Detailed footage looks great, but gradients look bad...

resolve technical issues related to use of Neat Video
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DCP
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 1:26 pm

Detailed footage looks great, but gradients look bad...

Post by DCP »

Hello,

I've recently been cleaning up some footage for my feature and I've noticed that any image with a lot of detail (less shadow gradients) look great using NV. I basically profile then use a seeing of 60%/100%/0% sharpening.

However once I try to use NV on footage with shadows or footage with color gradients I notice that the color changes are not smooth. There becomes a distinct line separating color changes in the gradients (as if the image now only has 256 colors as opposed to millions) and banding issues. It's hard to determine what becomes most important in this situation, cleaner footage or the distracting blocking shifts in the gradients.

My footage are. mfx files from the Panasonic HVX-200 filmed in 720 24pN unprocessed prior to NV.

Any suggestions would be great. So far I've decided to only use NV on the footage with high detail and hold off on processing the other footage.

Of course I have to admit it's a royal pain in the **s having to reboot into windows from Mac whevever I need to fix a clip ;)

Todd
NVTeam
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Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 4:12 pm
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Post by NVTeam »

My best guess at this poing (not seeing actual before/after footage) is that noise profiles built using those "difficult" clips are not very accurate. I recommend to enable the advanced mode in NV and then check how the profile equalizer behaves when you build profiles using different frames. The values in the equalizer should be reasonable, not hit the top or the bottom, preferably all green. If you see that the noise profile built on those "difficult" clips make equalizer look different then on regular clips, try to build profiles for the "difficult" clips using other frames, to make resulting profiles better (better equalizer values, and higher overall quality of the profile), or try to use the NI Calibration Target (shot it and then build a profile using such special frames).

Hope this helps,
Vlad
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