Neat Video, Sony Vegas Pro 10 and Vasst Ultimate S Pro 4.1

general questions about Neat Video
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Nigel
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2010 2:40 am

Neat Video, Sony Vegas Pro 10 and Vasst Ultimate S Pro 4.1

Post by Nigel »

I am editing an outdoor dockside wedding reception in HDV 1080/50i with some low light situations and a fair bit on panning in and out of good and bad light. I did have an on-camera light, but I could only bounce it off the ceiling (at request of the client). The ceiling height varied and so did the background as the subjects moved around, causing them to be in and out of the light. I don't generally have a portion of the frame that is empty for the intra-frame analysis.

This is a multi-cam edit that I am using the Ultimate S Pro 4.1 plugin to manage switching of takes. The edit is 99% complete and I was about to finalise it (low light noise and all) when I came across a tutorial post in the Creative Cow forum. The footage looks mostly OK when rendered and viewed on a 46" hi-def LCD TV, but there are times when softness is evident, especially in candle-lit scenes. The crunching down from HDV to DV seems to have eliminated much of the 'snow' effect but not the softness. I presume Neat Video can 'crisp' that up.

1) Are you aware if Neat Video Pro will work with the Vasst plugin?
2) How does Neat Video handle the lighting change as I pan from good to bad light. Do I have to cut the clips and apply the filter to just the clips in low light?

I haven't purchased the product yet, but I am not sure that the product is capable of doing what I need, hence this post.

Thanks in advance.
NVTeam
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Re: Neat Video, Sony Vegas Pro 10 and Vasst Ultimate S Pro 4

Post by NVTeam »

Nigel wrote:I don't generally have a portion of the frame that is empty for the intra-frame analysis.
In my experience, only a few clips really don't have enough areas for analysis, while most clips can be used for profiling just fine. The area does not need to be large, an area as large as for example 40x40 will already do.
Nigel wrote:This is a multi-cam edit that I am using the Ultimate S Pro 4.1 plugin to manage switching of takes. The edit is 99% complete and I was about to finalise it (low light noise and all) when I came across a tutorial post in the Creative Cow forum. The footage looks mostly OK when rendered and viewed on a 46" hi-def LCD TV, but there are times when softness is evident, especially in candle-lit scenes. The crunching down from HDV to DV seems to have eliminated much of the 'snow' effect but not the softness. I presume Neat Video can 'crisp' that up.
It can apply sharpening too but the primary purpose of Neat Video is of course noise reduction. If the main problem in those scenes is noise then Neat Video will certainly help. For just sharpening it may be a bit of an overkill, as it is the noise reduction part that makes Neat Video spend most of processing power during rendering. In any case, it is worth trying.

Also, whenever you can, it may be easier and more efficient to just pre-process the original footage with Neat Video to eliminate noise from the start and then edit and compose the final video using cleaned versions of the clips.
Nigel wrote:1) Are you aware if Neat Video Pro will work with the Vasst plugin?
I do not know that for sure, but since we have not received any problem reports about Neat Video with Vasst plug-ins over the years, I think it will work fine.
Nigel wrote:2) How does Neat Video handle the lighting change as I pan from good to bad light. Do I have to cut the clips and apply the filter to just the clips in low light?
Cutting or logically splitting clips into scenes (that may have different noise properties) is one way of addressing the differences in noise properties along the timeline. Another way is to build one accurate noise profile and then enable Adaptive Filtration option in Neat Video's temporal settings to make it adapt that noise profile to changing noise properties as it goes through the clip. Which way works best depends on specific footage. If there are clear cuts between scenes then perhaps scene-specific filtration is better. I recommend to try processing a couple of scenes using the Demo plug-in to see how this works and what results you get.
Nigel
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2010 2:40 am

Re: Neat Video, Sony Vegas Pro 10 and Vasst Ultimate S Pro 4

Post by Nigel »

Also, whenever you can, it may be easier and more efficient to just pre-process the original footage with Neat Video to eliminate noise from the start and then edit and compose the final video using cleaned versions of the clips.

Pre-processing the footage would have been ideal, but I only came across the plug-in yesterday. Using it this late in my edit on original clip means having to reapply all the colour correction and doing a lot of re-editing. I am thinking of selectively applying it to the worst events on the time line.

Like I said, the noise is there when I am editing it and it is very evident on the preview monitor, but once I render it out from HDV and DVD, it seems to crunch down the noise pixels and improve the overall quality, save some softening and very slight ghosting on fast movements. I'll see if the client complains and then address it for this project

I am thinking of getting the plug-in anyway for some old analog mpeg1 Video 8 footage I captured but never got round to editing because of noise. Might make it watchable.

Thanks for a very speedy response. I am impressed! :D
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