How to use DeVCR for Avisynth?

[poisondeathray]

I'd like to specify just part of the screen so the rest wouldn't be affected.

divide up the frame with stackhorizontal(), stackvertical()

or use overlay() to apply filter to part of a frame

use trim() to apply to specific frames

[spiritgumm]

I looked up StackHorizontal and Overlay and am unsure how I'd used them for this. Assuming I want to process a horizontal line the entire film runtime, would I crop the video height above/below the line, filter that with Devcr, etc., then overlay it somehow at the correct location on the original?

[poisondeathray]

I looked up StackHorizontal and Overlay and am unsure how I'd used them for this. Assuming I want to process a horizontal line the entire film runtime, would I crop the video height above/below the line, filter that with Devcr, etc., then overlay it somehow at the correct location on the original?

yes , you can use the x,y coordinates for overlay() to position the filtered horizontal strip

(in your case you probably just want y coordinates, because x=0)

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Overlay

[spiritgumm]

I tried using despot the way you use it, and it does almost nothing to my video, or maybe nothing at all, are you shore it did you any good using it like this?

Yes, but my noise problem was very different from yours, like a thin spray of white specks and streaks across the frame. I found it quite easy to get DeSpot to recognise and remove that noise; the main difficulty was preventing it from interfering with the rest of the image.

Lodovico, I'm not having much luck with DeSpot, though I think I have the same video issue as you had. I was wondering if you could post your DeSpot() settings?

[Lodovico]

These are the settings I posted earlier in the thread: DeSpot(p1=41, p2=13, mthres=16, pwidth=23, pheight=3, p1percent=10)

I don't have the project on my PC any more, but as I recall the specks and streaks I was getting were only affecting single frames. DeSpot (& DeVCR) could therefore use temporal information (from surrounding frames) to identify & repair the damage.

You mentioned that your problem involves "a horizontal line the entire film runtime". Could that be why DeSpot isn't working on your problem? It can't find any temporal variation that identifies the line as damage.

[spiritgumm]

it varies from just speckling to speckling with white dropout. But I guess you're right that it's not finding a better normal frame to compare. DeVcr worked slightly with the white dropout, but caused major artifacts with the rest of the video when there was motion. I tried DeScratch but didn't seem to have any effect.
Is there a way to set DeSpot to borrow (or clone) from above/below problem areas within the same frame (rather than temporally)?

[poisondeathray]

descratch is for vertical scratches, so if you have horizontal "speckles" it won't work, unless you flip the picture, then flip it back

other filters you could try for the "speckling" (I'm not sure if everyone is calling it the same thing - maybe you can post a sample) are removedirt, removedirtmc , removedust . Despot is usually for blob like artifacts, removedust for thin horizontal speckles, removedirt/mc for larger artifacts. RemoveDirt is usually the most damaging (causes the most blurring and detail loss)

[Lodovico]

Is there a way to set DeSpot to borrow (or clone) from above/below problem areas within the same frame (rather than temporally)?

Not sure about that. It sounds like you may be looking for something that works like a logo removal filter: http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/External_plugins#Logo_removal

E.g., InpaintFunc which is for "restoring destroyed parts of an image by using information of valid parts of the image in a way, so that the human eye does not recognize the damaged areas".

[spiritgumm]

yep, I made sure to rotate the video when DeScratching.
I attached a video sample. It's from a 3 hour movie with most of the dropout happening in the first 30 minutes. Sometimes it looks fine, even no speckling, but then you get flickering black streaks. Basically there's issues with it for the entire film.

I remember manono mentioned Inpaint was incredibly slow, so I've never tried it for logo removal. But the logo removal approach might be a good idea.
word.demuxed.m2v

[poisondeathray]

One approach is to use a lightly filtered base clip (to get rid of the dirt , white & black horizontal specs) , then overlay a heavily filtered clip onto the persistent stripe. If you were to use the same heavy settings on the whole video frame, it would damage & soften the whole frame too much.

The "side effect" of all variations of the dust/dirt/spot removal filters is that they remove some good things and soften the picture - so beware. eg. things like pupil highlights, stripes on a shirt etc.... may be "mistaken" for dirt. (if you flip back & forth in the 2nd series, you will notice parts of the actor's hair is missing, some facial wrinkles are softer, in addition to the removal of some dustspots & dirt flecks). So make sure you adjust the filters to your taste , and preview the script (maybe base filter is too strong and picture too soft for you, or maybe it's too weak, and it misses detecting some dust specs or dirt flakes) . Note: In these examples, I didn't bother to fix the borders or anything else - so you might want to do other filtering as well

There are some residual defects left over from the avs script and discoloration in the area of the band repair. If you want to improve the repair, I think you would need better tools, some sort of cloning or inpainting - I'm not sure how to do that with avisynth , but there are some inpaint avisynth functions (I've never used them, maybe manono can help you out).

One way to improve these results use special effects software like AE, nuke - that have wire & rig removal tools (think of stunts where actors are suspended by wires) . That horizontal noise band is essentially a thick persistent wire .

I didn't use devcr stack in this, because I found it causes some problems with scene changes. You might have better luck stacking other filters or fiddling with devcr settings. Also, there are updated RemoveDirtMC functions as well (based on mvtools2.x) - you can find those on Doom9 forums , but the script example below use the older mvtools. There are other requirements like removegrain as well.

(I've uploaded the screeshots, in case the image host dies or if you want to flip back & forth to compare).
original


avs script


avs scrpt + nuke



original


avs script


avs script + nuke

mpeg2source("word.demuxed.d2v")
tfm().tdecimate()
a=last

#baseclip
a
RemoveDirtMC(10,false)
base=last

#denoised overlay strip
a
RemoveDirtMC(10,false)
RemoveDirt()
RemoveDust(3)
crop(0,300,0,-148,true)
top=last

Overlay(base,top,y=300)



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=4,cthreshold=6, gmthreshold=40,dist=1,dmode=2,debug=false,noise=li mit,noisy=12,grey=_grey)
}


function RemoveDirtMC(clip,int limit, bool "_grey")
{
_grey=default(_grey, false)
limit = default(limit,6)
bvec = clip.MVAnalyse(isb=false, blksize=8, delta=1, pel=2, truemotion=true, idx=1)
fvec = clip.MVAnalyse(isb=true, blksize=8, delta=1, pel=2, truemotion=true, idx=1)
backw = clip.MVFlow(bvec)
forw = clip.MVFlow(fvec)
clp=interleave(backw,clip,forw)
clp=clp.RemoveDirt(limit,_grey)
clp=clp.SelectEvery(3,1)
return clp
}


function RemoveDust(clip input, int _mode)
{
repmode = 16
clensed = Clense(input)
rep=Repair(clensed, input, mode=repmode)
return RemoveGrain(rep, mode=_mode)
}

[spiritgumm]

I'm not getting anywhere with the different versions of MVtools and Removegrain I've downloaded (keep getting "Clense not found," Removedirt not found", etc). Thanks anyways.

[bar72]

I know I'm graverobbing but looking to cleanup a few VHS tapes I've transferred. Only been learning avisynth for a week and my head's burst

I've ran script but the "result.avi" file contains the original, filtered, diff?

I'd be grateful if someone could help on how I can just save the filtered file to "result.avi" without the original & diff being included?

Edit:

here's the script, I know I should import the function but I'm just trying to workout the above so I've put it all in a single avs..

#import("C:\AvisynthRepository\AVS260_MT\plugins\DeVCR.avs")


function DetectVCRLines(clip c,int threshold)
{
  spacial_data = GeneralConvolution(ConvertToRGB(c),0,"0 -1 0 0 2 0 0 -1 0")
  bar_data = ConvertToRGB(BilinearResize(spacial_data,16,c.height))
  st_data = Overlay(bar_data,Trim(bar_data,1,0),mode = "subtract")
  st_data2 = Greyscale(Levels(st_data,threshold,10.0,threshold+1,0,255,coring = false))
  st_data3 = Greyscale(Levels(st_data2,127,10.0,128,0,255,coring = false))
  st_data4 = Overlay(st_data3,st_data3,y = -1, mode = "add")
  return PointResize(st_data4,c.width,c.height)
}

function deVCR(clip c,int threshold)
{
  mybars = DetectVCRLines(c,threshold)
  return Overlay(c,Trim(c,1,0), mask = mybars,greymask = true)  
}


myclip = AVISource("D:\Docs\_rips\dvd\Rips\source.avi").ConvertToYV12()
fixedclip = deVCR(myclip,15)
StackHorizontal(myclip,fixedclip,Overlay(myclip,fixedclip,mode = "subtract"))

[johnmeyer]

1. Comment out (#) the StackHorizontal line (or just delete it).

2. Make the last statement:

Return fixedclip

[bar72]

Thank You johnmeyer, very much appreciated