Chris.

With the night-vision, I have a process I use which limits but does not entirely eliminate the scintillation noise in the relayed image.

I call it layer stacking though I think frame blend in After-Effects amounts to the same thing.

Basically, scintillation noise endures for only one frame or so. If one makes multiple copies of the footage and offsets them successively by one frame on the timeline and assigns them an equal transparency which is a division by the number of tracks of 100%, then individual defects in the blended frame are less apparent. The downside is a smearing effect on movement. - However ----

To make up a valid mask relatively free of camcorder noise and compression artifacts unique to individual MiniDV frames, this method may be helpful. Movement is not an issue. The only granular "noise" of note will be the groundglass grain itself which is exactly as we want it, dead still. Let's say blend ten frames at 10% transparency then any other noise on individual frames will be effectively eliminated.

This process is also useful to reduce low-light gain noise in conventional video imaging.

There's one issue with your process which would be easily resolved with regular good housekeeping. Best practice will be to shoot a short gray-scale for every setup or less thoroughly, perhaps after each unpack, transport or dismantlement and re-assembly of the ALDU rig to the camcorder to allow for slight departure of the grain texture from the reference gray-scale between shots. If shot on each setup, that gray-scale might also be accurate for the color environment of that shot

Vegas
 

Has anyone tried, or do you think you could do a simular process using multiple video tracks in vegas? You could at least see your results without having to wait for AE to render.

I'll be trying in Vegas once I get my wax adapter done, which reminds me...*goes and sets the oven to 450*...

- jim

Furthur to above, I have been doing this "layer-stacking" in Premiere 6.

There's one small wrinkle, you have to create new tracks and use those, not Track2, 1A or 1B, otherwise the transparency thing doesn't seem to work. I am probably mismanaging the software. There is likely a keystroke method of achieving the same outcome but I have not gone searching for it yet.

It was a bit of a hit and miss guess for me as I used the "rubber bands" and on the small display, 20% transparency for five tracks is a little difficult to get exact. In practical terms, it doesn't matter a lot.

Another means of doing this for a single frame would be to export several consecutive frames and layer them in Photoshop, or Ulead, or similar.

In Ulead, I used a slightly different method to create an individual demonstration frame. I used the "Edit" "Stitch" functions on five frames, merging each new frame back onto the previously merged and saved frames at 50% transparency until I got to the last frame and set that one alone at 20%. You have to save each successive stitch as a new file and close each previous donor file before moving onto the next.

Jesus. That sounds like a real digital workout :)

Vegas allows track opacity to be set several different ways -- you can type the numbers in manually, use rubber bands, pull levels, etc.

I'm going to have to do some research to properly understand Chris's method, but Vegas should get the job done. I'll have my tutorial up sometime first week of January (given the holidays and all...)

Speaking of holidays, I hope everyone here is in good health and I wish you all the best in the coming year -- and beyond :)

- jim

I find Aftereffects most convenient for jobs like this, because you have to create a project like Bob suggested only once. With every new clip, you just replace the incoming file and you're done. Aftereffects also supports realtime preview (given your system can handle it).

The 'layer stacking' Bob describes seems to be the same as native 'echo' function in aftereffects. I've used it to clean up nighttime footage in music videos I've done.

Chris

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Rubin : I find Aftereffects most convenient for jobs like this, because you have to create a project like Bob suggested only once. With every new clip, you just replace the incoming file and you're done. Aftereffects also supports realtime preview (given your system can handle it).

The 'layer stacking' Bob describes seems to be the same as native 'echo' function in aftereffects. I've used it to clean up nighttime footage in music videos I've done.

Chris -->>>

You should be able to just replace media in Vegas, too. Ditto the realtime preview.

- jim

static adapter
 

hi everyone I sent a email to cris hurd with a photo of the static adapter .I will be linking to it soon

I've been trying to replicate Chris's results using Vegas with mixed progress.

In Vegas, I'm running the inverted grain image along a track, and parenting it to a copy of the footage I'm degraining. Then, I set the grain track to luma mask, and on the copy of the footage (the composite child), I'm adjusting luma up, to bring the darker grain of the image within the range of the brighter grain of the original footage.

All of this is placed over the original footage, left untouched.

I will say it *supresses* the grain, but does not remove it entirely -- it looks good for stills, but in motion it doesn't add up to a 100% grainless image, and in reality there's little aesthetic difference between one kind of grain and the other.

I tried the AE 6.5 demo today, just to see if AE would treat the image differently than Vegas using Chris's technique -- the results aren't as good as I got with Vegas, but I'm left with the impression that with a little tweaking, I could get them close to one another. Still, it's not a completely grainless image.

I'd like to be proven wrong -- Chris, if you've got some footage to show at full DV res, I'd be happy to host it for a bit. I'd really like to see the results in motion...

- jim

just wandering - did anyone tryed to subtract grain with "digital fusion" (probably now "maya fusion")?
some time ago i saw brilliant results with that software, but i never use it.
maybe someone has expirience with it?

filip

I'm not sure of this but you could try using After Effect's (6.5 pro) degrainer to do this task. I know you have to sample the footage first - perhaps you could use the grain image as this sample? I think AE will literally perform a subtraction (not just a manipulation of overlay settings).

grain
 

Hi everyone: If anybody has info on this one too.

http://www.retouchpro.com/reviews/grainsurgery/

Richard,

I have seen footage that was treated with Grain Surgery and the results were stunning.

On another note I was talking to a friend who is involved in sandblasting and he says he can get a finish down to 3 microns so I was wondering what would be the ideal finish for frosting glass in microns or grit rating?

I'm sorry, but grain surgery just doesn't do it. Just blurs your fine detail. If you want good results, the only decent noise reduction plug-in I'm aware of is NeatImage. But whatever you use, the video will still look 'doctored'.

Chris

Chris, I know for a fact that it does more than blur fine detail. You literally sample an area of the frame and the software attempts to intelligently remove the noise. Doesn't always work well of course but it can work amazingly well when done correctly.

Chris,

Any chance we can see some footage using your method?

I'm not getting stellar results and I'm worried it's just because I'm missing something...

- jim

I'll post my tests as soon as I get my adapter assembed again (in a few weeks probably). I designed a new adapter with threaded tubes (enables me to adjust the gg distance from both the camera lens and the 35mm lens on the fly) and I'm waiting for the parts to be finished.

static adapter
 

I have been thinking about adding this part.

http://www.thorlabs.com/ProductDetai...roduct_ID=1486

Richard, when are you going to e-mail out some information on the finished adaptor you were talking about?

35mm adapter parts list
 

hi everyone: this is a link to a new thread with complete parts list
and photo

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=37296