PC Workflow For Clean, Sharp Video?

B

Blue Bomber

Well-known member
Been messing with a lot of test shots I've taken with my D90, and I just can't get the video to be as clean and sharp as many D90 videos I've seen. I've done the manual lens trick to keep the noise away, have processed video in VirtualDub (only for destep, deshake, and sometimes 60fps conversion, exporting to huffyuv lossless), Vegas, and After Effects. I've even done frame by frame in Adobe Camera Raw, which is much easier than it sounds (export and recombine in VirtualDub, edit 1 frame and Synchronize takes care of the rest), though rendering is a bit slow. I can't seem to strike a good balance between smooth and detailed. It's either too smooth, losing definition and looking blurry, or too sharp, bringing blocky compression artifacts back up along with the details.

I'm shooting with a modified Neutral profile (contrast and sharpness 0, brightness on +, saturation -1). The resultant curve keeps the most information in highlights and shadows, and seems to be the easiest for me to bring back to normal looking of most I've tried. I mainly use Nikon 50mm F/1.8 and 28mm F/2.8 E series lenses, which are manual, though I'll toss on the 18-105mm VR kit lens if I need extra reach. I try to keep the aperture around 5.6-8 to keep them as sharp as possible if lighting permits.

In the end, I'm just wondering what you guys are using to get presentable results. Like what programs, plugins, in-camera curves, etc. I've seen some incredibly professional videos from the D90, broadcast quality, and I'm just looking for tips on how to get somewhere near there.

Thanks!
 
Blue Bomber said:
Been messing with a lot of test shots I've taken with my D90, and I just can't get the video to be as clean and sharp as many D90 videos I've seen. I've done the manual lens trick to keep the noise away, have processed video in VirtualDub (only for destep, deshake, and sometimes 60fps conversion, exporting to huffyuv lossless), Vegas, and After Effects. I've even done frame by frame in Adobe Camera Raw, which is much easier than it sounds (export and recombine in VirtualDub, edit 1 frame and Synchronize takes care of the rest), though rendering is a bit slow. I can't seem to strike a good balance between smooth and detailed. It's either too smooth, losing definition and looking blurry, or too sharp, bringing blocky compression artifacts back up along with the details.

I'm shooting with a modified Neutral profile (contrast and sharpness 0, brightness on +, saturation -1). The resultant curve keeps the most information in highlights and shadows, and seems to be the easiest for me to bring back to normal looking of most I've tried. I mainly use Nikon 50mm F/1.8 and 28mm F/2.8 E series lenses, which are manual, though I'll toss on the 18-105mm VR kit lens if I need extra reach. I try to keep the aperture around 5.6-8 to keep them as sharp as possible if lighting permits.

In the end, I'm just wondering what you guys are using to get presentable results. Like what programs, plugins, in-camera curves, etc. I've seen some incredibly professional videos from the D90, broadcast quality, and I'm just looking for tips on how to get somewhere near there.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hello, I see fro your workflow that you haven't included the step of transcoding your footage to picvideo codec. This will help to reduce blocky compression artifacts. It will also be useful for editing. The codec is virtually lossless. When you use the destepper script and ouput to avi select picvideo codec as your output. Search this forum for picvideo codec. I hope this helps. (I'll try to rememeber picvideo settings, gimme a sec)
 
picvideo actually removes the blockiness when it reads the file, so no reason to transcode. just install picvideo mjpeg, set the advanced deblocking option, do you stuff in virtualdub (deshaker with rolling shutter removal is awesome), and export as huffyuv (or max bitrate mjpeg for better quicktime compatibility if you like macs like me).
 
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