capturing Buffy and Angel, best settings????

[nick101181]

Shows like Buffy and Angel that are very dark and have a lot of night scenes, what settings do you use? I mean the brightness,contrast,hue,saturation, etc? . I used the picvideo mjpeg codec at 18 and capturing at 480x480. Then i use the filters in this order prior to frameserving: Field swap,2d cleaner (check interlaced video, then 145 for threshold for blending),then deinterlace-area based (blend instead of interpolate-checked,45 for threshold,60 for edge detect.) Then frameserve and encode in TMPGenc using the SeVCd template(automatic vbr at 100). I also convert them to widescreen during(since I perfer widescreen).So can anyone share what settings they use for making Buffy/Angel svcd/vcd/sevcd ?? I know a few people here have said they encode Buffy episodes. I have also heard that using CCE and making a 3-pass vbr at 300 min/2200 avg/2450 max produce very nice results. So any thoughts or suggestions? I am using a wintv go pci card and vdub v1.4 with a 800 mhrtz PC with 256 mb of ram.

[N0SoopForU]

Well, the image adjustment settings will vary from person to person; not all cable signals are equal.

Also, why are you using the fild swap filter? Your capture card should be putting them in the right order.

I don't capture Buffy or Angel, but when I capture live action shows like X-Files, I try to keep noise reduction at a minimum. Live action is much more sensitive to noise reduction than animation and using too much of it can smear facial tones, making the final product look bad. Personally, I usually only use the temporal smoother(seperate download) in Virtual Dub. This does a good job of wiping out any random high-frequency noise while still retaining detail. Temporal Cleaner is also pretty good.

Here are the filters I use for live action:

Brightness/Contrast (settings vary)
Deinterlace - area based (interpolate)(only if I'm not making an SVCD)
Temporal Smoother (6)

I then clean up the audio (normalize, remove hiss) in Cool Edit and encode it with toolame. I then frameserve the video from Virtual Dub to TMPGEnc and encode at CQ 100 (essentially CBR) or 2-Pass VBR (2520, 2300, 0). I then mux the audio and video streams together with BBMpeg.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: N0SoopForU on 2001-12-04 21:18:37 ]</font>

[vhelp]

nick101181,

Personally, I don't like those two show - create the impressions
that killing is ok, even if its the Bad Guys.

Anywasy, what I use is for allmy caps is less color - I think it's
called HUE or SATuration. ...or too much color. I like less color
richness, and my encodes come out better, IMO.

I don't know why you like watching these two crummy shows.
But, that Sarah is attrative. Had a slight crush on her when she
was on All My Children (AMC) some 5 or 10 years ago. Anybody
else remember??? Anywyas, she is attractive, I'll give you that.
As for the red head, these guffy, gorhky and airy, but cute
none-the-less. he, he....

Oh, yeah, back to your encoding stuff. . . give my suggestion
a try and see what you come up with.

---------------------------------------------
Sample Clips . . .revised web site

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vhelp on 2001-12-04 21:43:05 ]</font>

[amRayu]

hi,
i capture buffy/angel also, anyways...my card is a matrox marvel g400.
the colors are dark in both shows, so what ive been doing is setting the brightness around 58% and the saturation very high (so the colors are clear). the resulting mpeg is very clear and bright in color and looks very sharp.
if you want to trade clips of these shows and compare, just email me. amrayu@hotmail.com

[Macros746]

I too am trying to archive the Buffy/Angel series. So far, I have been unable to get really great quality. But I bought a 'signal booster' yesturday from Radio Shack that has definitely helped the picture quality. I will try your settings amRayu. Are you converting, in the end, to VCD, SVCD or Divx? ALso HOW are you converting to widescreen without messing up the proportions? I think I'd like to do this as well as the bitrates in VCDs seem to look better in Widescreen format.

Anyone else with pet settings?

Mark

[nick101181]

What I do in TMPGenc is make sure under setting, under the video tab have 4:3 525 NTSC. Now under the advanced tab make sure source aspect ratio is 16:9 525 NTSC, then for video arrange method select - Full screen (keep aspect ratio 2). I usually clip the frame a tiny bit at the top and bottom, since you get that clear line sometimes from vhs tapes. I made SeVCD's of the episodes " Dopplegangland" and "5x5" and they came out sharp and crisp and crystal clear. They are still dark, but about as dark as the show normally is. They look as good as the region 2 season 1 dvd boxset I was very impressed with the quality.

[Kyle]

Is the wintv go pci card is good for capturing 480x480 video? Would you recommend it and how much is it?

[nick101181]

It's a pretty good card. When capturing at 480x480 you need to turn the overlay off. IT was 50 dollars at office Max and it had a 10.00 mail in rebate

[Kyle]

Any blockiness or any other problems?

(i'm a newbie at tv capturing and am still learning the terms)

It seems like it would be something I would like to buy (or get as a present ) so far.

[nick101181]

Well no not really any blockiness. The blockiness depends on how you capture and encode it. If you use a good codec and the proper encoding settings, you can eliminate most blocks from the pic. Most of the stuff I put on cd-r's are tv shows. The average 1 hour show is 42 to 46 mins without commercials. So you can jack up the quality and make it take up a whole 80 min cd-r to get rid of blocks

[Kyle]

Thanks for your help!

[amRayu]

nick~
saw the files that you sent me, but hotmail doesnt let me download them since its over the maximum file storage.
if you could send half of the files to this email address, then i could download them (amrayu@yahoo.com).
anyways, ive been capping buffy/angel since season 4 (on the WB). for the past episodes where do you guys cap from? (im planning on capping them from my collection of officially PAL released buffy/angel tapes).