'Sharpen' image from the DVD movies

[vioxx]

I got some movies' DVDs which poorly transfered from the tape by the movie studios.

Is any way/tools to 'sparpen' the movies' image?

Thanks...

[guns1inger]

You are probably limited in how much you can improve them, and you may have to lose the menus in the process.

The easiest way would be to strip just the move out as elementary streams using DVD Decrypter in IFO mode. The use Virtualdub-Mpeg2 to play around with the image and to write the file out as an avi. Frameserve this to tmpgenc to get a new DVD compliant video file.

Finally, reauthor to you can watch the film. If it is a particularly bad transfer, you may find that sharpening is not straight forward, as you may oversharpen grain and video noise, without improving the picture.

[jimmalenko]

I got some movies' DVDs which poorly transfered from the tape by the movie studios.

Is any way/tools to 'sparpen' the movies' image?

Thanks...

You can't trust those movie studios with their billion dollar equipment these days

[guns1inger]

We have a couple of distributer's out here who specialise in public domain releases at AU$5-10 each. These are mastered off tape, and are often grainy or have banding issues. Unfortunately, for some films these are the only versions easily available. For anyone curious as to how bad these can be, look for anything released by Avenue One, and to a lesser degree, Force Video.

[vioxx]

Some of those DVDs are even worser than my home video.
Watching them is a pain.
Some of the Jazz 'DVDs' just unbelievable bad quality.

[lordsmurf]

This may come off as a bit harsh, but since you never saw the original source, you're really not qualified to make these kinds of judgments on their work. There are limits on what you can do to video.

Even the lowliest of studios, releasing agencies and transfer services tend to use hardware filters (broadcast or studio grade equipment most likely). They've already done what they deemed to be best.

For some of these $5 movies (of which the studio maybe gets half), you have to understand that filtering these things 3-4 times isn't worth the effort, especially since the gains are typically small.

What are you sharpening? 16mm film transfers of B&W movies? By their very nature, they're low quality compared to today's standards.

It's hard to give advice on restoring/enhancing video without knowing more details.

[vioxx]

One is Alfred Hitchcock's 'The 39 Steps'.
And another one is 'Jane Eyre (1970)'.
The 3rd is 'Debbie Does Dallas'
All tooooo 'original'..............

[lordsmurf]

Debbie Does Dallas is a 70s porn, and therefore probably shot on cheap materials. Most were. Most still are.

The 39 Steps and Jane Eyre may have been shot 35mm, but all the way into the 80s, they really didn't take take of film like they do these days.

I probably have all these movies myself, I'll see if mine differ any.

[guns1inger]

I have copy of The 39 Steps from one of these distributers. It states proudly on the front "Digitally Remastered", however there has been no effort clean it up. If it has come from film stock, it has come from a well warn 35mm print, or perhaps even a 16 mm hire print. It is not the worst I have seen though, and it better than the old VHS copy I had. The worst I have seen is a public domain version of Freaks - scratched film stock, audio that is often completely unintelligable - thank god Warner's is now doing an official release.

If you are in Aus, check out the Magna Pacific release of 39 Steps. They seem to be putting out some good quality budget releases - I picked up their King Kong for AU$4.89, and it is the best full legth print I have seen.

[vioxx]

Which edition of 'The 39 Steps' is the best?











I got the '$5 edition'. I think that I was asking toooooo much........

[Suntan]

vioxx,

Test out different filters. If the result looks better to you then who cares "What the Studios deem best" you surely are qualified to make these judgements!!

The only people that shouldn't modify/distort footage so that it looks better to them are crime scene investigators.

I would suggest learning how to use AVIsynth, it isn't that hard. When I copy old Disney (Dumbo, etc.) DVDs that show a lot of grain I like to give it an undot() and a touch of TemperalSmoother(8,10) If it is really bad i will look at a few others. Although I am not an expert on this, I don't take a lot of time worrying about the kid's movie quality, There is a lot of info on AVIsynth.org.

-Suntan

[vioxx]

Thanks suntan!

" tool for video post-production"

Finally I have something to do after no more DVDs to back up....


Thanks again.........