Filtering advice needed

[Feanor1]

I have started to capture and get pretty good quality Mpegs, but always looking to improve.. so I have started working with the filters. I have not been able to find a really good example of what to do with the filters (altho documentation is available explaining what each one does, its tough to to figure out if its needed).

My first question is this: I captured a tv show to AVI, then used VirtualDub with the Smoothing Filter and Frameserved it to a 2nd VirtualDub that had the Sharpen Filter on it. That virtualDub then frameserved it directly to TMPGe..

I did this daisychaining of Virtual Dub becasue I wasnt sure if there was a defined priority for filters (didnt want it to Sharpen then smooth, but instead I wanted it to smooth to get ride of some noise then sharpen to make it look crisper).
It didnt add any time really since it was frameserving both at the same time and the bottleneck was still the Mpeg converter, but I dont know if it was worth taking that step.

Also, can bbmpeg work with frameserving? I couldnt find documentation showing that.

[TheInformer]

Feanor1:

This site might shed a little light for you
http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/vdub-filters2.htm

[Feanor1]

TheInformer:
Thank you.. that clears up some misconceptions I had previously.

[Mr Walker]

I got a Pinnacle PCTV and use this settings in Virtualdub. If you're planning to view the vcd's at a TV i strongly suggest the use of filters, (especially if there is any subtitles) as the picture is much sharper on a monitor. And what look's good there can be a big blure on the TV. Remeber to capture at as high resolution(especially twice vertical) as this improves quality.

Try this(remember to use the filters in this order as that affect the quality. you can change the priority of the filters by marking it and the press move up/down)

*Open the file in VIrtual Dub
*Apply Filters:
Deinterlace "Blend field together"
Sharpen (how much depends on the source, but remember that whats look too sharp on a monitor most likley will look "normal" on a TV)
Dynamic noise reduction 2,1 (downloaded from a link at virtual dub homepage, try some different settings)
Resize to 352*288/240 PAL/NTSC Precise Bicubic
*Frameserv to TMPGEnc
*Encode

If your capture is letterboxed in some way, crop the borders before frameserving to TMPGEnc. Set source aspect ratio to 1:1 and video arrange method to fullscreen(keep aspect ratio). This way you get new borders wich really is black and not grey

Hope this is to any help