What would you recommend to clean up these grainy/spotty sources?

[Aquilonious]

Though I'd really like a HDTV, I still can't afford one at this time. So I'm still watching my movies on my Sony WEGA 32" NTSC TV. Since it's a rather large set for NTSC material it has a tendency to reveal any grain whatsoever in anything I watch, even some newer movies like Gladiator.

I've attached pictures from 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Close Encounters, and SuperBowl I-X, disc 1 below. It's best to display these images on a bright display at a lower res or output to a TV. The scenes I chose are purposely dark because that is where grain is most likely to appear.

DeGrainMedian worked fine for some old National Geographic tape recordings but when I tried it on 2010, it produced jagged edging. The picture from SB I-X has quite a bit of spotting and also line scratches. I was think of using Descratch and/or Deblot. For 2010 and CE, I was thinking of Pixie/Gold Dust and one of the following: LimitedSharpen, BlockBuster, or MDeblock.

What are your experiences with filtering such source material, and what would be your recommendations and with what settings?

Thanks!

p.s. I've searched the forums but there are so many filters available that I don't have time to try them all. My experience is growing, though it's still quite limited. :o

[unskinnyboy]

Except for that Superbowl one, I didn't see anything else which would require any noise-removal (or any other treatment for that matter). Maybe my eyes - I viewed it on a DELL 19'' LCD Monitor. You should also keep in mind that some noise could be intended by the director of the movie for that "gritty" or "film" look - if so, you don't want to wipe that noise clean. For the Superbowl one, try UnDot() followed by LimitedSharpen().

[Didée]

You want us to judge about noise, and provide low-contrast jpeg's compressed at Q88? Funny.

Jpeg @ Q100 would be a start. PNG would be better. Samples would be the best, though ;)

[Aquilonious]

Except for that Superbowl one, I didn't see anything else which would require any noise-removal (or any other treatment for that matter). Maybe my eyes - I viewed it on a DELL 19'' LCD Monitor. You should also keep in mind that some noise could be intended by the director of the movie for that "gritty" or "film" look - if so, you don't want to wipe that noise clean. For the Superbowl one, try UnDot() followed by LimitedSharpen().

Thanks for your input, unskinny. I've tried your combination but it didn't remove enough grain, imho. As I mentioned, grain is not apparent on a monitor at high-res and has to be viewed on a conventional NTST TV, preferably a model with at least a 27" screen or larger.

You want us to judge about noise, and provide low-contrast jpeg's compressed at Q88? Funny.

Jpeg @ Q100 would be a start. PNG would be better. Samples would be the best, though ;)
I wasn't trying to be funny. I tried uploading png samples but they were WAY too large, and I had to reduce their size to something like 300x200 which is totally useless. I had my doubts about using jpeg but the forum's limit is 200kb per file. So don't blame me for that one. Also, the jpeg images are very, very close to the corresponding png & bitmap samples as far as quality. Pick your poison--very low res png or high-res jpeg.

As far as the low contrast, If you want me to upload png samples I could but they would be absolutely useless because the png samples were even darker and of course, very small. I'm sorry, but the source material is dark. You're judging them by the way you see them on your monitor, but have you tried a conventional TV for viewing? Because that is the way I'm viewing them here.

My judgment so far has been that DeGrainMedian is quite good for really noisy sources. Though there's a moderate loss of detail, the trade-off is more than worth it. It seems to work well on analog captures.

Oh well, I'm just going to have to experiment more. :rolleyes:

[foxyshadis]

You could always use imageshack or bum temp hosting off someone.

Low contrast grain always sucks. If degrainmedian isn't enough try chaining it with fft3d, I've seen several reports that they're a very effective combination. It's so blotchy already that I don't know if much can be filtered without killing the detail though.