What is the "best" denoiser?

[Katie Boundary]

Assume the following:

- the noise to be removed isn't caused by anything specific; it's not rainbowing, macroblocking, halation, ghosting, capture static, or anything else with a specific name. It's basically indistinguishable from film grain or dithering.

- it's SEVERE, so it requires the most powerful denoising available that won't result in ghosting or make the image look like it's been reduced to 16-bit color.

- unlimited CPU cycles can be thrown at the problem

- unlimited time CANNOT be spent on tweaking 50 different settings and seeing what works and what doesn't.

What is the best denoiser under these conditions?

[ChaosKing]

This one comes close https://github.com/HomeOfVapourSynthEvolution/VapourSynth-BM3D in combination with the wrapper function in mvsfunc

[videoh]

Hard to talk about "best", but DGDenoise is a very fast NLM-type denoiser. It is included in DGDecNV. It requires an nVidia GPU.

[LemMotlow]

Why does it require an Nvidia GPU?

[videoh]

It uses CUDA cores to get massive parallel processing.

[LemMotlow]

That lets me out. And many many many others who wouldn't inflict NVidia cards on their system.
But that is a reason for what's supposed to be a miracle filter meant for all except a few tightass geeks.
In other words, for most of us = useless.
It's a good thing Daguerre, Edison, and Charles Babbage were interested in a wider audience.

[videoh]

Too bad, so sad.

My RTX 2080 Ti has 4352 CUDA cores. Eats large frames for lunch. Yummy!

Nobody uses nVidia? Ridiculous:

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-amd-discrete-gpu-market-share-q2-2018/

[jpsdr]

I personnaly use NeatVideo, which provides, from my point of view, excellent results. The critical step in using it it's building an accurate noise profile, but it's what allow it the excellent results it produces.

[ChaosKing]

@LemMotlow There's KNLMeansCL https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=171379 which also works on amd cpus. Or use tnlmeans (cpu only)

There are also some mentions of potentially better algorithms than bm3d here: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_the_block-matching_and_3-D_filtering_BM3D_algorithm_the_most_powerful_and_effective_image_denoising_procedure_nowadays

[hydra3333]

Nobody uses nVidia? Ridiculous:

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-amd-discrete-gpu-market-share-q2-2018/

Did I read that right ? Did it say 2 to 1 market share ?

I only use nvidia because I accidentally fell into an nvidia card years ago and then stayed with it because I then used DG software in my workflows and couldn't forego the very significant avisynth/vapoursynth speeds and reliability delivered vs everything else.

[wonkey_monkey]

I mean come on, it's right there in the rules:

12) How NOT to post on this forum:

Do not ask "what's best" because this question cannot be answered objectively. Each and everyone has their own view about what's best in a certain area. The best is what works best for you!

[Groucho2004]

One could argue that the question is not absolute but conditional.