Remove noise in video post production I have a video, shot with a recent but low-end camcorder (Samsung HMX-Q10) in Full HD 1920x1080/50i.

The problem is that there wasn't enough light (I guess) and the camcorder added some "parasites" to the video on the zones in the shadow (blacks are quite okay, but dark zones are not).
The kind of parasites that you may see on that video (on walls for instance) (this is not a video shot with that camcorder, nor my video).

So, I don't seem to be able to remove them when shooting, whatever the parameters of the cam are. I still need to try with more light, but I'd like to know if it is possible to correct that with a post-production effect on my existing video, especially with Sony Vegas Pro.

Moreover, is there a way to prevent the cam to add those artificial elements to the video ? This looks like some numeric elements added to the video, like the cam tries to correct the lighting. Can't the camcorder write exactly the image it gets from the lens, even if it's too dark ?
Can I achieve this kind of dark image with my cam (or maybe it is darkened in post production ?)
The parasites you talked about is called noise. The setting you can change to get less is called the ISO. It corresponds to the old ASA value we had before the digital age.
We can't see a thing, we can only see light. That's the way the universe is built up. Same with the camera. It sees the light reflected off surfaces. So white objects reflects all light and dark objects no light. And absence of light, as you know, means darkness. Where it is dark it has to &quot;work extra hard&quot; to figure out what's actually there, because there is almost no information there given from the light. Therefore you will get some noise. A better camera will produce less noise.


Turn down the ISO as much as possible without compromising the aperture or &quot;shutter speed&quot; you want.
Remove the noise left in post.


It is also no problem to edit it away in post on your computer! The only compromise is that you will get smoother edges and blurred images the more noise you remove. I once saw a movie shot entirely by moonlight. It was full of noise but they removed everything in post!
There are two plugins you can use:


Neat Video's Noise Removal. I've never tried this, but you can use it with Sony Vegas. They claim to be the best in noise removal.

Red Giant's Magic Bullet DeNoiser. I've used this and am very satisfied with it. Does a really good job. I don't know if this works in Vegas, but it certainly works great in Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro!