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  1. sanlyn, you're incredibly persevering
    I'm so grateful for everything you did on this video!!

    While you're trying new tweaks, I'm testing each step of your script. The thing that makes me curious is RemoveDirt().. I compared carefully but I can't see its contribution Please check the following frames:

    before:
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    after:
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    This picture is so bad that I would record it to VHS and than filter it in hardware. You can also make it in B&W, that sometimes helps on horrible videos.

    The 640x480 is another sign for me on a crap video.....Maybe it is just me.....

    You can more than likely find a better quality recording of this video somewhere else.

    Yea I would be interested in finding out how to fix these motions problems. Downloaded a few FLV files from the NET of super rare recordings.

    Was going to restore them, because they are rare. Did a few of them with ok results.

    TWO recordings had major motion problems.

    As you know FLV files pretty much suck.

    A few of them have random moving digital pixels (which is really bad compression), one of them is so bad, that I can't fix it.

    Because the quality of these videos suck so much, pretty much do this backwards and re-record many of the videos using hardware and hardware filters to fix some of the problems.

    The audio for the most part is terrible. Actually created an audio adjustment for these junk FLV files.

    Back to the motion problem:
    For the life of me, could never figure it out. It is kind of weird, cause on the PC, you can watch them ok, but on the TV, it is point blank horrible. Tried everything from progressive video to changing the frame rates, to merging frames to whatever, nothing worked. The two videos are PAL recordings, it really doesn't matter, cause who ever created the online video had no clue what they were doing and wrecked the motion on the video.

    ALRIGHT I WILL HAVE A GO AT THIS VIDEO, I AM DOING IT MY WAY AND HOW I SEE FIT IT WILL BE IN B&W, AND I AM NOT RESTORING THE SOUND ON IT. HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE UNDER 100 MEGS SO I CAN UPLOAD THE FULL VIDEO.

    EDIT: IT IS A 5 MINUTE VIDEO NO WAY IT WILL BE UNDER 100 MEGS, NO IDEA HOW TO DO THIS, CAN SPLICE THE VIDEO UP & YOU COULD PUT IT BACK TOGETHER....GRANTED YOU HAVE TO RE-CODE IT BUT WHATEVER.....OR I CAN UPLOAD IT AS A WINDOWS MEDIA FILE.....
    Last edited by Deter; 21st Mar 2012 at 23:56.
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    Ok whatever can't upload the NEW video cause the file is too big, had to create a YOUTUBE account. On a side note kind of ticked at YOUTUBE couldn't create a custom name for the channel. Was going to do like a Video Help YOUTUBE channel. Anyway, I recorded the video to VHS and decided to work from that. To me it got rid of many of the un-natural artifacts in the video. The quality of this video is never going to be good cause the source was horrible. This was what I was able to do with the video, not going to waste any more time on it. Also cause I thought the colour was terrible converted it to a B&W video.

    Not really sure what you guys meant about motion problems. In the video I saw one of the sections was edited with a crossfade which creates a weird motion and a in a few other sections it looks to have dropped frames. That was my take on it.

    Please note cause we are using YOUTUBE compression on an already bad video, please watch this in 720p. The reason why it was upconverted was to get slightly better compression.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_k__WpfzVc
    Last edited by Deter; 22nd Mar 2012 at 11:05.
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    Originally Posted by mathmax View Post
    While you're trying new tweaks, I'm testing each step of your script. The thing that makes me curious is RemoveDirt().. I compared carefully but I can't see its contribution Please check the following frames:
    Be careful about comparing subtle detail with the lossy compression in jpeg images. Use PNG, which is lossless. The jpeg images have artifacts that aren't in the video.

    RemoveDirt is being used to address noise issues, not grain or sharpening. It also does a little work on chroma noise, which you can see on the music stands (red blotches on black). In the first image below ("With_RD") what RemoveDirt is doing isn't very apparent from still images, which can't be used effectively to analyze what motion-block processing is doing. I'm looking at various mode switches in RD to see what will happen on motion, but it is doing some cleanup as-is. These images are PNG's made from the latest effort before NeatVideo (it's Step2, folks) and without a couple of small plugins I'm trying from the anime world. The best way to compare very similar images is to mount them in Photoshop or PaintShopPro (or some graphics app that uses layers and will let you turn layers on and off to see the differences), and enlarge them with bucubic resize (do NOT use "Zoom" controls). But you can click on them to enlarge slightly in the forum, then click the back and forward buttons. In the capture that uses RD, the music stands look cleaner and some of the blotches are smoothed.

    If anything, RemoveDirt softens a bit (look at the fine mesh in the microphone). That's easy enough to fix. Watch the moving video to see what happens to noise. In the scene that follows this one, look at the music stands, the components against the wall in the background, shadows in MJ's hair and jacket.

    With Remove Dirt:
    Image
    [Attachment 11546 - Click to enlarge]


    Without RemoveDirt:
    Image
    [Attachment 11547 - Click to enlarge]


    You're right. Not much difference in the stills. No motion.

    I just spent a few hours using various forms of QTGMC. By golly, the darn thing just doesn't do what we want. Sharper image, but it creates block noise and motion artifacts where there was none before (I used QTGMC(inputtype=2). After all the trouble I went through to smooth some of that stuff, QTGMC puts half of it back.

    Oh, well...still making progress, though.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:05.
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    Sanlyn,

    You asked if I would give this a go. Did you watch the video I posted above? The picture quality on this video is terrible only so much you could do, plus it was recorded on someone's home camera. Worst of all it is an internet file. Didn't use any filters or Remove Dirt, just recorded it to VHS and it cleaned up some of the digital destruction done to this video. The pixelation to the colour is just flat out terrible. One thing I learned from Lord Smurf, you need to capture the video using the best possible hardware, if it is not done somewhat correct the video is destroyed. This took 20 minutes of actual work to do. I deal with tons of videos and you need to decide weather or not it is a good idea to waste time on it. Something like this video is a waste of time, cause it is never going to be good. The video I did above is more than acceptable considering the source quality. Yes I did make it B&W but the colour sucked on this video.
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    Hiya, deter. You caught me on my dinner break.

    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    Sanlyn,

    You asked if I would give this a go.
    Well, it was an open invitation to anyone interested. 20 minutes is a "go"? I don't blame you, though. The video's a mess.

    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    Did you watch the video I posted above?
    Yes. Did you see mine? It's on post #68.

    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    The picture quality on this video is terrible
    For sure.

    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    only so much you could do, plus it was recorded on someone's home camera.
    Auto exposure cameras and zoom lenses in the hands of amateurs are the pits. I have no ambitions that this will ever look like DVD. Or even like the original DV, for that matter. The source isn't a capture, it's a poorly studio-processed crime against a simple home-made video.

    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    Didn't use any filters or Remove Dirt, just recorded it to VHS
    I noticed that.

    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    and it cleaned up some of the digital destruction done to this video.

    ? I don't know what that statement means. I could do the same thing in VirtualDub with two or three plugins.

    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    the colour is just flat out terrible.

    It was shot totally in available light. A pro wouldn't have done it that way. I think we made some serious improvement with the color and levels.
    But, yes, the idiot photog burned up the highlights. We can save a few of those. Well, I shouldn't use the word idiot. The kid who made it seems to have an eye for interesting shots, and some of them are kinda cool. Needs to learn something about exposure, though. I learned, but that was part of my M.A. in film production.

    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    One thing I learned from Lord Smurf, you need to capture the video using the best possible hardware, if it is not done somewhat correct the video is destroyed.

    You mean, like recording badly compressed and damaged m4v DivX/UTC to even lower resolution on a VCR?
    I have a great and long-lasting admiration for LS. I doubt he'd recommend that technique. But I agree with him, and with you: the clip is mishandled muck that most people would ignore.

    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    This took 20 minutes of actual work to do. I deal with tons of videos and you need to decide weather or not it is a good idea to waste time on it. Something like this video is a waste of time, cause it is never going to be good. The video I did above is more than acceptable considering the source quality. Yes I did make it B&W but the colour sucked on this video.
    Made the color look decent on mine, but it'll get better. Color is one of those basic elements of restoration that takes work, which is probably why most people disregard it. Someone made an earlier version near the beginning of this thread (I think it was themaster1 ? ?). I find his more acceptable, although his is less than a minute. I'm working for something in-between his and simply denuding it. You're right, the clip will never look great. It will look "eh!", if that much. It's a home movie shot on the fly and that's what it ought to look like, minus as much murk and distortion as possible. So far, the thick low-level grit is gone and most of the wiggling and smearing are tamed -- except those first couple of shots, where someone's kamikaze processing is a brute lesson in how not to treat a video, not even a badly home-made webcam job. Levels look much better, chroma noise and jaggies are reduced, and objects don't float in space as much. In a day or two I'll post version #3. By that point I'll likely have used up my bag of tricks on this thing (but I'll keep it around, because I intend to learn more). Will encode this 23.97 fps 640x480 misbegotten puppy as telecined 720x480 29.97 fps DVD. Or the owner can download it and format as desired. I'll list this with my last big VHS project, on which I spent 16 months (documented elsewhere in this forum), and a new one I hope will be ready this Fall.

    But thanks for taking a shot and sharing your video. Gotta get back to my research in doom9 concerning this video. Have you considered getting a download account at an online site? I'm in my 3rd year at 4shared, the service is good and it's not expensive.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:05.
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    Yes Lord Smurf has said in his forums he has used that method before. You don't do it all the time. A few years ago, got in a rare recording from a crapy VCR on a crapy DVD recorder. It was also recorded in 4 hour mode. The picture was a nightmare and had a lot of "digital destruction". The Macro Blocking was really bad also. Was like what the hell am I going to do with this.

    Found using some of my hardware as a passthrough was able to alter or fix the picture a tad. Now having some pretty nice VCR's decided to try re-recording the video back to VHS. Played back the DVD and sent the picture through a Time Based Corrector. Recorded in SVHS mode in SP on a JVC deck.

    It was able to clean up the video enough and not have it look like something fake. However it tends to dull some of the detail a bit. Sometimes with horrible videos bluring the problems helps.

    Because VHS is analog it got rid of all the MACRO BLOCKING. Than took the video again and played it back on a high end VCR and ran the picture through filters. Was able to rid myself of a lot of the problems with the video. This video turned out really well.

    Started messing around with this method to restore some FLV files. However was able to get better results just using hardware and re-cording it again in digital. However it depends on the recording. In some cases the VHS re-record looked a lot better.

    This Michael Jackson video is terribe, so the results are going to be blah...Last night when I was testing this out it looked better on VHS.

    As far as re-colouring video, last year did like 30 recordings from the 1960ties it was a nightmare. The videos had way too much red....

    Have an FTP server that I use but not posting it in a public forum......
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    I should have an improved version by, say, Saturday eve or Sunday. Not a quantum leap, but improved. And a few tweaks of the script.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:04.
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    I hate to say it, gang, but we had a power failure in my neighborhood for 7 hours due to high winds out in the county. That's one of the hazards of living near a small body of water called the Atlantic Ocean. No power until an hour ago. I went to a friend's house to use their laptop and get on the 'net, but fell seriously behind on this project. Oh, well...will be at it tomorrow.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:04.
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    Running off examples some samples now. Saints, what an experience ! I've spent so much time with QTGMC (supposed to rebuild damaged damaged interlaced and/or progressive video, for what that's worth). I ran QTGMC, the existing filters, so0me new ones, etc., in more configuartions than I can number. Used up 47-GB of disk space doing it.

    My experience with QTGMC on this video is that no matter how you set it up, you lose more than you gain. I have to agree with an earlier assessment: this video began life as interlaced DV. Somewhere along the line someone tried to make it progressive, apparently by removing half its frames (!). The more you fiddle with this creature, the more it looks as such. This means that 50% of the original video data has disappeared. Further, it means that the remaining YV12 pixels, rather than 2 to 4 pixels apart, are now 4 to 8 pixels apart. I've even run plugins that use mvtools and set the mvtools search parameters to 4 and 8 pixels apart (the default search is 2 in each direction). The result is a blurry mess. I'd prefer to keep much of the noise; at least you can recognize all the objects.

    I learned many things, one of which will prove handy in the future. By default, QTGMC uses NEEDI3 to deinterlace. I've never liked that plugin. The result with this video is that QTGMC relieves a few artifacts but creates many more -- and did nothing to relieve the shimmer it's supposed to address. However, I did find that one can substitute a few other deinterlacers. The best turned out to be yadif. You use yadif with this statement (here, used for progressive video):
    Code:
    AssumeBFF()
    QTGMC(InputType=2,EdiMode="RepYadif")
    According to QTGMC's doc, that's yadif repair mode. This mode didn't do what I wanted, but it inflicted less damage than NEEDI3 or others. On a decent piece of video beyond this one, it did some nice work. But not only does this video have too much garbage to begin with (run this QTGMC mode after all the other plugins), there is just to much information missing from the original video. QTGMC tries to interpolate new pixels from old, but the old ones are too few and far between. You get two effects: in some areas there is smearing where there was none before, in others everything looks overcooked, with clown face effects, saturation loss, false contouring - really, it looks strange.

    I'm sticking with the old filters, but I reversed order on some of them and ran TemporalDegrain first. Better detail than before. And I used SmoothLevels this time. Running scripts on and off all day today, and will post some samples. I can't say it will be so much "better". Just "different".
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:04.
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  11. I'm looking forward to see your new version sanlyn

    I agree that QTGMC() might also cause the cartoon unnatural effect.. and anyway you could get rid of the combing artifacts with other filters.. But did you think of using more simple deinterlacers like TDint()? Although we'd still have the loss of information due to interpolation..

    So you think they removed a field to make the video progressive? Why would that make the YV12 pixels apart from 4 to 8? Are you talking about the fact that in YV12, a pixel carries the chroma information for its neighbor? But to remove one field shouldn't mess the chroma samples since they are assigned one line over two on interlaced content... Not sure what you meant here though..

    I'll check the contribution of removedirt on motion, looking carefully at the details you mentioned. But on still, I agree that there is not much different.. to tell the truth, I have to stick my nose to the screen to see the differences.. so I think such improvement is meaningless.

    I had a look at smoothlevels and I wondered why you used the parameters : TVrange = false, Lmode=1, brightSTR=1,DarkSTR=5. Could you elaborate?

    I'm also curious to see your settings for the colors on each scene. When they are on the room in front of the mic, the colors really look dull. What you did so far was above my expectations and I'm so glad you didn't drop the video just because it was so bad. I think that it's on poor sources that we can make the best improvements!
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    Originally Posted by mathmax View Post
    I'm looking forward to see your new version sanlyn
    Oh, muy. Well, it's really more of a tweak. AFter all that crazy experimentation I ended upo with pretty much the same filters and sequence, but with a few tweaked settings and color refinements. I did manage to clean up more junk, but at the expense of trying to look at a denuded clip that approaches "foggy anime".

    Originally Posted by mathmax View Post
    I agree that QTGMC() might also cause the cartoon unnatural effect.. and anyway you could get rid of the combing artifacts with other filters.. But did you think of using more simple deinterlacers like TDint()? Although we'd still have the loss of information due to interpolation..
    I tried more variations and deinterlacers that I remember. Got into obscure QTGMC settings that either had no effect, had awful effects, or froze my system. TDeint removed all fine detail but did nothing for shimmer or wiggles. I also tried QTGMC with various deinterlacers on sequence eaqrly, midstream, and after VirtualkDUb. Running QTGMC as the initial step is futile; too much garbage for QTGMC to deal with. All it did was smear the garbage. Midstream was a little better but just a little, and still with new artifacts. Running after all other cleanup was a waste of time and drive space. After a few days all I had was 30-GB of video I didn't want.

    Originally Posted by mathmax View Post
    So you think they removed a field to make the video progressive? Why would that make the YV12 pixels apart from 4 to 8? Are you talking about the fact that in YV12, a pixel carries the chroma information for its neighbor? But to remove one field shouldn't mess the chroma samples since they are assigned one line over two on interlaced content... Not sure what you meant here though..
    Think about it. Field removal was suggested earlier by those I know to be knowledgeable about video effects. Originally, according to the way the website described the source, the video was YV12 interlaced. It certainly isn't interlaced in m4v. Little evidence of blending, but lots of jaggies that look like those in fields incorrectly deinterlaced and/or after separating fields. Interlaced YV12 data is 4:2:0 structure. If you separate fields, each set of fields has 50% of the original data. Data Pixels that were originally 1 to 2 pixels apart are, in each set of fields, effectively twice that disatance. If you discard one set of fields, you discard half the data. Further, the remaining video is not 640x480, but is half-height 640x240. Resize it vertically, and pixels that were originally 1 to 2 pixels apart have gone farther apart after resizing. To this, add low-bitrate compression and apparently bad transcoding between codecs and structures, and you have this mess.

    That gritty grain must have been added. I can't imagine what would possibly have placed that awful grain in there, other than software designed to do it.

    Originally Posted by mathmax View Post
    I'll check the contribution of removedirt on motion, looking carefully at the details you mentioned. But on still, I agree that there is not much different.. to tell the truth, I have to stick my nose to the screen to see the differences.. so I think such improvement is meaningless.
    I left it in, but ran it last, before NeatVideo, and decided MergeChromas did less than I wanted. The idea was to improve color depth and reduce chroma noise in shadows, but removing MergeChroma accomplished the same thing in this case. I didn't want "hard" sharpening on luma, but also in this case it made no difference without MergeChroma. I incra4esed RemoveDirt's strength, which sharpened some areas a bit more than I wanted but also removed bigger clumps of simmering grain without affecting detail.

    Originally Posted by mathmax View Post
    I had a look at smoothlevels and I wondered why you used the parameters : TVrange = false, Lmode=1, brightSTR=1,DarkSTR=5. Could you elaborate?
    The other values set in addition to those you show were also meaningful. By default, SmoothLevels with a specified 16-235 range will clip at the dark and light ends. Clipping means to use a sharp cutoff point within a specified range (usually at RGB 16 and 235). Values outside that range are converted; anything below RGB 16 becomes RGB 16 (i.e, like a "coring" filter), and anything above RGB 235 is converted to 235. Effectively this discards the original data. You end up with hard no-detail shadows and discolored no-detail highlights. Using various modes and other settings, SmoothLevels makes transitions at the extremes more gradual. Rather than clip values, algorithms are used to change values without clipping them off. Gamma was used to move gamma down a bit, as this video has thin upper darks and many upper midtones look unnaturally bright. I did find that combined with other settings, making TV_range true or false made no difference. By itself, TV_Range used alone will clip.

    I used settings I found suitable for both the darkest and brightest parts of all the scenes in the video. Some shots could later be modified as circumstances dictate. But once data is lost in the most extreme shots, it's lost forever.

    Originally Posted by mathmax View Post
    I'm also curious to see your settings for the colors on each scene. When they are on the room in front of the mic, the colors really look dull. What you did so far was above my expectations and I'm so glad you didn't drop the video just because it was so bad. I think that it's on poor sources that we can make the best improvements!
    The scenes you mention were shot through several layers of glass. You can see reflections from layer to layer in the shot. Were it not for the yellowish tungsten lights on the music stands, those shots would have more blue. Increasing contrast too much makes those shots look weird, because detail is fogged by reflections inside the glass. when you shoot through glass you lose contrast, saturation, and detail. That's one way of saying that unless you take special measures in such shots with lights, reflectors, filters, polarizers, and other physical means, such imagea will always look like images shot through layers of glass.

    I tweaked the colors a bit. I had to anyway because replacing the former ColorYUV() with SmoothLevels changed some of the colors and levels, especially at the extremes.

    I agree: you can't learn much from pristine video that requires little or no effort.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:04.
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    Originally Posted by sanlyn View Post
    If you separate fields, each set of fields has 50% of the original data. Data Pixels that were originally 1 to 2 pixels apart are, in each set of fields, effectively twice that disatance.
    Perhaps I misunderstand you, but surely after separating the fields, pixel distances are halved, not doubled?
    Pixels that were two lines apart are now on adjacent lines.
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  14. Thank you for your answer.

    Earlier in the thread, you said that 16-235 was for DVD standard and out of this range, colors would look saturated and washed out on TV screens...
    I just wonder that now because I'm not going to put this file on DVD and it'll only be played on PC. So maybe it would be ok to let the video in a 0-255 range..

    It's still not very clear in my mind in which cases I should work between 0-255 or 16-235..

    I have to leave my PC soon so I couldn't observe and think deeply about the field removal issue.. I'll look at it later today.
    Last edited by mathmax; 29th Mar 2012 at 06:24.
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  15. All digital video should be Y=16-235, RGB=0-256.
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    True. I found SmoothLevels helped keep some of the burned-out highlights under control in several badly-exposed shots. No way to recover completley, auto-exposure and subsequent processing of the original didn't help matters.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:03.
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    After pruning unacceptable versions from my hard drive (there were lots of 'em), I'm down to 11 complete plays of this video. Sat at the PC for 2 hours last nite trying to decide among the least-worst of them. The most viewable seem to be those that those with fewer and weaker filters. None of the QTGMC versions are among these.

    I'm repairing two PC's for most of today. Will have something posted some time over the weekend.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:03.
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    This is why my 20 minute work on this project is the answer. You have spent like the last month on this project. Is it really worth it? You can only do so much with a crapy FLV file.

    Deter
    Last edited by Deter; 30th Mar 2012 at 10:32.
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    Originally Posted by Deter View Post
    Because VHS is analog it got rid of all the MACRO BLOCKING.
    No, because VHS has a low luma bandwidth it blurred away most of the macroblocking!

    There are perfectly good filters to remove macroblocking without resorting to VHS. You could add the same blur as VHS digitally (maybe similar noise too?).

    And, of course, there are better quality analogue formats than VHS (pro and semi-pro ones) that would preserve bad macroblocking perfectly well.


    But it's an interesting approach. I hope I never have a source so bad that I feel the need to try it though!

    Cheers,
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    AT this point I think it's as viewable as I can get it, without knowing a lot more about very sophisticated masking and motion tracking techniques. Oh, well, that's why I have 93 Avisynth plugins and a new copy of After Effects Pro -- the latter, I better get to work learning how to use. It cost far too much to have it just sit idle on my PC! Will touch up color and stuff tonight and tomorrow. . . .
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:03.
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  21. Hi Sanlyn

    I just go back to your previous post. Thank you for taking the time to explain in detail.

    Midstream was a little better but just a little, and still with new artifacts.
    what is midstream? A deinterlacing filter? I don't know it..

    About Smoothlevels, you said TV_range made no difference if it's true or false... but the parameter has a meaning? What about the other parameters: TVrange = false, Lmode=1, brightSTR=1,DarkSTR=5 ?

    In which case do we leave a final video to RGB 0-256?

    Looking forward to see your new version..
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    Originally Posted by mathmax View Post

    Midstream was a little better but just a little, and still with new artifacts.
    what is midstream? A deinterlacing filter? I don't know it..
    Oops. Confusing choice of words on my part. By "midstream" I mean halfway, or in-between one of the major steps instead of beginning or end. My fault.

    Originally Posted by mathmax View Post
    About Smoothlevels, you said TV_range made no difference if it's true or false... but the parameter has a meaning? What about the other parameters: TVrange = false, Lmode=1, brightSTR=1,DarkSTR=5 ?

    In which case do we leave a final video to RGB 0-256?
    Most TV's reproduce the color range as RGB 16-240. Objects outside that range on tv will look a little weird; below-16 would display on most tv's as heavy blacks void of detail, and 240-255 looks burned-out on most tv's.

    I said TVrange made no difference in that particular case because of the other settings used. The various settings for SmoothLevels are detailed in the doc that come with the plugin (attached below).

    As usual on weekends, wife and family have monopolized most of my time (and the power outage last week didn't help). Working on color now and have a few scenes done. I have the house all to myself tomorrow, so I'll make progress 500% faster.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:02.
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  23. Originally Posted by sanlyn View Post
    Most TV's reproduce the color range as RGB 16-240. Objects outside that range on tv will look a little weird; below-16 would display on most tv's as heavy blacks void of detail, and 240-255 looks burned-out on most tv's.
    A properly set up TV can properly display RGB 0-256. It's Y that's limited to 16-235, and U/V limited to 16-240. And not all combinations of those are legal.
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    Understood, jagabo. I'm trying to avoid facial burn-out on some of the shots due to in-camera exposure (or bad processing somewhere). Can always modify the color/levels later, but bright red on some of these shots is outta sight.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:02.
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    Working on color, but have a PC client today. Never fear -- be back soon.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:02.
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    After several delays, almost finished with a new post. But . . .

    Working on the shots that were made thru several glass panels. Shooting thru glass -- especially when the objects seen thru the glass are lighted much brighter than the lighting in one's shooting position -- you tend to ignore reflections on the panels themselves. Shooting thru glass with high-magnification zooms also involves in-lens astigmatism and more reflections. These problems start showing up when you correct levels and color (zoom lens astigmatism can't be fixed, so detail gets soft. No cure for that, except to pay 3X more for anastigmatic lenses). Those reflections show up as blue or green smudges in some shots. Working on that now. Pain in the neck.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:01.
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    Glad I let it bake overnight. A couple of shots need color work. This one is still a toughie, but It's getting there:
    Top: Scene 4, original video
    Middle: After denoise and SmoothLevels.
    Bottom: Today

    Image
    [Attachment 11830 - Click to enlarge]


    Image
    [Attachment 11831 - Click to enlarge]


    Image
    [Attachment 11832 - Click to enlarge]


    Yes, the middle and bottom are different. It's in the way the scene displays.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:01.
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    Okay, it's been a long haul . Many interruptions, including the Easter bunny. The result isn't a quantum improvement, but it's...well, an improvement but not of quantum class. At least most of the horrible grainy gunk is gone.

    Click image for larger version

Name:	old_new.png
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ID:	11870

    version 8 preview (NTSC MPEG2 AC3, 127-MB, 2-min 44-sec) 23.976 fps progressive - Not DVD compliant.

    The Whole Thing (NTSC MPEG2 AC3, 262-MB, 5-min 38-sec) 23.976 fps progressive - Not DVD compliant.

    The scripts are in 3 steps. I used 3 scripts to avoid freezing-up my pitiful 2.4GHz PC. Steps 1 & 2 are saved as YV12. Step 3 is simply a conversion to RGB24 for VirtualDub and NeatVideo. NeatVideo used mostly as a temporal filter. RemoveDirt() not used, but I think I should have kept it in anyway for some green chroma noise. I ran NeatVideo (Step 3) by itself. There's really a "Step 4" for the color filters.

    The video has 20 scenes, each color-fixed individually in VirtualDub. How you break up the AVI into 20 scenes is up to you. I used Avisynth and Trim(). Each scene was encoded to MPEG with TMPGenc Plus 2.5, which allows me to cut each AVI so that the first frame in each scene is a key frame, with some 30 frames of the foloowing scene retained for audio sync with the next shot. The scenes were assembled into one continuous video with TMPGenc MPEG Editor v3. How you want to arrange this edit/join is up to you, but TMPGenc made it very easy assemble the 20 MPEG's.

    Scenes 3 and 4 were joined with a dissolve in Avisynth. If you start counting frames from frame 0 in scene 3, the dissolve begins at frame 391. My version of Scenes 3 and 4 had extra frames, but basically the trick is to trim Scene 3 from frame 381 + 50 extra frames. Trim Scene 4 from the frame that starts the dissolve. The dissolve is 50 frames (about 2 seconds). Here is the script I used. You'll have to fiddle with the frame numbers. I used an Excel spreadsheet to figure it out. In a folder called sc3_4 I joined scene 3 and scene 4 = "sc3_4":

    Code:
    sc3c=AviSOurce("J:\forum\AllIn\post8\sc3_4\sc3.avi").Trim(0,-465)  # <- second number is negative so the trim will include frame 0)
    sc4=AviSource("J:\forum\AllIn\post8\sc3_4\sc4.avi").Trim(28,0)
    Sc3_4=Dissolve(sc3,sc4,50)
    Return sc3_4
    The attachments include a .zip with NeatVideo .dnp and .nfp files and VirtualDUb .vcf for all 20 scenes. There is no scene 13. Another .zip has the avs scripts.

    Later I'll make a 3:2 pulldown 29.97fps version -- Which means I'll have to join all these AVi's in Avisynth to avoid interrupting the 3:2 pulldown sequence. Gimme a little time on that.

    Still not satisfied. Check back in a few weeks after I learn more about mvtools and masktools.
    Image Attached Files
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 17:00. Reason: Trim statement modified
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    Originally Posted by sanlyn View Post
    Code:
    sc3c=AviSource(...).Trim(0,-465)  # <- second number is negative so the trim will include frame 0)
    ...
    Not sure what your comment means, since frame 0 would be included regardless of 2nd number being positive or negative.
    Trim(0,-465) is the same as Trim(0,464).

    Perhaps you're thinking of the need to use Trim(0,-1) instead of Trim(0,0) to get the first frame, since 0 has a special meaning for the second number.
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    Yes. Old script style I've used for some time. You're correct, either statement does the same thing concerning frame 0. Old habits are hard to break. I'll update.
    Last edited by sanlyn; 21st Mar 2014 at 16:58.
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