Low light noise reduction plugin for Vegas
 

As any of us with the HC1 or A1 know, the Achilles heel of these cameras is the noise you get when you add gain in low light. The picture just crawls with noise. Anyway, for those using Vegas, I have found that the free Mike Crash "dynamic noise reduction" plugin performs an absolute miracle in getting rid of this noise. It's free and it's here:

http://mikecrash.wz.cz/vegas/vegas.htm

I'm a bit new to Vegas, so could you tell me how to make the plugin (and the other ones from the listed site) work in Vegas?

When you unzip the files, you get a .exe file for each plugin. Click on the .exe file and it will automatically install the plug. After that, the plugs are added to the other filters available within Vegas. These are some great plugins! The reason I posted here though instead of in the Vegas forum is because of how well the dynamic noise reduction works with the Sony CMOS cameras.

Alex,
1. Download the file on Mike's page labeled "Dynamic Noise Reduction"
2. Open that zip file
3. Highlight the file titled "vegdnr.exe" and drag it to the desktop
4. Double-click the file and select "I Agree" for the GNU license
5. Ensure Full is showing in the "Select the type of Install"
6. Ensure a check is in the box next to "Dynamic Noise Reduction filter" and select next
7. The Desination Folder should be "C:\Program Files\Sony\Filters"
8. Select Install

A. Open Vegas
B. Add media to the timeline
C. Select "Dynamic Noise Reduction" in the VideoFX tab and drag onto the video event on the timeline.
D. In the Video Event FX dialog box that pops up, adjust the "Noise Threshold" slider between 0 and 31 for the desired effect.

Note: You may not see the effect in the Preview window. Prerender a small segment to determine if this is producing the effect you desire.
i. Highlight a few seconds on the timeline.
ii. Use Shift+B to Build a Dynamic RAM Preview, or
iii. Use Ctrl+M to Render to a new Track

Thanks for posting that link. I haven't downloaded the filters yet, but I would guess those are all filters that are based on filters for VirtualDub (from the names of them). There's a few other very nice VirtualDub filters that I'd love to see ported also.

Yeah they're all VDub ports. Nice stuff regardless. In the case of noise reduction with HDV, the port is especially useful since VDub can't yet work with native m2t files (though it can work with Cineform codec avis).

That's exactly how to do it. I have 2 gig of RAM so I bump the preview memory all the way up to 1024 meg. It isn't that much time with HDV though. You can also "selectively prerender" or render to a test mpeg or Cineform AVI. Once you figure out how much NR you like, you can save it as a preset so you don't need to constantly keep doing this. With HDV from the A1/HC1, you can use higher values than you would with SD so you want to slide the fader at least 2/3rds of the way to the right. The slight hit in resolution is well worth the NR in high definition. The Mike Crash DNR plugin absolutely saves the day with low light CMOS footage IMO.

Any idea if these have been ported for Premier Pro or Pro 2.0?

Thanks, everyone. However, I'm having trouble with a few of the plug-ins (not the DNR). First, the full package with all the filters and transition offered at the site: I downloaded the zip file, but when I try to unzip/extract, it says the file is corrupted and won't let me extract anything. So I tried downloading each of the filters and transition separately, with intentions of unzipping each one individually. This worked fine for a number of them, but for others, there were still problems. The Auto Levels and Smart Deinterlacer zip files were also corrupted and could not be extracted. Furthermore, the site lists two different filters: Auto Levels and Color Correction, but the links for the two filters are identical (so not only is one of the filters not posted, but the one that is can't even be extracted properly either via individual download or through the full package zip file because of file corruption.)

Any suggestions?

I tried this and WOW it took my SD footage with grainy dark background on an interview I did and cleaned it up. But it made the face look funny so I am wondering if there is a BEST setting on the efx plugin. I used 25. The default is 10. It's hard to tell from the preview so I rendered it to mpg and then authored it to DVD and showed both clips on my 62" DLP - this of course will show all bad video.

Also, is the low light issue any better had I shot on HDV or is it about the same with HC1 Sony? Seems like it would naturally be better on HDV but am wondering what others have seen.

When you use NR on video you lose resolution. HDV has a lot of resolution though, and most of us are still downrezzing for distribution on SD DVDs so it is not a bad tradeoff. Also, the wierd crawling type of noise that the HC1 and A1 exhibit seems to be easy for the DNR plugin to recognize and eliminate.