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  1. This may be one of those "duh" moments.

    I am looking forward, as I complete the restoration of my VHS footage, to restoring my miniDV footage. I've always read that loading a file in AVISynth using DirectShow is sub-optimal. How do I load mi miniDV AVIs in AVISynth? AVISource does not work. I get an error that the DV codec cannot be found.

    ... I know, Install a codec right? But which one and is that even the problem? I can play the files in all my players with no issues.
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  2. Member AlanHK's Avatar
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    Read http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/AviSource for some options when using AviSource.

    Otherwise, FFmpegSource works for just about everything.

    Get it from http://code.google.com/p/ffmpegsource/
    Install the files in the Avisynth plugins folder.

    Then load the file using
    FFmpegSource2("whatever.avi",atrack=-1,fpsnum=-1,fpsden=1)
    -- it will take a minute to create an index the first time you call it, so be patient. After that it will be much more responsive.
    Last edited by AlanHK; 11th Oct 2011 at 10:28.
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    Originally Posted by magillagorilla View Post
    AVISource does not work. I get an error that the DV codec cannot be found.

    ... I know, Install a codec right? But which one and is that even the problem? I can play the files in all my players with no issues.
    AVISource requires a VfW codec - I recommend Cedocida.

    One drawback is that AviSource cannot process the audio of Type 1 DV files.
    If you want audio, you will have to load it separately with DirectShowSource or FFAudioSource - in the latter case, you might as well just use FFmpegSource2 for the whole thing, as AlanHK suggests.
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  4. Is there any noticable difference between FFmpegSource2 and AVISource? I have hundreds of clips but they are all home movies. Quality is at the top of my list but keeping it fairly simple is up on the list too.

    My process is AVISynth>VDUB>huffyUV avi then off to Sony Vegas for final levels, color corection and encode to h.264

    I could always just remux the audio in Vegas if using AVISource looks substantially better. I fear synch issues though. I am deinterlaceing my footage but keeping both fields for a resulting 59.94fps video.
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    Originally Posted by magillagorilla View Post
    Is there any noticable difference between FFmpegSource2 and AVISource? I have hundreds of clips but they are all home movies. Quality is at the top of my list but keeping it fairly simple is up on the list too.
    I have always used AVISource with the Cedocida codec and it gives me good results.
    FFmpegSource2 will use FFmpeg's DV decoder - I don't know how good this is, but it is unlikely to be better than Cedocida.

    I could always just remux the audio in Vegas if using AVISource looks substantially better. I fear synch issues though.
    If using AviSource, you can still load the audio into Avisynth via another source filter and combine the two with AudioDub(). It's two extra steps, but they're very simple ones.
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  6. Member 2Bdecided's Avatar
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    Cedocida is excellent, and has been shown to beat the commercial DV codecs - see the threads at doom9. Not sure about FFmpeg.

    Unless you captured to type 1 files, AVIsource is less complicated than ffmpegsource2.

    Cheers,
    David.
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  7. I haven't tried anything yet. I think I'm going to try the Cedocida rout. What's the issue with audio? Does AVISynth have a problem with the 32k sample rate?

    2BD you said "you can still load the audio into Avisynth via another source filter"

    Do you have an example on how to do this?

    I'm almost done restoring my VHSC footage, the miniDV is next. I'm just trying to be prepaired. Hi-8 will be the next block of footage. I may actually be done with all this in 2012.
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  8. Member 2Bdecided's Avatar
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    I've never had any problem DV using AVIsource - 32kHz included. Gavino said it couldn't cope with type-1 DV-AVIs. I wouldn't know - I always transfer DV and type 2.

    If you want/need to important video and audio separately, you do it like this...

    video=whateversource("video.avi")
    audio=adifferentsource("audio.wav")
    audiodub(video,audio)

    Anyway, I wouldn't try to invent problems until you've tried it. Working with DV-AVI is about the most basic thing you can do.

    Cheers,
    David.
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  9. OK, it was a "duh" moment. I just needed a compatible codec. Cedocida works swimmingly. The audio also works normally in AVISynth.

    This is my first run on cleaning up miniDV.

    Right now my script is converting to YUV. Is that an OK color space for miniDV or should I stick with RGB? I'm coming out of working on VHS for the past few years. I need to switch gears to DV footage. Any general tips or suggestions on AVISynth/VDUB filters that work particularly well on DV footage would be appreciated. I am deinterlaceing and cleaning up some noise, grain and chroma noise. Nothing too fancy.
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  10. Member 2Bdecided's Avatar
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    Glad it works.

    "stick with RGB"? - RGB is to be avoided unless really needed (e.g. colour correction that works best in RGB). YUV is fine, but some of the best AVIsynth filters are YV12 only. Which is fine, because so is all DVD, and most commonly used x264. There's a setting for YV12 pixel placement in cedocida, because PAL DV uses YV12 differently. Set it for MPEG for use with anything else, or just take the YUV output and convert it in AVIsynth.

    If it's really noisy chroma then camcorder color denoise, neat video, or one of the many AVIsynth denoise plug-ins (mc temporal denoise is good) is a good place to start. I've never found anything really effective with my worst camcorder footage, but that says a lot about my old DV camcorder. More noise than chroma in low light.

    Cheers,
    David.
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  11. OK, so I have been using YV12. I find that all I need in AVISynth is the QTGMC deinterlacer. VDUB camcorder color denoise and the DFN noise reduction is working very well. Maybe a median filter for big chuncks. My footage is in pretty good shape and is deinterlaceing verry impressively. Then the final stage is Vegas for gain, levels, and a bit of sharpening.

    This is all shot using a 2nd gen Canon miniDV, I don't remember the model anymore. I capped this stuff years ago. It's incredibly grainy but there is minimal blocking, so smart smoothers are working very well. In low light the chroma rolls off quickly. Heck, it looks way better than the VHS footage I've been working at for years.
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