Correction for fluorescent light 'green haze' effect ?

[WorBry]

I'm in the process of trying to clean up some archived Mini-DV footage that was shot (Sony PAL DCR-PC115E, 1.33MP, single HAD CCD) indoors under strong fluorescent lighting and which exhibits the classic 'green haze' effect.

Web searches for a remedy turn up a variety of professional/third party 'color temperature' correction plug-ins for After Effects, and the like, that can do the job (and more), but these software are way beyond my budget. I have a notion that correction (like many color transformations) could be done with existing AVISynth tools but can find nothing on this subject in the forums. I'm wondering if anyone out there has a method or can advise which tools I might try.

More recently, I've been using a video light (Jessops VL35; 35 Watt) under such conditions which helps to reduce the effect, paricularly in combination with a UV lens filter that I normally use outdoors in bright light. However, this still leaves some green haze around the diffuse edge of the video light beam and to avoid this means near blinding the subject matter. I am aware that there are 37mm FL lens filters available and, given that my new apartment is lit entirely with fluorescent spot lights, I am inclined to buy one. There again, I'd be grateful if someone who has used such filters could advise how effective they are. For example, how do such filters perform in combination with a video light - am I likely to get over-saturation of colors etc.

Thanks.

[FredThompson]

Try a white balance adjustment such as http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96169

I've had all kinds of problems with industrial lighting, be it flourescent to argon vapor to whatever. Sometimes the problem is pulsing, sometimes it a very incomplete light spectrum from the lights. We're currently testing some of the large LED flashlights for use as spots.

[WorBry]

Thanks Fred. I had a feeling that it had something to do with White Balance.

Unfortunately, my camcorder doesnt allow true manual setting of white balance.There are only 'Indoor' and 'Outdoor' presets, which if anything make matters worse.

I've achieved some success with the white balance function you referred to. If possible I'd like to avoid having to convert from YUV to RGB and back. I see there is another filter than can work with YUY2 but I am struggling to get a satisfactory result (even in RGB)

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=106196&highlight=white+balance

I've also come across a neat little tool that gives you the RGB pixel value of any cursor sampled screen image. I know this can be done with vectorscopes and the like, but the utility is quite handy for quickly sampling high and low points in a frame.

http://www.netreach.net/~gavin/gavsfreeware/csamp.htm

[Video Dude]

You can try HDR AGC.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=93571

[WorBry]

I've found HDRAGC very effective for brightening up 'low-lit' DV footage, but I dont understand how it can be used for correcting white balance aberrations in the chroma channels? If it can, I would be grateful if you could elaborate. Thanks.

Edit: OK, I've got it now - by using the shift_u and shift_v parameters. Works quite nicely. What a very useful filter this is.