Grainy/blocky/pixilated Divx and MP4, Toast or D-Vision...

[rserota@cinci.rr.com]

All my Divx, MP4, etc., are grainy/blocky/pixilated, even if I am at best quality and high bitrates and the final file size is ~2GB, half the DVD from which it was made (the DVDs are not copy protected and are of very fine quality, for instance recorded from DVR or backups with Mactheripper). I create video files with Toast 7 or D-Vision (in which case it is an AVI, Divx or Xvid coded). I use either automatic highest quality setting or manual. Am I expecting too much from the conversion?

[sdm]

you should be able to make a divx, mp4 etc that is (nearly) as good as the dvd from which it was made.

Sounds like you're doing something wrong. ={

-- sdm

[mcritz1]

I read some good input in another forum about cleaning up grainy video from VHS tapes using VirtualDub and AviSynth. From what I can find, those filters are not available for the Mac (OS-X). Can anyone help me with those types of filters for the Mac?

[sdm]

A program named avidemux is available for OSX, and has several video filters. You may want to use a denoise/smooth/stabilize type filter.
You can read about the details here: http://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/index.php?title=Video_filters#Noise

Good luck.

[mcritz1]

SDM, thanks for the reference to avidemux. I am new to video editing and am starting by uploading VHS tape video to my Mac using the ADVC 110. What format does that produce, and how do I interface that with the avidemux software? I want to filter some noise and then output to a DVD.

[sdm]

your advc 110 should produce .dv format on your mac. Its not very compressed relative to most video sources. So be sure you have about 12GB per hour of VHS (if I remember correctly)
You can open .dv in AviDemux and filter then export to mpeg2(dvd)

hope this helps. sdm.

[mcritz1]

SDM, Many thinks for the feedback. I'll try it as you recommended. I may have other questions as I get into it.

[rumplestiltskin]

Once you have DV files, you may edit them in iMovieHD and then send the project over to iDVD. Alterntively, just drop the DV files into iDVD and have multiple videos. Remember that iDVD has settings for "quality vs size". However, coming from VHS you've got crap...er...compromised video quality so there's not much you can do to make it any better than what it was originally.

[sdm]

Once you have DV files, you may edit them in iMovieHD and then send the project over to iDVD. Alterntively, just drop the DV files into iDVD and have multiple videos. Remember that iDVD has settings for "quality vs size". However, coming from VHS you've got crap...er...compromised video quality so there's not much you can do to make it any better than what it was originally.

Yes, you can do some better editing using iMovie or Final Cut Pro. After that you can export to dv again without compressing further (share/export using quicktime/dv stream). Then you can open with Avidemux and you CAN improve the picture quality using the video FILTERS as described here: http://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/index.php?title=Video_filters
Then you can go directly to mpeg2 or several other codecs/formats.

good luck.
--sdm.