Once that is done, it will become possible to resolve the audio sync issue and the video stutter issue AND use the temporal filtration at the same time, without limitations and workarounds. I hope that will happen soon, Vegas will be improved and then we, developers of Neat Video, will try to incorporate those improvements into the plug-in as soon as we can.

Kind regards,
Vlad
MoldCAD
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Post by MoldCAD »

Thanks a lot, Vlad.

Your software is just brilliant, so I hope SCS will just catch up soon...

Thanks, and Best Regards

Piotr

PS. Please keep me informed. I'm a nanoFlash user, so I deal with very high bitrate, high quality video whose only shortcoming is the excessive noise. The lack of compression artifacts (as compared to regular HDV, or even XDCAM HD) makes Neat Video even more efficient, therefore I'd love to use its all advantages - including temporal filtration capabilities...
MoldCAD
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Joined: Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:39 pm

Post by MoldCAD »

Another, related question:

There is a consensus here that due to Vegas frame serving limitation, the video gets shifted in relation to the audio, but one thing I'm not sure about:

- is it always a 1-frame shift, no matter what my Temporal Filter settings are?
NVTeam
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Post by NVTeam »

It is of course shifted for N frames where N is equal to the Temporal filter radius. I think this was mentioned earlier in the forum.

Vlad
MoldCAD
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Post by MoldCAD »

I'd think so Vlad - just wanted to make sure.

Thanks

Piotr
NVTeam
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Post by NVTeam »

Good news.

We have been able to find a way to modify our algorithms to (optionally) use only those frames that are provided by Vegas and not wait (which produces a delay/lag/stutter in the start of the clip) for frames that Vegas cannot provide immediately (and provides only later thus causing a delay/lag/stutter). Please note that this is a functional limitation of Vegas itself, in its version 9 and earlier.

Anyway, we have added this new modified algorithm to Neat Video plug-in for Vegas (version 2.6) and it is now available as the "No Lag Mode" option in temporal filter settings. When enabled, this option allows to use temporal noise reduction yet avoid those issues (delay/lag/stutter). The downside is that this lag-free mode comes in exchange for slightly less noise reduction because less frames are used for temporal processing. So, this is a workaround, not 100% perfect solution. But at least you now have a choice.

A 100% perfect solution would be based on improved host functionality. We hope that the next major version of Vegas (version 10 announced recently) will finally add the necessary functionality to Vegas itself and thus offer a way to resolve the issue entirely. We are looking forward to test the new Vegas 10 and hopefully find the necessary functionality added to Vegas by its developers.

Until then and also for all older versions of Vegas please try to use the new "No Lag Mode" workaround that we have implemented in version 2.6. Hope it will be useful.

Kind regards,
Vlad
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