Best filters for noisy source?

[BluDChyLD]

Hey People,
I was wondering what filters you recommend for cleaning up very grainy footage? I'm thinking of using c3d "movielq" with a sharpening filter. Any suggestions?
Cheers

[BluDChyLD]

I've hunted around the forum and ran a few tests, and c3d doesn't seem to shift the noise very well... I'm not sure how to tamper with the settings, but the movielq and vhsbq settings still leave quite a lot of grain. Although i'm using a dvd source the noise is pretty bad!

I've decided to try out FluxSmooth(10,15), it seems to yield a slightly cleaner picture and more compressibility. Before I commence, are there any other filter you recommend I try?
Thanks

[DDogg]

These are two really great threads on the topic. One is a sticky, and the other should be. Have you seen them?

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51181

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=62332&perpage=30&highlight=wilbert&pagenumber=1

Although many consider it too heavy. Deen() can be helpful. It is sort of industrial strength.

[sh0dan]

The best grain remover is IMO VagueDenoiser. Slow but very good.

[BluDChyLD]

Thanks for the help. I'm trying to get the grain out of the spanish boxset of Twin Peaks... It's the only way to get series 2 on DVD, but they look like TV captures! The colours are a washed out, and there's a lot of noise. Right now Im trying out the flux smooth settings to see how they are, I'll take a look at vaguedenoiser too.

While I'm here, is there anyway I can improve the washed out colours? For example, on the remastered season 1 set the title credits are bright orange but on here they're a kind of dull brown/red.
Thanks

[vigi_lante]

@sh0dan

Which settings for VagueDenoiser do you recommend to deal with a very noise source (TV cap)... ?

[sh0dan]

Just start with the recommended:

VagueDenoiser(threshold=0.8,method=1,nsteps=6,chroma= true)

... and increase threshold by 1 until you get the amount of grain removed you'd like.

[Mug Funky]

mipsmooth can give similar results to vaguedenoiser, and is a fair bit faster. also it's temporal as well as spatial which will stabilise the picture significantly.

that aside, vaguedenoise rocks the haus. i even use it together with imagereader to de-noise pictures for photoshop (of course, there's the problem of mod2 sizes and whatnot).

[Angelus]

I personally use Convolution3D for my noisy tv captures. I've tried virtually every spatial-temporal smoother out there and speedwise and quality wise it has given me the best results. If you want to, try the following settings for Con3D that I use:

Convolution3D (1, 25, 60, 16, 30, 5, 0)

It takes away a lot of noise but the best thing to do is to play with the numbers yourself, and the documentation for the filter provides some good starting points.

[BluDChyLD]

The first encode is complete, FluxSmooth(10,15) did a good job IMO - no noise left whatsoever (and it was very grainy footage!). There was a little detail loss, but this was expected anyway as I resized to 512x384. Thanks for the help, I'll keep it in mind :)

[vigi_lante]

Well, I don't know if this is the best way to compare different filters, but I compared Convolution3D, VagueDenoiser, Mipsmooth and Deen with static pictures.

The best noise remover, imo, is: Deen("a3d",4,9,1,9). With high settings for Convolution3D, I can get even similar results, but it causes some ghosting and blurry in the picture.

CNR2 can fit very well with all those filters too.

[mikeson]

I was astoined when I first used Dust. FaeryDust for almost clean DVDs and PixieDust for grainy/noisy ones. It's a pitty Dust isn't developed anymore... :(

[vigi_lante]

I got pretty good results with cartoons using high settings for Deen, like("a3d",4,9,1,9) three times...

Deen("a3d",4,9,1,9)
Deen("a3d",4,9,1,9)
Deen("a3d",4,9,1,9)

Removes all the noise. I still need to test with live action stuff...

[midelic]

My opinion the best filters(very fast too) for noisy and very noisy sources(analogue TV caps) are(especially for YV12 source), edeen in combination whith peachsmoother for example:

Avisource(your film.avi) #yv12 source
Cnr2()
eDeen(5,6,18,1,3,false)#noisy sources
converttoyuy2()
PeachSmoother(NoiseReduction=50,Stability=0,DoSpatial=false)
Converttoyv12()

Cnr2()
edeen(7,14,21,2,3,false)#very noisy sources
converttoyuy2()
PeachSmoother(NoiseReduction=50,Stability=0,DoSpatial=false)
Converttoyv12()

Try it!

[vigi_lante]

Thanks midelic...it's a real nice combination. Better results and much more fast.

I just think that there is too much colour conversion, I guess that would be better to set edeen as the first filter, but if I do that, it gives me a error message. What about increase Peach Stability option ?

[Boulder]

I've used variations of this kind of processing with analog sources (original clip 704x576) :


AVISource()
UnDot()
BicubicResize(480,576)
Deen("a3d",1,10,14,6)
UnFilter(60,0)
BicubicResize(704,576)


The results are surprisingly good when watched on TV, the analog noise is removed almost completely:)

You may also wish to add Blockbuster or AddGrain after the final resize (I use the former).

[midelic]

@vigi_lante
If you have problems you can remove cnr2 ,anyway it has no big impact on noisy sources(I use it to remove small rainbows).
The color conversion is for peachsmoother(it's not working in yv12 space),my source is yv12.
Of course you can use other temporal filter instead of peachsmoother for example temporalsoften or temporalcleaner (good, working in yv12),but in my opinion peachsmoother gave me better results for tv caps.
No need to increase stability to peachsmoother (oversmoothing)- it's a temporal filter(in this case ,spatial filtering is turned off),better have "soft" settings.

[vigi_lante]

@Boulder

Which settings of the Blockbuster you are using ? If I just use "Blockbuster()", it gives me a error message.

[Boulder]

Depends a bit on the resolution.

with 704x576 : Blockbuster(method="noise",variance=0.3,seed=1)
with 480x576 : Blockbuster(method="noise",variance=0.5,seed=1)
with 352x576 and lower : Blockbuster(method="noise",variance=0.7,seed=1)

It also depends how smooth the treated clip is. Is there's some grain on already, variance can be lowered by 0.1 or 0.2 in each case.

[kempfand]

@Boulder: In line with the downsize-upsize routine you describe above, I'd just like to add that I've found this to produce quite workable results for DV-AVI.

I've used a smaller resize-range though, and Bilinear (which smoothes a bit more), i.e. sth likeBilinearResize(688,544)
# Filters such as MipSmooth for DV
BilinearResize(720,576)
Andreas

[vigi_lante]

@midelic

I did some encodes with edeen + peach, but I notice somekind of trembling/shimmering around the edges. Do you have this problem too ? Do you know how to fix it ?

Thanks.

[midelic]

Yes, I think I may help you. I had also shimmering around the edges.It was caused( in my case)by the deinterlacer decomb(interpolation use),for example this line :
---------------------------------------------
Fieldddeinterlace(blend =false)#interpolation
---------------------------------------------
I like decomb; fielddeinterlace(full=false,blend =false),because it keeps a lot of details of the picture, not blurring.I didn't want to change it.So I use this filter which reduce the shimmering significantly.
----------------------------------------------
Dup(threshold=3,blend=true)# use it as the last line of the avs file.
----------------------------------------------
You can adjust the threshold ,starting whith threshold=1,and increase it and see the results on the movie.It depends on movie noise(See the manual).
Other solution is to change decomb whith this one, for example :
-----------------------------------------------
Tomsmocomp(1,5,0)# it blurs , but anyway you have a noisy source,so you can try it.
-----------------------------------------------

Regards.

[vigi_lante]

Well, thanks, I tried this and a lot of other filters, but the only thing that works is remove Peach. So, I guess that I will hang with one of those temporal only filters, like TemporalCleaner. But I have a question, since edeen is already giving a heavy filtering, I don't know if I have to use, with the temporal filter, strong, medium or light settings.

[bond]

i have got nice results with temporalcleaner (and its fast too)

[midelic]

@vigi_lante
Yes temporalcleaner is very good.
I use sometimes this line.
--------------------------------------------
TemporalCleaner (ythresh=7, cthresh=15)#medium noise
----------------------------------------------------

[digitize]

Personally I like using VagueDenoiser then lightly using a 3d cleaner like deen's a3d. You can use a setting like sh0dan gave for vaguedenoiser, then for deen use a low spatial radius and a higher temporal influence. You'll probably have to compare the source with the filter a couple of times (to check for detail loss and make sure it's not really existent) but quality wise I believe it's a good combo.

[FredThompson]

Originally posted by BluDChyLD
I'm trying to get the grain out of the spanish boxset of Twin Peaks... It's the only way to get series 2 on DVD, but they look like TV captures!

A quick search showed an announcement here: http://www.dugpa.com that Paramount is releasing season 2 in September 2004.

From your description, what you've got is probably an unauthorized TV capture and a crappy one at that.

Spain has a very...uh...interesting take on IP. As I understand it, patents, etc. of non-Spanish entities aren't enforced inside Spain. One of the companies I represent has worldwide patents on a number of machines but Spanish companies make unauthorized copies and sell them inside Spain openly and without any legal issues.