Uncompressed AVI to x.264 (some help needed)

[spycam]

I captured a 1.5 hour home video from a camcorder via firewire. I got something like 109 Gb of 720x576 uncompressed interlaced AVI video that i now want to convert to x.264 MKV.

I used Handbrake and tried various settings that i found in guides and HB settings examples all over the web. The main problems was that after deinterlacing the video was somewhat blurry, and some sharpening would help, but HB misses such feature, and then the aspect ratio - i filmed the video in widescreen 16:9, but i tried playing with Anamorphic settings in HB and i was always getting 4:3 AR, and just when i turned anamorphic off and manually changed the height of the video to 404 pixels (to match the width for 16:9) i got the result similar to what it should normally be, but i am not sure if my vide should really be of this exact height or some other, and if no anamorphic used, won't it be a problem to play the video on TV...

So, basically i don't really care of the file size, i wanted the best quality i could achieve but i lack the skills and some digital video conversion/operation wisdom to find the correct settings or software.

Could you help me with the x.264 settings (i know that i should go with Multipass, and higher bitrates (i tried 4000-6000 bitrates)) and offer me tools (better be freeware) that i could use to get MAX quality deinterlaced and a bit sharpened x.264 video that would be true 16:9 AR

Thanks a lot!

[jagabo]

You should have captured as DV AVI. That would have taken the DV data stored on the video tape and placed in an AVI container without any changes. The result for a 1.5 hour video would be about 20 GB. Then, if you really don't care about file size, just leave it like that.

[spycam]

LOL, thanks for an answer.
question: how do i set to capture DV AVI? I use STOIK Capturer

[jagabo]

I don't know anything about STOIK Capture. But there are simple, nearly foolproof, programs like DVIO or WinDV for capturing from Webcams.

If you still want to compress after that, what you do depends more on what plans you have for the video. Something to watch on your computer? Upload to Youtube? Watch on a standalone media player?

[spycam]

I'm not capturing on a webcam, i was capturing from a Camcorder, from MiniDV tape, so i was using capturing from it via firewire connection.

I was compressing and authoring my videos to DVD before, but now i decided to go with AVC to have like 4.7 Gb of a video file (so i could still make backup copies to DVD-R media + give DVD-Rs to my natives to enjoy the home videos on their PCs) but myself i will be watching the video on my PlayOnHD Media Center and on a PC.

[jagabo]

Sorry, I meant "From DV camcorders". I was looking at webcams for something else and I guess my mind slipped up!

You'll probably have to convert from DV AVI to something else to play on a standalone media player. From what I'ver heard, x264's interlaced encoding isn't as good as its progressive encoding but it should be adequate. You could use a good deinterlacer like AviSynth's QTGMC() and make a 50 fps progressive video from your DV. I would leave the video at its original resolution and use PAR/DAR flags. If you use x264, use CRF mode. You specify the quality you want and it uses whatever bitrate is necessary to give you that quality. Try CRF 18 to start, lower values give higher quality and bigger files, larger values the opposite.

[spycam]

Thank you for your advices.
Yesterday and today i was trying understanding the working sequence and i tried various scripting for Avisynth but i cannot come with anything that would work...

I try to write avs script and i open it as video file via Virtualdub, but it always get me errors.
Can you please post an example *.avs file that would deinterlace DV AVI file with QTGMC and make 50 fps progressive video? Maybe some other filters i could use to adjust the color balance or so?

This is the script (that i found on some site) that worked, but i didn't see the deinterlacing and fps changes after i rendered the uncompressed video with it via VirtualDub, i tried it with 3 min video sample and it resulted in a 6 Gb size video file that didn't visually differ from source

[jagabo]

Start with something simple. VirtualDub can open DV AVI files directly and has a built in Yadif() deinterlacer. Video -> Filters -> Add -> Deinterlace. Select Interpolate Using Yadif and Double Frame Rate Bottom Field First. Back at the main VirtualDub window if you use the right arrow to step through frames you'll see the result in the output pane. The input pane will only change with every other key press.

There is a Yadif filter for AviSynth too. Download the Yadif package for AviSynth. Put Yadif.dll in AviSynth's plugins folder. AviSynth automatically loads an filters in its plugins folder -- but Yadif is a little different. It must be loaded manually in your script:

Load_Stdcall_plugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\yadif.dll")
AviSource("filename.avi")
Yadif(mode=1, order=0) #mode=1 means double frame rate, order=0 means bottom field first

If you have Yadif.dll installed somewhere else be sure to modify the first line to reflect that location. If the AVS file is in the same folder as the AVI file you don't need to include the full path name in the AviSource() command. Otherwise you do:

Load_Stdcall_plugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\yadif.dll")
AviSource("filename.avi")
Yadif(mode=1, order=0) #mode=1 means double frame rate, order=0 means bottom field first

Open the AVS script in VirtualDub. If you use File -> File Information you should see 720x576, 50 fps.

QTGMC requires that you download all the AviSynth packages that it uses. The list and links can be found at the doom9 QTGMC thread:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156028

You'll need at least:

Core plugins
- MVTools2 (at least v2.5.8 required for this script)
- RemoveGrain + Repair
- MaskTools v2 (get the latest version as it's much faster recently)
- NNEDI3 (again get the latest version for best speed)

If you place all those in AviSynth's plugins folder they will automatically be loaded any time AviSynth starts. If you place them elsewhere you'll have to load them manually in your script.

Then you can use a script as simple as:

AviSource("filename.avi")
QTGMC()

or

AviSource("filename.avi")
QTGMC(preset="veryfast")

[spycam]

Thanks a lot for your help.
When i'm using this AVS script source:

AviSource("clip0.avi")
QTGMC(preset="veryfast")

I'm getting this error in Virtualdub when i open the AVS file:


When i'm using this AVS script source:

DirectShowSource("clip0.avi")
QTGMC(preset="veryfast")

I'm getting this error in Virtualdub when i open the AVS file:

[Gavino]

Install the Cedocida DV codec.

[jagabo]

When i'm using this AVS script source:

DirectShowSource("clip0.avi")
QTGMC(preset="veryfast")

I'm getting this error in Virtualdub when i open the AVS file:

[Attachment 4769 - Click to enlarge]

Add ConvertToYV12():

DirectShowSource("clip0.avi")
QTGMC(preset="veryfast")
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)

In general, I recommend using AviSource() instead of DirectShowSource(). The latter is dependent on what DirectShow filters you have installed and isn't always frame accurate. It's probably OK for a DV AVI though.

[spycam]

Thank you very much, now i'm able to work with that

[spycam]

Actually, i already processed the video once, and result is kind of OK, but since the video was shot mostly at home, with not enough light so there is some color noise or so..
So i though to try FFT3DFilter, but no matter the settings of it i try, i don't see visible difference that could be kept as better than it was.

I also found out to use MT to speed the process. This is the AVS file source that i tried, but i don't undertand how to determine which FFT3DFilter settings i should use...

LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\MT.dll")
avisource("C:\Users\DELL\Videos\x.avi")
ConvertToYV12
QTGMC(preset="slow", EdiThreads=8, Lossless=1)
function RemoveDirt(clip input, int limit, bool _grey)
{
clensed=input.Clense(grey=_grey, cache=4)
alt=input.RemoveGrain(2)
return RestoreMotionBlocks(clensed,input,alternative=alt, pthreshold=6,cthreshold=8, gmthreshold=40,dist=3, dmode=2,debug=false,noise=limit,noisy=4, grey=_grey)
# Alternative settings
# return RestoreMotionBlocks(clensed,input,alternative=alt, pthreshold=4,cthreshold=6, gmthreshold=40,dist=1,dmode=2,debug=false,noise=li mit,noisy=12,grey=_grey,show=true)
# return RestoreMotionBlocks(clensed,input,alternative=alt, pthreshold=6,cthreshold=8, gmthreshold=40,dist=3,tolerance= 12,dmode=2,debug=false,noise=limit,noisy=12,grey=_ grey,show=false)
}

function RemoveDirtMC(clip,int limit, bool "_grey")
{
_grey=default(_grey, false)
limit = default(limit,6)
i=MSuper(clip,pel=2)
bvec = MAnalyse(i,isb=false, blksize=8, delta=1, truemotion=true)
fvec = MAnalyse(i,isb=true, blksize=8, delta=1, truemotion=true)
backw = MFlow(clip,i,bvec)
forw = MFlow(clip,i,fvec)
clp=interleave(backw,clip,forw)
clp=clp.RemoveDirt(limit,_grey)
clp=clp.SelectEvery(3,1)
return clp
}
MT("fft3dfilter(sigma=2, ncpu=2, bw=14, bh=14, ow=7, oh=7, bt=2, dehalo=1, hr=1, sharpen=0.9)",8)

LanczosResize(1024,576)

[spycam]

Actually, i just proceed to processing another home video that has a source as 50 fps. By using QTGMC it doubles it to 100 fps that is overload i think. How can i then reduce the FPS in avisynth but still have the audio sounding like it should?

[jagabo]

I've never seen a camera produce 50 interlaced fps. Are you sure it's not progressive to start with? In which case you wouldn't need any deinterlacing. Post a sample?

[spycam]

Yeah, sorry, it's probably virtualdub that messed the things up, the next time i loaded avisynth script into it it showed 50fps