AVI file problem

[Ogilvy]

I’m hoping some kind soul can help me out here, I’m a littlt out of my depth! I’ve tried to inform myself as much as possible before jumping for forum help.
My problem….I’ve got some AVI video files here, DVDRip.XviD, they’re extremely dark, with huge black margins top and bottom and sound is very weak. Tried playing them on Vlan, Media Classic, DivEx, no difference and I have all appropriate codecs. My question….will Virtual Dub fix all these problems? I’ve downloaded “MSU smart brightness and contrast filter” but how do I integrate it into Virtual Dub please?
I’ve also heard that TMPENG can fix colour problem. Any takers?

Thanks

[fritzi93]

You don't like the black bands? Is the aspect ratio correct? I.E., the proportions are not distorted and you just don't like letterbox?

The brightness is easy. Use the "Levels" filter in VirtualDub with a value of 1.3, increase if necessary. Preview until it's right. Save out a new file or frameserve. Essentially the same as the Avisynth command:

Levels(0,1.3,255,0,255)
#Corrects gamma for display in brighter environment

Or this, a better way:

Tweak(hue=0,sat=1,bright=0,cont=1)
#Defaults for hue, saturation, brightness, and contrast
#Hue -180.0 to +180.0. Positive towards red, negative toward green
#Saturation from 0.0 to 10.0. Above 1.0 to increase saturation
#Bright from -255.0 to +255.0. Positive values increase brightness
#Contrast from 0.0 to 10.0. Positive values increase contrast

(All lines beginning with "#" are ignored, used for comments only.)

Your AVIs probably have AC3 audio. Mind you, downloaded AVIs aren't worth the trouble, but on the rare occasion, I'll convert if necessary to 2.0 stereo, and increase volume and/or normalise with BeSweetGUI. (Don't have a home theater.) Others here can probably better explain what you should do with the audio, mine may not be the most efficient way. The point is to do audio and video separately, all-in-ones suck.

Good luck.

[jimmalenko]

I’ve got some AVI video files here, DVDRip.XviD, they’re extremely dark, with huge black margins top and bottom and sound is very weak.

Do the original DVDs have such poor quality also, or has it been your ripping and conversion to XviD that may have caused the issue ?

[Ogilvy]

Thank you both for your help. I’ve overcome my little problem with the aspect ratio(embarising,don’t ask) and filter on “VirtualDub” solved brightness problem. I didn’t do the original ripping, so I cant say what DVD quality was like. Can I bother you people with another question? Will the frameserve help me save finished product as compressed file, otherwise I’m saving it as full-size AVI, (huge size) and then have to decompress again, or has Virtual Dub got something that I’ve missed, maybe “direct mode”. I’d really appreciate your help here, meantime, wishing you all happy Easter- break.

[jimmalenko]

I don't think you can use Direct Stream Copy if using virtualdub filters. But yes, frameserving direct to an encoder means that the output of virtualdub after the filter has been applied will be fed straight into your MPEG encoder, thus eliminating the need for full-size AVIs inbetween.

[redwudz]

Since you started with Xvid, did you select that under 'Compression' in VirtualDub? Otherwise the default will be a huge uncompressed AVI file. Of course if you are converting it to DVD, frameserving to a MPEG-2 encoder would be the better way to go, then you wouldn't have to save it at all in AVI format.