MPEG Reencoding with more brightness

[Ricardogn]

Hi People!

I have been reading this forum for a while and tried a few different programs but all my attempts have been frustrating.

I have an encoded mpeg file from digital camera and when I watch it in BSPlayer with 60% more brightness it displays the way I want to. I can also use video overlay settings in videocard settings and not use BSPlayer color controls and the video will also display the way I want it. Anyway...

I want to encode this video with more brightness. I have tried Virtualdub which I use it a lot, but when I put more brightness in virtualdub it does not even display nearly as good as it does in BSplayer with color settings or with video overlay settings. I mean, it loses a lot of details, it just becomes white but you still cant see a lot of things you can see in the dark without reencoding.

Is there anyway I can do to reencode this file to another format or even the same mpg format with this same quality I have seen in BSPlayer or any other player with my gfx card more brightness video overlay? I have even tried uncompressed AVI but it still looks awful with more brightness.

THanks!

[powerpc123]

Have a look over here, your situation sounds similar
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic342275.html

[jagabo]

Try the Levels filter in VirtualDub.

[Ricardogn]

levels in vdub didnt work. im gonna try later the other stuff...

[jagabo]

What do you mean levels didn't work? What was wrong with the result? If your video is very dark it may have blacks below IRE 0. VirtualDub won't be able to deal with those.

Post an image or short clip from your video and someone will give you some sample settings.

[Ricardogn]

What do you mean levels didn't work? What was wrong with the result? If your video is very dark it may have blacks below IRE 0. VirtualDub won't be able to deal with those.

Post an image or short clip from your video and someone will give you some sample settings.

Hello mate!

The problem with the result is that it loses a lot of detail. I have been trying a lot to get some screenshots to show you guys but I just cant seem to be able to get a screenshot of the image the way I would like it to be. The thing is, when I use capture frame in bsplayer it captures the frame with the original color and not with the brightness settings I would like, so you cant see anything different to compare... if I try a print screen key I just get a black screen (ack!)

If anyone knows how I can get screen of what is being shown I can show the difference between the original mpeg on bsplayer with more brightness while playing and the image when reencoding using virtualdub levels or brightness filters. It simply is not the same thing.

[Ricardogn]

I thought I had solved the problem with dgmpgdec149 luminance filter (this must be the 4th tool i use today...) but it only saves a script file and when i try to run this script on virtualdub to reencode it says there is an error. argh!

if i use this filter and try to demux video the filter doesnt go through.................


any ideas?

[jagabo]

Run two media players at the same time. The first one will get video overlay, ignore it but leave it open. The second one will write directly to the desktop. You can use Alt + Print Screen key to copy the window to the copy/paste buffer, then paste into an image editing program.

Or post a sample of the original. We can probably guess about what you want it to look like.

[manono]

If i use this filter and try to demux video the filter doesnt go through.................

Nope, it won't apply the filter to the demuxed M2V. You'd have to reencode for that to happen. If you gave us the entire script you got from before, and the error message you got from VDub, we might be able to help.

[Ricardogn]

Run two media players at the same time. The first one will get video overlay, ignore it but leave it open. The second one will write directly to the desktop. You can use Alt + Print Screen key to copy the window to the copy/paste buffer, then paste into an image editing program.

Or post a sample of the original. We can probably guess about what you want it to look like.

awesome! thanks so much for this tip! It took me a bit to get the screens as for some reason bsplayer overlay settings wouldnt work as the second video only as the first (black screen) but then I remembered of DGIndex and well, it worked, I got the screenshot from there!

So here are my screens:

Original Video (untouched)


Here's the Video with Max Bright on DGIndex or BSPlayer:


Here's how crappy it looks when I put more brightness on Virtual Dub (with levels result is similar):


As you can see I lose a lot of detail, cant see the driver, cant see the car panels, cant see pretty much anything with vdub filters its as same as nothing...

Any ideas how can I get this fixed? I will post the script error in the next post.

Thanks all for the help! Really appreciate it...

[Ricardogn]

ok, when I try to run DGIndex script on virtualdub, it says:

Error during script execution at line 1, column 21: Variable `DGIndexProjectFile16` not found.

DGIndexProjectFile16 <!>

Sounds like a total newbie error, but I really know nothing about scripting for videos (or scripting at all, lol).

Thanks again for the help guys, been trying to get this done been a week now.

[manono]

Are you using HCEnc for encoding, or do you have it installed? It numbers its DGDecode.dlls like that. Don't use its DGDecode.dlls (if, indeed that's what you're doing). Get the latest DGMPGDec package, use the included DGIndex to make your D2V, and use the included DGDecode.dll in your script. Make sure the paths in the script are correct. Open the script in VDub first to make sure it's OK, before sending it to your encoder.

[Alex_ander]

edit

[manono]

Gee, I wonder what was edited. Hi Alex_ander. I seem to remember seeing a similar problem before, didn't we? Did I say something wrong?

[Alex_ander]

Hi, Manono! I was wondering whether the d2v was directly opened in Vdub (since DGIndexProjectFile# is in the first line of any d2v) but couldn't confirm that type of error message . Also when the version is wrong or not loaded, the messages are different.

when I try to run DGIndex script on virtualdub, it says:
Error during script execution at line 1, column 21: Variable `DGIndexProjectFile16` not found.

That line in d2v points at DGDecode.dll (MPEG decoder) file version # that should be used with the project (it should be from the same dgmpgdec package). What is your script (I was unable to reproduce this type of error message on my system)?

[guns1inger]

I would use the Colormill plugin in virtualdub, if vdub is the package you are most comfortable with.

[Alex_ander]

Error during script execution at line 1, column 21: Variable `DGIndexProjectFile16` not found.

DGIndexProjectFile16 <!>

I understand at last how it happened:
VDub/File/Run script /All files (*.*)/yourvideo.d2v; and that gives exactly that error message.

The correct way to open .d2v is via AviSynth script:

LoadPlugin("...\DGDecode.dll")
MPEG2Source("...\yourvideo.d2v")
#this text with .avs extension can be opened in VDub with AviSynth installed.

[jagabo]

Here's how crappy it looks when I put more brightness on Virtual Dub (with levels result is similar):

(image removed)

As you can see I lose a lot of detail, cant see the driver, cant see the car panels, cant see pretty much anything with vdub filters its as same as nothing...

Any ideas how can I get this fixed?

You need to adjust the contrast as well as brightness to bring out dark details.

But beyond that your problem is that a lot of the dark areas are below IRE 0 in your source video. When VirtualDub converts the source YUV data to RGB for filtering it performs a luma expansion. The result of which is all details below IRE 0 and above IRE 100 are lost. VirtualDub alone will not be able to bring out those lost details.

You can use AviSynth to perform the processing in the YUV colorspace. Then encode with VirtualDub or whatever program you want.

You could do all the processing in AviSynth and only the compression in VirtualDub (in Fast Recompress mode). That would give you the highest quality and the fastest encoding. But it can be difficult to get the filtering right. Or you could simply use ConvertToRGB(matrix="PC.601") in AviSynth then do all the filtering in VirtualDub. For example:

MPEG2Source("filename.d2v") 
ConvertToRGB(matrix="PC.601")

Will let you retain the details and then bring them out in VirtualDub.

MPEG2Source("filename.d2v") 
ColorYUV(off_y=16, gain_y=256)

Will bring everything up to IRE 0 and then double the contrast. You will have to tune the settings to get exactly what you want. And you can bypass VirtualDub and go directly to your MPEG encoder.

If you post a short sample of your source I'll take a look at it and suggest how you might proceed.

<edit>

Here's an example. An HuffYUV encoded grayscale AVI file with all luma values below IRE 0 (Y ranges from 0 to 15):

huffyuv.avi

No amount of filtering in VirtualDub will bring out any details in this video. Here's what AviSynth can do with ColorYUV(gain_y=4096):

[Ricardogn]

Well finally had the time to go through with the process. Took me little more than 3 hours to get it done (newbie here, lol)

I first tried the virtualdub 1.7 but still got errors in line 2 while trying to open the file. Even after copying the dgdecode.dll to vdub directory or vdub into dgdecode and even the videofile in there.......

I then read the docs for dgdecode and after that I was sure I was not doing anything wrong. Just

LoadPlugin("DGDecode.dll")
MPEG2Source("dgindexgeneratedfile.d2v")

in a .avs file loaded into vdub should've been workin... so I decided to re-download Avi Synth AND Virtual Dub in an older version 1.7.6

Well that did the trick. Got the desired results, now I can actually see stuff in the video!

Thanks all!