Filters In Virtual Dub
As I mentioned in the Codec Hell article I had captured a VHS tape and needed to run the AVI through some filters to remove noise. By removing noise from the video the MPEG encoder can work more efficiently and not waste time trying to recreate noise.
VirtualDub is a free software utility for processing AVI files. One of the cool features is the ability to apply filters to your movie. There are many filters available for download.
I downloaded the Static Noise Reduction filter and the Dynamic Noise Reduction MMX filter from Steven Don’s site at http://www.shdon.com/.
To use these filters you simply unzip them and copy to the plugins directory in VirtualDub. Now open your AVI in VirtualDub.
-On the menu select Video/compression
-Select the Panasonic DV Codec
-On the menu select Video/filters
-Click Add
-Static Noise Reduction 1.3 (leave at 6)
-Dynamic Noise Reduction (DNR) MMX (set at 7-10) you need to experiment. If you overdo it the image will lose sharpness and detail.
-On the menu select File/Save As AVI
The VirtualDub Temporal Smoother filter built into VirtualDub is the same as the noise reduction filter in TMPGEnc. The only difference is that Avery Lee’s VDub Temporal Smoother runs faster.
There are many other filters available for VirtualDub. Search the web for “virtualdub plugin” and experiment.