What effect would you recommend to apply to a video to better the appearance of it? What I mean by that is I'd like to make my videos look closer to HD even though I'm just using standard mp4 videos.

Any suggestions?

Depends on the resolution, codec and 'quality' of the source files as to how far you can push it, do you have a sample mp4?

No sample videos I want to put up on the web.

I make videos using a Sony DCR-HC 38...just one of those simple video cameras that outputs into dv format on one of those miniDV tape.

Is there an effect that could be applied to make the overall image looks "smoother"? By "smoother" I mean you would see less detail.

Generally I think of consumer DV as being interlaced, artificially sharpened ie: ringed, having black lines added in camera at edges to make it look sharper, over saturated, have higher levels of digital noise and almost certainly full range luma which will preview as rather contrasty crushed blacks and blown highlights in majority of media players.

Therefore no single 'effect' is going to do it and for such tasks I'd use and have used numerous times, Avisynth with something like this:

http://www.gyroshot.com/simpleslug.htm and http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156028

But for simplicity in kdenlive, then maybe try the denoise filter which will smooth, a saturation filter to reduce saturation and a levels filter or SOP/SAT to pull what will almost certainly be full luma levels into the correct 'legal' video range. Adjust all to suit your preferences.

My video camera isn't all that good. In fact it's junk as many people have found with the c32:11 error (there's a relatively easy "fix" for it...almost as easy as throwing it in the trash can).

I'd like to upgrade my camera to something much, much better but don't know what to select as it seems that if I do upgrade to something in the HD format that I'll have upgrade my computer and dvd burner to something able to handle Blu-ray (I may be mistaken).


Thanks for the ideas.

I'll give 'em a try to see what results I get.

If your existing footage is not suitable for a public sample, you could make a small test shot of whatever subject (like your shoes :-) with the same camera in the same lighting conditions?

This would at least allow a diagnosis, of course cure not guaranted :-)