How do I improve this dark DV clip?

[CogoSWSDS]

I've put a sample of this avi at http://jraigrimmer.tripod.com/stitch.avi. It's a DV clip from my Sony Digital8 camcorder, so you'll need a DV codec to use it. I use the Panasonic DV codec, therefore the converttoyuy2 is required to use the convolution3d filter. As you can see, the clip is quite dark. I've applied some AVISynth filters to it and thought you folks might be able to guide me as to how I could improve this clip more.

Here's a frame from the original.

I applied the levels filter to it, like this:

a=avisource("c:\vidcap\dv2\stitch.avi").converttoyuy2
a1=a.levels(0,1.613,255,0,255)

return a1

It looks sort of black&white on the TV screen.



To correct the b&w and smooth it a bit, I used this script:

function setparity(clip c, bool parity) {
    return parity?c.assumetff:c.assumebff
}

function c3d(clip c) {
    oldparity=c.getparity
    c=c.assumetff.separatefields.assumeframebased
    top=c.selecteven
    bottom=c.selectodd
    top=top.convolution3d(0,6,10,6,8,2.8,0)
    bottom=bottom.convolution3d(0,6,10,6,8,2.8,0)
    c=interleave(top,bottom).assumefieldbased.assumetff.weave
    return c.setparity(oldparity)
}

a=avisource("c:\vidcap\dv2\stitch.avi").converttoyuy2
a1=a.levels(0,1.613,255,0,255)
c1a=coloryuv(a1,cont_u=192,cont_v=160).c3d

return c1a

This is the result:


The carpet in the room should be quite a bit greener (the area rug is fine), and the image is still quite noisy. Any suggestions on how I could further clean this up?

CogoSWSDS

[edDV]

This is the Vegas levels filter only stretching 30% luminance to 100% (split screen to original).

[edDV]

Difficult to pull any green out of the rug. Playing with color correction filter.

[CogoSWSDS]

edDV,
Thanks for the tips. I don't have Vegas, but took your idea of taking 30% luminance and making it 100%. I changed the level filter parameters to:

levels(0,1.000,76,0,255)

This improved things over the original quite a bit. The clip is still quite noisy but the greens in the carpet look good. Now I'll try some convolution3d and a little noise filtering to see what happens, as I tried the levels filter by itself.

CogoSWSDS

[guns1inger]

This link has a copy of the avi after being filtered, and a copy of the script. It uses PeachSmoother, VagueDenoiser and Colormill. I also had a go with Convolution3D, but didn't get results that were any better than the method I eventually went with. Bringing up the colour and luma values increases the noise substantially, so in the end you have to find a balance between darkness and noise.

Anyway, here is the link. Use it if it works for you

http://rapidshare.de/files/33881291/stitch.rar.html

And a snapshot from the clip (to save you downloading it if you don't like it)

[CogoSWSDS]

Guns1inger,
That clip looks pretty good. Lots more watchable than the original - it was just too dark!

To all who have taken a look at this clip, thank you for your help. I've been doing video for a couple years as a hobby but never had anything that needed this much work.

Thanks again!

CogoSWSDS

[edDV]

Guns1inger,
That clip looks pretty good. Lots more watchable than the original - it was just too dark!

To all who have taken a look at this clip, thank you for your help. I've been doing video for a couple years as a hobby but never had anything that needed this much work.

Thanks again!

CogoSWSDS

Good work guns1inger !

CogoSWSDS,
Next time turn on the lights

[greymalkin]

Next time turn on the lights

that's sound advice you can use with all your video endeavors

[CogoSWSDS]

ed,
I shot about two minutes of video like this, after which we did turn the lights up , and I continued to shoot, but was trying to salvage this first two minutes in case there was something good in it. That's good advice and I usually do have the lights up for video shooting. Unfortunately this was late at night and I wasn't thinking clearly...Imagine that!


CogoSWSDS

[dun4cheap]

You may have better luck capturing through as an analog source where you can adjust the contrast and birghtness manually instead of digitally. Another option you can use Liquid edition and compare the histograms and apply the one with the brighter histogram.

[Soopafresh]

No mention of HdrAGC ? http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/