Blackmagic Forum

I have just thought that the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera is not delivered with the full version of DaVinci Resolve. For the price, it is normal, but it is annoying because we lose the possibility of using the noise reduction "NR Threshold". Maybe Blackmagic could offer a voucher in the box of the Pocket camera allowing the buyers to upgrade of the Lite version to Full version at a softer price as 400 or 500 USD. It would be fairplay for persons who did not buy the BMCC 2.5K.

So the way this works out, you essentially want to pay $500 for the Pocket Cam, and get the full version of Resolve for free. Right? That's the way the equation balances.

And this would be "fair play." After Blackmagic Design already gives you Resolve Lite, which has something well over 90% of the full functionality for free.

Pascal, are you serious? Good grief.

Randy Walters wrote:So the way this works out, you essentially want to pay $500 for the Pocket Cam, and get the full version of Resolve for free. Right? That's the way the equation balances.

And this would be "fair play." After Blackmagic Design already gives you Resolve Lite, which has something well over 90% of the full functionality for free.

Pascal, are you serious? Good grief.

The point is that the BMCC is actually cheaper than the Pocket camera if you are paying a grand for resolve.

I think Blackmagic should just give all their stuff away for free

ahlads wrote:I think Blackmagic should just give all their stuff away for free

Totally! Pretty selfish and greedy of them not to to be honest!

IMHO, the best noise reduction is Neatvideo. You should be able to plug that into Resolve Lite version 10.

I just sent 'em my Resolve-dongle in order to get a BMPC!

Fair enough!

Randy personally I already have the DaVinci Resolve full version with my BMCC 2.5K but I think of the persons who are going to buy the pocket camera and they don't have the dongle for the full version with. I don't speak of having the full version of Davinci with the Pocket camera but to have a voucher which allows by adding 500 USD more at the price to upgrade to the full DaVinci version.

nomad, with DaVinci Resolve Full you can apply the noise reduction only on the chroma not to lose details. And in the same time apply a sharpness to the luma not to increase the noise and mix both nodes but only with the full version.

Pascal, I shouldn't have been as snotty as I was in my earlier post. I apologize.

No problem Randy , Maybe you did not understand exactly what I wanted to say with my aproximatif English.

nomad wrote:IMHO, the best noise reduction is Neatvideo. You should be able to plug that into Resolve Lite version 10.

The NR in Resolve 10 may well be better, will have to wait and see.

Pascal Despeaux wrote:I have just thought that the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera is not delivered with the full version of DaVinci Resolve. For the price, it is normal, but it is annoying because we lose the possibility of using the noise reduction "NR Threshold". Maybe Blackmagic could offer a voucher in the box of the Pocket camera allowing the buyers to upgrade of the Lite version to Full version at a softer price as 400 or 500 USD. It would be fairplay for persons who did not buy the BMCC 2.5K.

If noise reduction is the issue -- there are a range of solutions out there that work within your editor.

For example, I've already tested most all of the released Pocket clips with Neat Video (the newest Premiere CC pro version), and the results were damn good. Probably a combination of the lower compression, finer noise pattern, and superior Prores HQ 422 image/color information.

Finally, I've messed with the noise reduction in Resolve in years past -- and I don't remember it being awe inspiring -- rather, kind of a smudge thing that easily be accomplished with Neat Video (with less than ideal settings).

I fully expect that when proper profiles are set up with Neat Video for the Pocket camera -- the results will be impressive as heck.

Currently Resolve NR can appear "smudgey" as you put, but splitting into Chroma/Luma and just doing NR on chroma only (or more on chroma and less on luma) can work well as pointed out above.

Sadly the "lite" version of Resolve - the one Pocket byers (and everyone else) get for free - doesn't have NR, right?

+1 to Neat Video noise reduction.

I have the full Resolve and its noise reduction is not worth using. It does not use temporal techniques, and temporal techniques are utterly essential to proper noise reduction. Over the years I have used quite a few Noise Reduction plugins. The one in After Effects is pretty good if you learn how to adjust it, and are willing to wait for rendering (it is slow, but good).

Enter Neat Video. Woo-hoo! These guys are in the big leagues in noise reduction. I have Resolve and Premiere (and other stuff) on the same edit box. So my hefty Cuda-core-empowered video card is there to do the heavy lifting. Most programs don't know how to use it. Resolve does, of course, and specifies that we put one in. But Neat Video also knows how to use it. On my system, when I apply neat video to a clip in the timeline in Premiere, it just renders as I play, no delays at all. That's what I like! It also has a sophisticated set of controls if you are dealing with some serious noise, as from a dark shot. I like very high quality, and mostly I am dealing with minor noise either from my BMCC or from my Sony Ex1. But Neat Video handles any level of noise very nicely, preserving sharpness and detail. I know of no plugin that beats it. For $100, it's a no-brainer. 'Nuff said.

I don't think it plugs into Resolve, though. It plugs into many editors and compositors.

Neat Video can apply the noise reduction on the RAW file???

More seriously try to apply the noise reduction with DaVinci resolve Full only on chroma and not on all the values of the image and compare later with Neat Video. Maybe you have tried but in this case we do not have the same files.

Resolve 10 brings temporal noise redeuction. Until then, I render out DPX files and denoise/sharpen them in Premiere using Neat Video.

Try this kind of process with your DaVinci Resolve to check the difference.
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I have seen the video made by Paul, and it is good, and editors / compositors will sometimes look at channels to see where the noise is stronger, etc. and get a better process. But that technique is cumbersome and weak compared to a good noise reduction plugin, primarily because it does not use time. You have to use time. The principal attribute of noise that you can use to eliminate it is that it flashes randomly. If you look into the technology of a plugin like NeatVideo, you will find that it goes considerably beyond that.

Another point worth considering is that part of the reason we want a camera like the BMCC is that it DOES NOT try to scrub noise in the camera. Like the other virtues of raw-based production, we want to defer the denoising step until post where we can use world-class software and do it right, and do it according to our taste.

Personally, I can't imagine Resolve beating NeatVideo, even in version 10 when they take a crack at a better algorithm. I will happily try it when it arrives, but I am not counting on a world class effort, because they have lots of things to do besides NR. Often people who specialize in a particular plugin can get really, really good at it. I have a number of plugins from several vendors who I think do a terrific job. Resolve has a really good tracker, for example, even though I would not expect it in a grading package.

I am not exactly sure why you would want to denoise the RAW. I tend to want to reduce noise later, with video or audio noise. It is also true that the major plugin platforms like After Effects and Premiere attract the big guns in the plugin market, because the $ from the huge installed base attracts the top developers.

Even though the BMCC noise is very 'pretty' and I really like it, like many other posters here, and it definitely resembles film grain, so you can relate to that, yet I often want no noise at all. For one thing, noise causes problems for compression codecs, and most stuff eventually gets compressed, at least somewhat. Also, noise problems often occur in darker shots where you are trying to minimize light sources, and when you get noise in dark areas, I don't like it. Really dark shots are the toughest, and they tend to look rather blurry in real life, with reduced ability of the human eye to detect color, etc. So if the image is softened a little in such a case, it works out fine for the final product. So in such a dark case, I would tend to just lean on the clip with NR and just totally scrub it.

It is also in the dark areas of the image that the noise of the BMCC disturbs me most.

DNomer wrote:I am not exactly sure why you would want to denoise the RAW

I prefer to denoize before to process the image than apply a noise reduction after when the image is created, and other things that better to denoize before applied a sharpness if you don't want to increase the noise, but I'm sure you know that.