Filter Editor- DVDRebuilder

[fritzi93]

I'm curious whether many folks here use the Filter Editor in DVDRebuilder. More particularly, the hobbyists and duffers like me, rather than the pros.

Say you've got a homemade project authored and ready to go. But you preview it and say to yourself: "Aw, shit, shoulda used filter XYZ on that!" No problem, enter it into the filter editor, and save. Run your authored project through DVDRB, done. No need to start over.

There are a number of movies that are rather dim for these old eyes. I'm thinking of the third Matrix movie, also some scenes in the LOTR movies. I COULD adjust the TV, but I'm lazy and I'd have to adjust it back. Here's something I've used:

#gamma-correct image for display in a brighter environment
Levels(0,1.3,255,0,255)

Works reasonably well without washing out the brighter scenes. (If you don't know Avisynth, the first entry is the comment line, it says what it does).

So how about it? Do you use the Filter Editor? Care to provide examples and elaborate?

[Abond]

As I am using DVDRB in the cases when the compression required is beyond certain levels to be good for DVDShrink, often I am using the hybridfupp finction to increase compressability. The fuction divides the frame in parts (depending of the thresholds) of normal areas, edges, movement, dark areas and lit areas, using masks and can apply different type of filtering to different parts of the picture. For example light denoising to normal areas, high smoothing of moving parts (they are already brurried and more blur is not noticeable), sharpening to the edges and so on. The fuction can be controlled very easy with presets and even one can apply own filter chains to the parts. Additional the fuction include resizing - in some cases I go for 704xXXX.
Saying that one can expect a drop in the speed of encoding. Almost always I am using cropping and adding borders to speed the filtering a bit.

[fritzi93]

Thanks, that gives me an idea of some of the possibilities. It's more than I know, as yet, but I'm learning a thing or two.

Yes, encoding time is increased, no way around it. But it seems such a useful feature, and Avisynth has just about any possible filter you can think of. Of course, one must understand what will make a worthwhile improvement in a given case, and what will not. I've barely started learning that.

Thanks again for the reply, I was beginning to think I'd asked a really dumb question. :P

P.S. Not talking about the Filter Editor now, just Avisynth: How useful is autogain for bad source material? The couple times I tried it, it produced an odd "pumping" effect whenever the lighting in the picture changed. What are some alternatives?

[Abond]

Hmm, sorry, no idea. Never used it
If you want to play with hybridfupp it can be downloaded here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=92061&highlight=hybridfupp
It comes with all necessary plugins and very good written readme. Enjoy!

[fritzi93]

Very nice. 8) If I understand correctly, you can control the blurring in motion frames. You can dering and deblock as well. Thanks for that.

[I tried autogain on some pretty bad source material. Dim, low contrast. Specifically:
ColorYUV(autogain=true,autowhite=true)
Helped some, but gamma correction worked better.]

Gunna try hybridfupp on a very long movie.