How to improve old (digital camera) video quality?

[keithm1972]

I found an old video shot on a Kodak CX7330 digital camera (around 2006 or so). I've been playing with it in in Premiere Pro trying to improve the overall quality. Increasing the brightness, a little color correcting, removing the hum, etc. Huge improvements with a few basic effects applied...winning!

Still, the flickering grain across the whole image is brutal. Using Unsharp Mask makes a slight improvement while also making the grain sharpen as well. Anyone have suggestions on how to tackle a project like this? I know I won't make it look like it was shot on a new iPhone, but fun to see how close I can get.

Thanks.

[Andy 1968]

Do you have a sample video clip for us to see? I place SD interlaced video into 60P sequences if I am posting to social media. If it is for Blu-ray I leave it interlaced.  

[keithm1972]

Sure, here is the link to the original video.

[Andy 1968]

Thanks for posting. Having said that the resolution is very low quality. How did that happen? What did you use to capture the video? The video below might be helpful. There are a few videos samples at the end. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVLUxRkPMdA

[keithm1972]

Thanks, will check out the video.

As far as the video I'm fixing, it was from a digital camera around 2005. Some combination of lower pixels and user error. 

[Ann Bens]

Sure, here is the link to the original video.

By @keithm1972

Posting on YT does not produce the original footage.

Try dropbox or something simular for us to test.

[keithm1972]

Link to video on Dropbox.

[basil1891]

@keithm1972  Does this look better, denoised file on google drive  ?

[Andy 1968]

The drop box video is 320 X 240 at 15fps. The resolution is worse than VHS not to mention the dynamic range is horrible. The shadows are crushed to black. It would be hard to make a video at 320 X 240 and 15fps look good. 

[keithm1972]

Well...yes, agreed. Thankfully this isn't a client video, just a little project to learn how to fix such problems.

Just looking for tips on what I could do to improve it at any level.

[keithm1972]

Yes, I definitely see an improvement over the original. What did you use to get this result?

[basil1891]

@keithm1972  That one was from the Free Video Denoiser tool, that I mentioned in another post here. If you add some AI processing (https://github.com/xinntao/Real-ESRGAN) on top of it, you can get this look. There are issues though, as almost any such AI tools it's extremely slow (~0.2fps on GTX1060 ), and not universally applicable.

[basil1891]

Sounds like you are looking for a video denoiser. Premiere has only very basic one ("VR denoise". iirc).

I prefer this freeware option, but it's a standalone tool, not a plugin:

 Free Video Denoiser. How to reduce video noise, remove grain, HQ noise reduction, tutorial - YouTube

[chrisw44157881]

neatvideo or topaz ai.

AE has an old remove noise plugin as well.

there's also some external filters for virtualdub, avisynth if you want to get your hands dirty with scripting but they are free. time is money, right? that camera only has 3 MP, so don't expect iphone 13 quality.

[Ann Bens]

If you really want to clean up old footage have a look at:

Video Enhance AI – Video Quality Software

[FlyingFourFun]

Try out these two samples I did quick and dirty; didn't play with any settings, used Video Enhance AI

I think the source file deinterlace was not great, so the results could be better if a better deinterlace was used before VEAI was applied.   Either way, something for you to look at... If you play with the software, and have a better deinterlace, I think it can be much better, this was just meant as a quick sample, as you can tell I didn't bother to try and properly resize that frame

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1U2kTCiwLfiFk0PqVFgXh0qlkV5cOzDJ_?usp=sharinghttps://drive.go...

[keithm1972]

Yes, these both show improvements over the original (I think I like the second ones best). Nice of you to put up some samples, thanks!

OK, need to check out this Video Enhance AI.

[FlyingFourFun]

They have a free trial.

There is a good chance you will like one of the many options.

I think with the footage you have provided as a sample; you may want to focus on capturing the video with interlace intact if you can, and then apply the best deinterlace you can before you do any other work to it.  Topaz has a deinterlace tool that seems to work pretty well but I have a limited experience to draw from for interlaced as I have not worked with that for years.

I hope you find a path that yields superior results for you.