Review: Magic Bullet Denoiser II

当我被要求评论最新的视频插件发布时 Red Giant Software, I couldn't wait to get started. As an event videographer and documentary filmmaker, 我可以充满信心地说，红巨人已经在我们的行业中留下了自己的印记. 你很难找到一个没有使用或至少听说过他们的Magic Bullet look的活动摄像师/编辑. Granted, 这款软件确实导致了大量伪造的DOF和剪辑与不一致的严重分级外观, but in the hands of a professional, it is a great tool.

The plug-in I received for review is Denoiser II ($99). I tested it on a few of our systems, 但使用的主要系统是六核AMD系统，带有Nvidia Cuda卡和运行Adobe Premiere Pro CS5的raid存储阵列.5 and CS6.

What Denoiser Does: Video Noise Removal

Denoiser II, as the name suggests, 试图消除或最小化视频噪点，您可能会在您的镜头. 我们需要一个专业的工具来去除后期的视频噪声，因为很多专业人士仍然在捕捉有噪声的视频. In a market where DSLRs with massive, light-sensitive sensors are very much the default choice, and prime lenses down to a mouth-watering f/0.95是广泛使用的，有人可能想知道这个过滤器到底是想解决什么问题.

Let's be honest: However clever a piece of software might be, nothing beats getting the shot right in the first place. 如果你可以增加光线或者调整光圈来弥补光线不足的情况, this should be a first port of call. However, even the best-laid plans can fail; adding light might not be an option, 针尖大小的聚焦区域不一定是人们想要的. 

我敢肯定，许多跑枪制作人都遇到过看起来有点太吵而无法使用的镜头, but includes pivotal shots that are essential to their film. 这就是降噪器II来(或至少试图来)救援的地方. I used the plug-in in both Premiere Pro CS5.5和CS6，不期望不同的最终结果，但可能是不同的渲染时间. 我专门拍摄了一些镜头来测试软件，并给它添加了一些噪音, hectic dance footage. 让我们面对现实吧:我们通常可以按照我们想要的方式来安排面试, but if we're shooting weddings, 在舞池里自发的恶作剧是另一回事.

为此测试捕获的所有镜头都由松下GH2拍摄的AVCHD MTS文件组成. I didn't use the famous hack to increase the bitrate, but did use it to remove the ISO limit in video mode. 我现在可以给这个插件提供一个巨大而非常嘈杂的ISO 12800，而不是有限的ISO 3200。Figure 1, below)!

Figure 1. A shot from a test clip shot at a very noisy ISO 12800

Installing Denoiser II

Let's start at the beginning: the installer. Red Giant has recently changed and unified their installers. Instead of an installer of every single product they own, and that's quite a list these days, all the installers are merged into 1. 运行安装程序(有32位和64位两种版本)，会出现一些复选框，允许您选择要安装的产品. By default, these are all trial version applications; entering the serial number(s) for the product(s) you own will change that product into the full version (Figure 2, below). 然后，您可以选择要安装的产品:您购买的产品和/或您可能感兴趣的任何试用版. 尽管将所有安装程序集成到一个程序中确实会使下载和系统占用空间更大一些, at today's typical internet speeds and hard drive sizes, it shouldn't be an issue. 就我个人而言，我喜欢这个想法，并希望其他公司也能效仿.

Figure 2. Installer options

安装程序正确地识别了我的系统上的所有兼容程序(及其不同版本), with easy checkboxes, I was able to choose to which ones I wanted to add Denoiser II. 这个过程既轻松又快速，而且没有出现任何问题. 这听起来很傻，但我遇到过太多把事情搞砸的安装程序.

Before I go into specifics, 重要的是要认识到，这种类型的插件总是伴随着权衡. 如果你期待一个魔棒，将清理你的镜头, making it perfectly sharp, in focus, and looking like you shot it at ISO100, you will be disappointed. However clever the mathematics behind such a plug-in are, 通常情况下，您应该期望图像的清晰度降低，以减少一些难看的视频噪点.