@Stereodude: I'm getting the feeling HDTVs are highly variable in this respect. The Sony Bravia I have here is extremely well behaved with the footage looking ok even at max sharpness. I would guess what my friend has been seeing is on the other end of the spectrum, and he hardly cares about what looks best on good displays because all he sees are bad displays. So based on his experience he wants to denoise/compress as hard as needed for the footage to look acceptable on those because he believes that's what most people will see. And maybe he's right. I can offer two versions, of course, but the question is what I should go with as the default choice for John Doe.
@Taurus: Thanks a lot for your feedback, I pretty much agree with everything. Indeed, Neat Video looks like a very good proposition, especially because I can get it as an After Effects plugin so I can easily integrate it with the rest of my post processing - would save me a ton of work. The color space conversions required for the Avisynth filters aren't doing the footage any favors either. Even if Neat Video looks like a winner, I owe the good guys here at Doom 9 to investigate the Avisynth options too, crash as I may.
