PQ Capture/encode from Sony HC96E with WinDV+Handbrake/meGUI

[sventamyra]

Hi

So I guess its time for me to seek some help. I have captured my kids youth on a Sony HC96E MiniDV cam. I have about 50hours of video. Now I want to make it a viewable in my media setup. I play movies on my PopcornHour A400 which then are shown on my Samsung 50inch LED. My idea is that the original DV-tapes will be the archiving format. Nevertheless I want to have as good picture quality as possible, disregarding the time consumed to achieve this. The storage capacity is also not of greater importance, but I guess that the original size of my captured DV-file is a bit too large (250Mb per minute).

So I started out capturing the DV-file using WinDV. I've used a 3min example-file from the camera to experiment with different decoding, deinterlacing and compression.

My video:
PAL DV (dvsd) interlaced 25pfs
720x576
YUV 4:2:0

I have used two applications for this. I started out in Handbrake, and also comapred this to meGUI.

For decoding I have tried the built in decoder of my Win7 PC. And I also installed Canopus decoder (forced svcd in avisource). Both seem to render similar quality when blown up on my TV.

I store the video as 720x576 resized to mod 16 (loose in handbrake). And display size is anamorphic 1024x576.

For deinterlacing I tried the following:
Handbrake DeComb Bob
Handbrake DeComb Default
Handbrake DeInterl Bob
Handbrake DeInterl Slower
meGUI yadif
meGUI yadif BoB (tried the canopus decoder with this one)
meGUI + smoothdeinterlace by Gunnar Thalin
meGui with no deinterlace

To be honest, the results arent all that different. Except for the interlaced which show some combed edges briefly (probably the online deinterlaceing in the A400 is not fast enough. the same applies when doing the deinterlacing in the samsung tv). Sometimes when working in meGUI the video has some stuttering, but at this point I have disregarded this.

In the compression I store as h.264 in an .mkv container. After experimenting I ended up with these settings:
x264 preset: Slower (placebo made no difference)
x264 tune: film (never tried any other)
h.264 level: 3.1
h.264 profile: main (high made no difference)
Constant Quality RF20 (RF19 made no difference)

I guess the picture quality ends up ok, but since I blow it up on a 50inch TV, of course many annoying artefacts are visable. I would be satisfied if the quality was similar to that of the original DV-tape. But when I run the composite output from the camera directly into the tv the image is better. There are combed edges from interlacing, but the overall quality is still better. The image from the .mkvs are more grainy

Any ideas of what I could do to improve picture quality?
Am I maybe doing somethig wrong with the colorspace?

[2Bdecided]

A couple of things jumped out at me. Sorry these comments don't give you all the answers (I haven't gone down your route), but they might help...

My idea is that the original DV-tapes will be the archiving format.

Not really. They're a pain to transfer (so you only want to do it once) and you can't guarantee they'll play (or you will have something that will play them) properly in 5-10 years time. By all means keep them as a back up, but if I was you I'd keep the DV-AVI files from WinDV. It's a lossless copy of what's on the tapes, and 50 tapes is what, 650GB? That's about 20 Euros worth of HDD space these days. Why wouldn't you?

I would be satisfied if the quality was similar to that of the original DV-tape. But when I run the composite output from the camera directly into the tv the image is better. There are combed edges from interlacing, but the overall quality is still better. The image from the .mkvs are more grainy

Running a composite interlaced signal into a modern TV shouldn't reveal combed edges from interlacing. Composite is always interlaced. Your TV (even a modern one) should be deinterlacing it. Especially home movies which are very obviously interlaced.

Your TV may have input-specific adjustments for contrast, brightness etc, meaning that something connected to the composite input will always look different from something connected to the HDMI input, even if the signal was essentially the same (or as "same" as you can get in that scenario). So first thing first: check that. Check contrast, brightness etc are set the same for both inputs.

Composite video is fundamentally lower quality than DV - so if it still looks better than your H.264 files, something has gone quite wrong.

FWIW when I take DV tapes, capture (losslessly) through WinDV, and encode them to MPEG-2 using, well, pretty much anything - then the resulting DVDs look just as I would expect. Same as the source, but with MPEG coding artefacts on top. If I use x264 at a sufficiently high bitrate, then there are no visible coding artefacts (to my eyes, anyway). The only thing I notice, because I always deinterlace for x264, is the "look" of the deinteralcer: QTGMC looks quite different from YADIF which looks quite different from BOB (to my eyes, anyway).

Finally, Samsung TVs don't show you what the source signal really looks like. Most people love the picture they give, but if you're trying to see what you've created, it's not helpful, and might hide problems that a different TV would show. For example, they default to motion flow on, which will hide the difference between 50i, 50p and 25p. If you turn motion flow off, all 50Hz video formats look quite juddery on them, so that's not much help either. In reality 50p is smooth, 50i is smooth when properly deinterlaced. 25p judders. (50p converted to 60p judders horribly, but a Samsung TV can often hide even this abomination and make it look smooth.) If you insist on deinterlacing, then you want 50p, not 25p.

Good luck.

David.

[sventamyra]

Not really. They're a pain to transfer (so you only want to do it once) and you can't guarantee they'll play (or you will have something that will play them) properly in 5-10 years time. By all means keep them as a back up, but if I was you I'd keep the DV-AVI files from WinDV. It's a lossless copy of what's on the tapes, and 50 tapes is what, 650GB? That's about 20 Euros worth of HDD space these days. Why wouldn't you?

Yes, good point, you are absolutely right. I will store the DV-files uncompressed.

Running a composite interlaced signal into a modern TV shouldn't reveal combed edges from interlacing. Composite is always interlaced. Your TV (even a modern one) should be deinterlacing it. Especially home movies which are very obviously interlaced.

I put in in a wrong way. The TV deinterlaces, but when I can still see the occasional combed ede here and there, usually when an object moves very fast.

Your TV may have input-specific adjustments for contrast, brightness etc, meaning that something connected to the composite input will always look different from something connected to the HDMI input, even if the signal was essentially the same (or as "same" as you can get in that scenario). So first thing first: check that. Check contrast, brightness etc are set the same for both inputs.

Good point, will do.

FWIW when I take DV tapes, capture (losslessly) through WinDV, and encode them to MPEG-2 using, well, pretty much anything - then the resulting DVDs look just as I would expect. Same as the source, but with MPEG coding artefacts on top. If I use x264 at a sufficiently high bitrate, then there are no visible coding artefacts (to my eyes, anyway). The only thing I notice, because I always deinterlace for x264, is the "look" of the deinteralcer: QTGMC looks quite different from YADIF which looks quite different from BOB (to my eyes, anyway).

I realize I have an untrained eye. Maybe it is the artifacts from de deinterlacing that catch my eye. I will tru to upload a clip.

Thanks for the input! I had no Idea the Samsung TV affected the result as much as you describe.