How to Take Out Background Noise in Final Cut Pro

So you bumped up your ISO to an ungodly number and now your shot looks like a 90s home video. Sprinkle a little noise reduction on there and, look at that, shot saved. Today I want to tell you about the plugin I reach for to clean up noisy footage while keeping detail: Neat Video. It's kind of an industry standard, and honestly the best way I've found to clean up digital noise without turning my shot to mush.

Why not just use the built-in noise reduction?

Fair question, since Final Cut (and Resolve) both have their own noise reduction built in. Here's what I've found: if you don't really care about the quality and just want the noise smoothed over some, and you're not doing professional work, the built-in tools are fine, especially for static shots like interviews. Where Neat Video pulls ahead is detail. It singles out and smooths the noise while keeping the actual sharpness and texture in your shot, so the noisy areas come out smoother and more pleasing than the built-in options, and the areas that should stay sharp stay sharp.

It holds up when there's movement

The other big difference I noticed: when there's movement in the shot, Neat Video keeps the noise reduction consistent, while the built-in tools tend to let a little of that noise creep back in as things move. So if you only ever need to clean up static interview shots, the built-in stuff will probably do you fine. But for everything else, Neat Video's quality is worth it.

A few other things worth knowing

It also has a flicker removal feature I only found out about recently. It's not as strong as a dedicated plugin like Flicker Free, but it works fine for light flicker and it's way faster to render (Flicker Free is crazy render-heavy). Neat Video works across basically every major editor, Final Cut, Resolve, Premiere, and it's M1 ready, with their update running 30 to 40% faster than the CPU version.

Is it worth it?

It's around $100 to own forever, and in my opinion it's been so worth it. Since I bought it three or four years ago it's saved countless shots for clients and personal projects, stuff I couldn't just go back and reshoot, which makes it one of the most important plugin purchases I've made. And yeah, I know, I should've had better lighting and not cranked my ISO, but when you're in a pinch you do what you gotta do, and sometimes you don't even realize how noisy a shot is until you see it in post. If you're on the fence, there's a free trial you can test out to see it work its magic.