Problem with noisy background on DVD encoding...

[Dwight]

Here's what I'm dealing with.........

Captured with VDub at 720 x 576 using Huffyuv, zero drops.

Encoded at mpeg-2, 352 x 576, CBR 4000kbit/sec, 60-1-60 noise reduction
(also tried from 20 up to 100 to see differences) using TMPENC and tried adding 1000 to bitrate.


The screencapture of the file can be found here.

Notice the noise artifacts on the back....

http://johnchimmewaga.tripod.com/

or copy paste the link to your browser (DON'T CLICK IT)
http://johnchimmewaga.tripod.com/dvdcapture.jpg

I'm having no luck in getting rid of that.... :S any idea
s how I could get rid of the noisy background ? It's kind of
wavy at times and reminds me of VCD encoding... and I don't
want this kind of 'side-effects' on my DVD's .

[FulciLives]

Do you mean the "blue" section in the background?

I don't really think there is much you can do about stuff like that. Half D1 seems to MAX out at about 5000kbps so adding more bitrate won't get rid of it.

Maybe try some different noise filters?

I usually use Convolution3D which is an excellent noise filter that works with AviSynth AVS scripting.

Another noise filter some people like is PeachSmoother although in my admittingly limited testing of it I was not as impressed by it as I was with Convolution3D.

But big solid colors like that (and even then there is some shading to that background) will probably never look "perfect" from analog capture to MPEG-2 DVD.

Just the nature of the beast I think.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[FulciLives]

It's kind of wavy at times and reminds me of VCD encoding... and I don't want this kind of 'side-effects' on my DVD's .

TBC will help clean up "wavy" video especially from VHS sources but it won't get rid of artifacts completely like what you are experiencing although a TBC is a nice device to have.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Gazorgan]

Temporeal smoother will clean up the background, but at the cost of looking more like 'Animation'.

Every filter that cleans up something messes up something else.

That screenshot actually looks pretty good for a capture. Very difficult subject to encode. There is a Macroblock on his collar also.

The 'crawling' background problem is typical with MPEG2 video. Especially black.

You didn't say if it was CAM or TV capture. It really does make a difference, as most TV signals won't get any better than that. There's a number of things y9ou can try, but it really depends on your specific cable system. I personally have 14 channels you can't capture from due to noticable noise (off-air signals, FM interference, and PC buss harmonics). I can get around it with my digital cable box, but I get macroblocks all the time on digital channels (which my CATV company ignores as 'normal' operations).

[Dwight]

I shall elaborate a bit and mention that
this pal vhs tape I captured is a nicam-stereo recording
of rather nice quality, but the tape it has been recorded
to is a re-used old commercial tape. Capture is from vcr.

I don't really see the background mess if I view the tv from the normal distance though, so I may as well accept this quality :S but I shall give
some filters a try (Convolution3D etc)

Cheers

[Dwight]

Aaaand...since I've never bothered to learn
Avisynth, I couldn't get the damn thing working

I got errors for video format or something from the filter.
But, I tested a combination of 60-1-100 on Tmpenc, which
works pretty well to my eyes on this footage. The faces don't look
like claymation and the background noise appears minimal.

[SatStorm]

Avisyth is the best way, but if you can't use it try this:

Capture at 704 x 576 (not 720 x 576) if possible.

Load to virtualdub. Add the following filters in this order

rm PAL
Video Denoise (default)
Dynamic Noise Reduction (val: 06)
Sharpen (10)
Resize (352 x 576) Laczos method or Bilinear
Static Noise Reduction (val:04)

You can frameserve now or save to a new avi using whatever codec you wish. Frameserving gonna boost almost twice the encoding time, I suggest if you have the filesize to save to new avi

[geek rock]

dwight - try burning a sample clip of the footage to a DVD-RW and play it back on your TV set.

you'd be surprised at how much worse it looks on a monitor - because monitors are such high resolution, it's very easy to see errors and macroblocks. the video played back on a TV set will be a lot more pleasing to the eye.

-Mark

[DJ_Izumi]

you'd be surprised at how much worse it looks on a monitor - because monitors are such high resolution, it's very easy to see errors and macroblocks. the video played back on a TV set will be a lot more pleasing to the eye.

This is so true. Even a standard VCD looks like on a normal television. However, I had a friend with an NTSC 52" Rear Screen Projection television, and it seemed to make video artifacts much more apparent, even those from digital cable.

[Dwight]

dwight - try burning a sample clip of the footage to a DVD-RW and play it back on your TV set.

you'd be surprised at how much worse it looks on a monitor - because monitors are such high resolution, it's very easy to see errors and macroblocks. the video played back on a TV set will be a lot more pleasing to the eye.

-Mark

I did burn samples (3 different ones with different noise reductions)
before final encoding and viewed them on telly . I'm through this project myself having discovered the optimal noise reduction for this footage and encoded a dvd and an SVCD for comparison .

Thanks for all the tips, I have to try and get that Avisynth thing working for my new ones though