MSU Old Color Restoration alternative?

[magillagorilla]

Hey all,
I am restoring some VHS footage with serious color problems. Over the past year, with help from this community, I have a pretty strong solution using a combination of AVISynth and VDUB filters (thanks!). Anyway, there is a filter called MSU Old Color Restoration in VDUB that does some serious magic to some of my footage. It dials in the color very well, even on footage with badly damaged color channels, however.....

MSU Old Color Restoration has a tendency to lose it mind and flash some pretty psychedelic colors. Sometimes it grabs blocks of color in a nearly uniform field of color and turns them white. Weird. Is there something that works like MSU Old Color Restoration, which I can tweak more? It's almost as if the filter hits thresholds it can't handle and flips out and there are only 2 adjustments on the filter.

[jagabo]

Gradation Curves. http://members.chello.at/nagiller/vdub/readme.html It's all manual though.

Can you post some samples?

[magillagorilla]

I'll get some samples up tonight. It's almost as if MSU is doing some dynamic color replacement. Gradation curves don't really get it done because when I push one color I pull another. In the areas I have damaged or missing color, MSU does some kind of sourcery to replace the color. The footage in question has tons of problems and is at best horrible (it's unique family footage and worth my time), most of which Removedirt, levels, NeatVideo, and VDUB Chroma smoothers fix.

I'm also using QGTMC to deinterlace to 59.97fps. From which I can tell doubles the frame rate by seperating and bobbing the fields. Looks pretty good to me.

[themaster1]

color mill + g. curve to end the job

[magillagorilla]

OK, I didn't have a chance to post a clip but I did play with Gradation Curves a bit. I can do similar corrections with this tool. It seems like MSU is dynamic though, it changes it's correction based on the footage rather than applying the same correction across all frames. Maybe I'm wrong. I also assume this is why MSU flips out and flashes crazy colors, like it gets a hand full of frames that exceed some threshold.
Too bad MSU Old Color Restoration doesn't have more settings, like thresholds or blend amount or what have you.

Is color mill dynamic or a static filter?

[jagabo]

Color Mill is static.

[themaster1]

Send a sample by the way we'll help as best as we can

[magillagorilla]

Here are some stills of my before and after so far. This is a frame from some of the worst of it.




I'm using a chain of filters in AVISynth and VDUB Seperate feilds>remove dirt>weave>QTGMC>color EQ>camcorder color denoise>docrawl comb filter>neat video>fill boarders

Maybe over processed, but the footage is horrible. The color situation has a bad blue cast. I fixed it a bit just dialing back the blue in the color EQ.

I'll post a clip as soon as I remember my rapidshare login.

[lordsmurf]

Compared to Premiere CS4, VirtualDub and Avisynth plugins are junk.
Those really are not the best tools for color work.

Even starting from lousy source. I've fixed worse.

[magillagorilla]

I have Vegas, which has a bunch of neat looking color doohickeys. I have used them many times. I like how in VMS I can change filters over time. Anyway........ I'd like to not have to use VMS for the billion clips I need to process. I know there is no 1 tool to rule them all but rendering everything 3 times seems excessive.

[davexnet]

I've got an old version of Photoshop (vers. 6) on my PC. It has a facility where you click on something that is supposed to be
neutral (grey, for example) and it will offset all the colors. Usually it works wonders, but the color imbalance in the image you posted is
severe. On top of that is a load of chroma noise.

There is filter for Virtualdub that does something similar, I'll have to see if I can find it.
If you can post some of the source file, it would be much better.

[magillagorilla]

Here you go. Expertly shot by me at age 11 then shreaded through 2-3 generations of VHS with crappy cables.

https://rapidshare.com/files/2965959325/CLIP.avi

[magillagorilla]

I'm trying to build a kind of roadmap of my restoration process. For that past year I've done very little but tinker with filters and applications. I've got a decent grip on what I want to do, however, there are still a few quastion marks. I'm not sure I am using optimum tools and filters, or if I am using an optimum order. I know lordsmurf is anti-deinterlace but I am looking to the future where displays like phones, tablets, HDTV via media box and such will be the choice for playback. Plus, I never intend to return this video to DVD.

Possible workflows are:
AVISYNTH (Audio normalize, removedirt, deinterlace) > VDUB (title, denoise, levels, color) > batch encode all clips to x264
or
AVISYNTH (removedirt, deinterlace) > VDUB (denoise) > VMS (Audio levels, title, video levels, color, encode to Mainconcept h.264)
or
some better suggestion on workflow

At some point I need to stop twisting knobs and just get it done. I'm getting closer.

[poisondeathray]

For screwed up color cases, it helps if you have reference objects of known colors.

Obviously , blue channel is screwed up in that clip. You can probably assume the shirt is "red" and the trees are "green", maybe the dishwasher liquid is "yellow". A known blue object would help, because if you attempt to "fix" the blue channel , you might be wrecking other "blue" objects

You say you don't want to use other tools, but I would say secondary color correction is almost mandatory here. The color defects are not evenly distributed. Parts of the frame do not have the same color composition. For example the left edge of the frame is persistently a different color composition that the rest of the frame

[magillagorilla]

" it helps if you have reference objects of known colors"

Yup, that's the game I play when sliding colors. Like the dish soap bottle is yellow, the shirt is red and the coffee maker is white. So I gather, eyeballing it is the way to go? I'm OK with that. I keep trying to avoid it, but I am coming to the conclusion that VMS will be in my editing chain. The color tools on VMS are very robust.

Anyone have a chance to hack at the clip I posted? I'm looking forward to seeing different ideas.

Thanks!

[intracube]

Here's my attempt at restoring the video:


I had to guess at what the colours should be; the kitchen looks 70s/80s, so I guessed that the door frame and underside of the coffee maker were brown.

I used Blender's node system for colour correction, but the process could be recreated with AviSynth. Also, Blender's nodes can be rather slow, which can be a pain when working with long videos.

All I've done is reduce the blue channel - if there aren't any objects in the scene that are blue, you'd probably get away with this technique.

I have another idea up my sleeve for getting rid of the blue tint, but simultaneously keeping anything that's obviously blue - but it's somewhat more complex.

I should add that I initially tried to correct the colour with standard RGB curves, but realised this wouldn't be effective, so switched to working in YCbCr mode - only using RGB curves for a final minor tweak to the image.

Anyways, let me know if you're interested in this technique and I'll post the details.

[magillagorilla]

Intracube,
You are right, 1984 it is, and brown is the trim and coffee basket. I'm definately interested in knowing what you did. Your sample looks better than MSU was doing. I've also resigned to the fact that I'll be using VMS for color correction because the color problems are not consistent throughout the footage. I will need to build color correction envelopes that change linearly. But most of the good NLEs like VMS have similar color tools. I'd be interested in what values you are changeing. I tend to over correct or push color the wrong way. When I try to fix blue, for example, I end up making skin look magenta.

Thanks!

[Sullah]

You did a great job intracube.

@lordsmurf: Premiere CS4 is crap when compared to Da Vinci Systems, Pandora or even Color Finesse stand alone or inside AE. What's your point? I don't think this gentlemen is trying to adopt that kind of workflow.

I think intracube obtained amazing results with Open Source alternatives and I would be every interested in the details and in understanding the workflow.

I use Color Finesse for color grading (not restoring, different process but similar techniques) and would be happy to start promoting an open source alternative for indie filmmakers so I'm very interested in this.

Of course if you'd be willing to spend $10,000 to restore each VHS tape, just head down to Panavision and have a pro colorists ran it trough a Pandora system and you'll get good results ...of course that's silly especially given the limitation of the source material, surprisingly it wouldn't even be much better than what intracube had unless you rescan but that's a whole dif ball game.

[lordsmurf]

@lordsmurf: Premiere CS4 is crap when compared to Da Vinci Systems, Pandora or even Color Finesse stand alone or inside AE. What's your point? I don't think this gentlemen is trying to adopt that kind of workflow. .

I hate stupid people. I grew out of the one-upsmanship mentality when I was a teenager.

Simple analogy: killing ants.
- VirtualDub and Avisynth is like water. It will have an effect, but doesn't really accomplish the goal.
- Premiere is like Triazicide. It will mostly accomplish the goal.
- The high-end stuff you suggest is like a nuclear bomb. Yeah, it works, but was it necessary? No.

It's always about using the right tool for the job.

[Sullah]

I went looking for it and I got what I deserved.

I would have been better off ignoring him just like everyone else did.

My point was not to start a pissing contest, my point was just to piss you off and since you went as far as expounding on your teenage psycho-emotional development and using bigoted terms such as "hate" and "stupid people" I can consider my mission accomplished.

Beware, you can be played like a fiddle lordsmurf ....and never forget that the observer is the observed.

Excuse everyone for taking up useless space, case closed

[themaster1]

I have never heard of this Blender software can you post the whole project file perhaps ? with the video sample so we can have a look at it

[sanlyn]

Gradation curves don't really get it done because when I push one color I pull another.

Not in RGB mode. Check out the instructions and the html site. It's the same grad control used by pros in Photoshop, Premiere, and AE. ColorMill also works well. The MSU filter makes horrible color IMHO.

I'm also using QGTMC to deinterlace to 59.97fps. From which I can tell doubles the frame rate by seperating and bobbing the fields. Looks pretty good to me.

DVD is interlaced.

[lordsmurf]

I have Vegas, which has a bunch of neat looking color doohickeys.

I'd suggest Vegas and Premiere are not the same here. I was really impressed with the color controls in CS4, vs those from earlier generations. Several people have urged me to upgrade to CS5 when I can afford it, promising yet more improvements in this area.

VirtualDub ColorMill is like a junior version of the Premiere controls.

Expertly shot by me at age 11 then shreaded through 2-3 generations of VHS with crappy cables.

I did the same thing in my earlier years. Luckily my work is nowhere near this ruined. Of course, back in those days, VHS gear was all built like tanks. My tape are probably 2-3x as heavy as tapes made in the 90s-2000s. Most of them are made in Japan or Germany, from BASF or Panasonic.

[sanlyn]

Here you go. Expertly shot by me at age 11 then shreaded through 2-3 generations of VHS with crappy cables.

https://rapidshare.com/files/2965959325/CLIP.avi

The link is a secured website. Maybe I'm missing someting, but the download site wants me to set up an account to download.

[jagabo]

The MSU filter makes horrible color IMHO.

MSU is designed to fix faded film and prints where red, green, and blue crystals fade at different rates and the paper takes on a yellowish tone. I wouldn't expect it to do anything useful with analog video problems.

[intracube]

Here's a screenshot of the nodes:


This is the procedure:
1. source image (or video) is on the left.
2. separated to YCbCr
3. Y passes through unaffected
4. Cb has values remapped
5. Cr has values remapped
6. recombined
7. minor colour correction with RGB curves
8. saturation boost
9. output

To better explain step 4 (Cb); the source has a range of 16-240, but the 'ColorRamp' changes this:
- Values 16-128 are unaffected, but values above 128 are distorted - only reaching 151 (instead of 240)

Step 5 is similar although only the lower half of the range is affected - 16-128 is remapped to 69-128.

Here's the RGB Curves settings:


I tried to upload the .blend file by clicking on the 'Upload files/Manage attachments' button. A window pops up where I can select a file on my computer, after clicking on upload, some black text on a yellow BG appears 'Uploading File(s) - Please Wait' which stays indefinitely. After clicking on 'Close this window', the file doesn't show up anywhere. I haven't ever had problems uploading images by clicking on the dedicated image icon.

[themaster1]

try sendspace or megaupload.com if it's a big file, i'd be curious to see the result

[sanlyn]

Thanks for the info on the nodes, intracube. I didn't know Blender had such controls, I downloaded it a year ago but never used it. Looks like I have another application to learn, along with a whole language.

After fiddling with the posted caps a while, it occurred to me that the tape owner could more easily make an initial color correction in the original YUV, before conversion to any other colorspace. Then the details could be finished off in RGB or whatever.

[jagabo]

Color correction of analog sources should usually be in YUV first. Because analog devices work in YUV -- so the errors they make are in YUV.

[intracube]

try sendspace or megaupload.com if it's a big file

Weirdly, I got the same problem with megaupload - the upload would get 'stuck' half way. A reset of the ADSL modem didn't fix the problem, but replacing the modem with a spare did

Here's the blend file:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7ZS0SCWE

I used the still image (not the .avi clip) for testing. You'll have to point Blender to wherever the source image/video is on your computer to see any results with the node compositor. Zoom in on the left most node with the mouse wheel, and click on the Open Image icon.

Press F12 to render a sill through the nodes.

If you want to use a video, you use the same 'Image' node, but be sure to increase the 'Frames' value to some high figure (like 10,000) - hold CTRL + left mouse, type in the number, press enter. To look at different parts of the video, click on the time line at the bottom of the screen.

Blender can cope with a lot of standard video file formats.

Rendering out an animation is a bit more complex. Ask if you need instructions.

note: I just realized the render preview was 'zoomed out' when I uploaded the project file - which will cause odd effects with the interlacing. Once you've pressed F12 once, hover the cursor over the image and press '1' on the numerical pad on your keyboard to see a 100% (1 to 1 pixel) view of the render.

*The file was saved with the 64bit (Linux) version of Blender 2.58. Although Blender project files should be compatible between different OS's, a while back ISTR reading about issues when opening 64bit files on 32bit systems - although it might not be a problem any more.