Nothing I do fixes the noise..:-(

Matt Sconce

Matt Sconce

Veteran
I recently pumped a room with 2000 watts of light to try and eliminate noise and got noise. I filmed a super bright sunset and got a heap of noise. I read the forums and the books and watched the DVD and still have noise. I have seen some amazing Nature footage Like the wolves and Motivity's snow here in the forums and cannot get any image similar with my camera. If you have seen Stricken, you know and I am pretty good and getting clean images that pop, so I have tried everything.
I am having to resort to noise reduction in After effects 6.5 Pro or 7 Pro. It is disheartening to light like crazy and get noise!!! :( A super bright sunset had noise in the Blues of the sky at Black Press gamma, with the Iris set to about 2.8-3.0 ND filters on and Detail set to -1 and Detail Coring set to +7 with the Gain off and a Norm Matrix setting. Master Ped at -4. How are people getting this amazing Nature footage. Mine is crap. :-(

How is this stuff pulled off, when I cannot escape KILLER noise despite my lighting?
Wolves- http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=46093
Snowday - http://motivitypictures.com/hvx200/motivity_snow_day.html
And all Night Shooting in General.


With Noise reduction, I can make my footage look awesome, but I want the most noisless image possible. The footage looks like my DVX did when I clicked the gain on by accident but that is not the case here. I have checked setting internally and made sure of it.
 
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These scenes have a lot of CONTRAST, with not a lot of CHROMA. At least in my experience, when shooting with DVX/HVX, lensing a scene with high contrast (either subject contrast and/or lighting contrast), seems to really attenuate noise. BUT, when shooting any GRADIENT, (e.g., smooth washes of saturated color, like a sunset), with inherently LOW CONTRAST, and lots of COLOR information (blues or reds, especially), the noise becomes very visible, no matter what your light level or exposure is.
 
Hey there,
Well, the first question is what are you viewing the footage on? I know if I look at the native wolf footage just in QuickTime, it looks like crap. I had to send the clips to Barry to see if they were even sharp etc.

I finally went out and bought a HDTV and played the footage right out of my laptop on the HDTV and it was like a night and day difference.

I know in the wolf footage I didn't drop the master ped as low as I do now.
I think I shoot with it around -8 now.

Can you post some footage so we can see what it looks like?
 
Kevin, when you say HDTV, are you referring to an LCD, Plasma or CRT HDTV? May I ask what you are using? Thanks in advance.

I like the MP -8 range, amongst a combo of other params. :thumbsup:
 
I have a Sony Bravia that I use to just check most of my work. But every once in a while I'll take my laptop over with some hard drives to my parents house and watch the footage on their big Panasonic plasma HDTV.

Yeah, -8 master ped is where I shoot most everything now.
 
Laptop LCDs are usually hideous for viewing footage. They often employ some manner of "trubrite" technology or something which really, really, really accentuates the noise in the shadow areas. Look at your footage on a proper HDTV and you should be much more satisfied.
 
Same thing happened to me. As soon as I got my cam out of the box, I set off to shoot some footage. Screened it in FCP and QuickTime and looked like crap...I was really disappointed in my investement, then I hooked the camera's component output to my HDTV and WHOA! Impressive video quality. Anyone know the reason behind this?
I mostly shoot corporate stuff, my clients will most probably play video back on their laptops... so I'm really worried...
 
also, I've heard of people having excessive noise problems with their HVX. You should get another cam and compare to see whether the problem lies in the camera.

Good luck!
 
Barry_Green said:
Laptop LCDs are usually hideous for viewing footage. They often employ some manner of "trubrite" technology or something which really, really, really accentuates the noise in the shadow areas. Look at your footage on a proper HDTV and you should be much more satisfied.
Click to expand...
Barry, I understand you have/use an LH-1700. Recommend it or another in the price range? Thanks in advance.

EDIT: scratch that, I found some threads in a refined search. thanks.
 
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I am going to try and look at the footage on my HDTV. I have been looking at it in my laptop LCD and in my 19 inch comp monitor. I will try to post footage as well soon.
 
hmmm...I just tried shooting with the detail level at +3 and the detail coring at 0 but changed to 1080i 24p istead of 720pn. The noise bits are now much smaller and look more like film grain. Just like some of the scenes in the new James Bond Flick. Perhaps the detail coring was smoothing the small noise bits into bigger chunks? I will post some examples momentarily.
 
Here is a full rez grab except for compressing to JPEG. I used 1 1000 watt light in the room.
1163845220.jpg


Here is the same shot with Temporal filtering in After Effects:
1163845263.jpg


Now that I look at the grab, I think I like the first better. I am going to now launch into a find the noise solution quest. I will take what has been said and head for the hills....leterally. Tomorrow, I will be running a lot of tests in the mountains. I will let you know what I find out.
 
msconce, Jim Arthurs 'wipe' test, mostly related to best image for Greenscreen comparing 720p and 1080p, proved 1080p is the best you will get out of the HVX.

Barry Green's observation later in the thread also confirm why one may want to shoot 1080p over 720p.

David Newman also has some interesting observations regarding how to get the most out of the HVX, shooting 1080p, down sampling to 720p, using the CineForm DI Codec.

Of interest to me, David said: "I do recommend shooting in the HVX's 1080p mode as it does resolve a little more horizontally than then 960x720 can store. In addition the 1080p mode is significantly less compressed. DCT compression like DVCPRO-HD has trouble with excessive detail (like DV did with mosquito noise, and blocking in shadow details), so storing 1248x702 worth of detail in 1080p24's 80Mb/s is much cleaner than 720p24 40Mb/s. So shooting 1080p is a good way to reduce artifacts."

Some tests that StMad, another HVX DVXuser, has recently been doing here in Australia and we have been analysing his setups, particularly low light, have confirmed for us that 1080p has an edge, however the HVX settings are really important. Observing the footage on LCD laptops has possibly displayed every bad artifact recorded, particularly in the blacks. Setting the Master Ped to -7 through to -15 and Detail Coring to +7 has really improved these low light tests. Until we get our hands on a decent monitor, like an LH-1700, I think we are still testing a little blind for those finer tweaks. These recent threads, tests and discussions have really helped us. My concerns about the HVX and noise are now mostly abated, acknowledging it has various limitations, like other cams in it's price and range.

I hope some of the info in here assists in finding HVX happiness. :D
 
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