Performance
DE: Noise is very impressive. I recently began editing a microbudget feature for a friend, and as you can see, the footage is rampant with digital noise. Sometimes it's due to low light, sometime's I'm not sure how they got so much noise shooting in broad daylight...but it doesn't matter. I am able to get in there and fix these issues quickly, often times without adjusting any settings within the effect.
The plug-in does have a few drawbacks, but they are definitely weighed out by the positives. If you have a great deal of fast motion in a shot, it becomes difficult for the plug-in to understand. You end up with a cascading effect on the moving object. This effect can be lessened by adjusting some of the settings, but, in some cases, it's unavoidable. The only other issue is the massive rendering time that the effect requires, but good things come to those who wait.
This is basically an unusable image (not sure how they got this much noise in daylight!).
This is the effected image, useable for small clips at least, since there is no other shot to save it..
Value
When I first saw this available plug-in for Final Cut Pro, I thought it was a great idea. But at the same time, I was worried that it wouldn't work as good as they say it does, or that it would be too difficult to make it work. Nobody wants to shell out $150 and feel like they've wasted it. However, in my opinion, this is an ESSENTIAL plug-in, and you will definitely get more than your money back in use.
Final Comments This plug-in may have you reaching back into your old footage, past short films, projects where you just had to settle with the noisy image you had. You will definitely be impressed with it's ability to immediately turn un-usable footage into gold.
Ease
of Use
10.0
Depth
of Options
9.0
Performance
8.0
Value
vs. Cost
10.0
Overall Score
9.3
A.J. Wedding is a graduate of Western Michigan University and has won festival awards for his first feature film, "Pop Fiction". As a writer/director, he has won several awards for his short films, and recently garnered worldwide distribution for a feature film titled “The Disappearance of Jenna Matheson” releasing this year. His hit web series, “Infamous” created an instant fanbase, and spawned interest from networks to create a tv series based on it. A.J. currently works with The Production Green, directing and editing commercials as well as developing his next feature film, "Junior Crew."
