Effects-Order: Denoise before Deshake

This is my impression, from the expressed views of others:

  • If you have e.g. 60i or 50i then do any stabilization first, so it gets maximum temporal information, prior to any deinterlacing e.g. to corresponding 30p or 25p.  Presumably if double-deinterlacing e.g. to 60p or 50p then this is immaterial.
  • If you’re using noise reduction, always do that prior to stabilisation as it helps the algorithm to concentrate on wanted detail and not on random noise. But then if it’s Neat Video denoising then that works best with stable progressive material.

Web-Research:

  • http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/912844
    • I have found that the optimal effect chain order changes according to content. For example, sometimes stabilization has worked more effectively on a graded scene, especially if it was done to enhance contrast or correct illegal levels. However, more artistic or aggressively graded scenes sometimes confuse the algorithm and therefore it is better to stabilize beforehand. So it’s trial and error.
    • There’s one concrete rule though: if you’re using noise reduction, always do that prior to stabilisation as it helps the algorithm to concentrate on wanted detail and not on random noise.
  • http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=753781
    • {Original by Johnny Roy, annotated here by me}
    • I would perform those steps in this order:
      • 1) stabilize with Mercalli V2. {Or Gunnar Thalin’s Deshaker?}
      • 2) deinterlace to 25p with BCC7 or Yadif {Or double-deint with TDeint?}
      • 3) denoise with Neat Video (with sharpen option)
      • 4) upscale with BCC7 UpRez or VReveal superresolution to 1280×720 {Or with Video Enhancer or VirtualDub+Lanczos?}
      • 5) remap in time with OpticalFlow to 50p (twice in size with 50% velocity, then render as 50p)
      • 6) white balance correction
      • 7) colour and contrast correction (computer level)
    • Stabilization should be first because it needs the original footage to do proper motion compensation (50i has more temporal information than 25p would). Then you can deinterlace it before feeding it to Neat Video because Neat Video likes deinterlaced footage better (you don’t want to uprez noise so clean it first). Then you can uprez the clean stable footage and re-time it. Color corrections always come last.

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