Do you want to enhance video like on CSI, so you can read the writing on a shirt collar a block away in a camera phone video? Well not exactly, but more of this kind of technology from forensic video enchantment tools is becoming available in professional and even consumer video editing software, with auto enhancement and clean-up features as found in photo editing tools.
But who wants to do video editing on a short clip from a cell phone or pocket camcorder? -- Today it's all about shooting and posting to share on the web. So MotionDSP, a developer of forensic technology for law enforcement, has released MotionDSP vReveal, $49 software for quick enhancement of consumer videos.
With vReveal, just import your clip, select and preview the enhancements, and then save the result. It's made for quickly fixing up clips, without requiring firing up a full video editing application (although you still can trim the beginning and ends of clips).
The interface is clean and simple, with a split-screen preview of the enhancements. Besides sharpening blurry clips, enhancing contrast, adjusting brightness (without blowing out the bright areas), and general cleaning of noisy video, vReveal adds two especially interesting options typically found only in pro software: super-resolution, to double the dimensions of a smaller clip with more detail from adjacent frames, and stabilization, to smooth out jitters from hand-held cameras.
vReveal can process video files in MPG video and Windows formats (AVI, WMV), and more with QuickTime installed (MOV, MPEG 2, 3GP). You than can upload your video directly to YouTube, or save as a file, but only in WMV (Windows Media Video) or uncompressed AVI format. You'll then have to use a separate tool to convert clips to other popular formats for web, DVD, mobile, and other uses.
vReveal is a nice quick path to cleaning up videos. But the real test is to try it out to see how it works with your own videos. You can download the free 30-day trial version, which applies a watermark to exported and captured videos.
See my article, Summary: MotionDSP vReveal Video Enhancement Software for a tour of the software.
See more video applications in my Video Editing Software Gallery