How to get Garbage Out looking the same as the Garbage In

[filmjax]

Ok, I'm familiar enough with the whole Garbage In=Garbage Out motto that's thrown around here like beads at a Girls Gone Wild shoot... but here's my dilemna.

I need the garbage I burn onto a disc to at least look as good as the garbage I'm capturing.

I have the Canopus ADVC-100 and am using a 4-head Hi-Fi Philips VCR to capture old VHS tapes to my HD. Obviously I'm capturing them as DV-AVI, using the DVIO tool.

So I capture an hour long episode of Jerry Springer for test purposes (don't ask why... but if you must know the topic it's "When Strippers Attack"). Using VirtualDub I remove the commercials, and I end up with an AVI file that runs 42:38. This file looks just fine on my PC... no blocks, no junky anything. Looks just like the VHS image... crappy but acceptable enough, especially coming from an EP tape.

I encode it three different times with TMPG to see what'll look best... VCD, SVCD and DVD. Of the three, of course DVD looks best, but all three are loaded with what I'm guessing people are calling Macroblocks. These distortions seem to appear in equally spaced lines (some portions of the screen seem free from these blocks, while other portions are loaded with them). Anywhere there are on-screen graphics are especially loaded with these blocks, looking almost like a blocky cloud.

They're driving me insane. I've tried encoding to each format at the highest bitrate, but even DVD at 8000 gives me these damn blocks. I just want the crappy VHS image burned onto some kind of digital media. I want it to look as crappy as the tape looks, not worse. Am I doing something nutty here or is this just going to be a fact of life?

[RabidDog]

Good so far, but exact details, bitrate, hardware computer etc.

[filmjax]

I have all my computer's details filled out in that Computer Details portion of my profile, if that helps.. As far as bitrates, I used the maximum bitrates allowed for each format... I would assume that using anything than the highest ones would make my efforts look even worse than they look now. Could I be using bitrates that are too high? Is there such a thing?

[Beavis]

Most likely a fact of life due to your source being too noisy. Increasing the bitrate would actually help, not hurt, this. Get yourself a cleaner source AVI from something else and try encoding with the same settings and see if it's better. Some video cleaners/filters might help your cause- but you're NEVER going to get something that looks as good as what you're capturing because you're compressing it more. The worse the source, the more this is true. Old VHS tapes can be tough.

[filmjax]

Ok, I made screen caps of what I'm talking about... you can see them here:

http://www.daily-reviews.com/images/springer.html

Of course, the caps look much better than what i'm seeing on my televisions, so you'll naturally think I'm insane.

[D_Knife]

I'd give the DV file a good whack with Vdub's smart smoother filter from
Donald Graft's site
http://neuron2.net/index.html
might help you somewhat

[Sugar]

I guess the outcome is not so bad considering the input.

Beyond the birate which you say you put at its max, there are other parameters to play with to improve quality of your outcome.

Here is a great website guiving some pointers to optimize the quality of your mpeg2 files. I suggest you give it a try.

http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html

[FulciLives]

Capture at full D1 resolution (which is 720x480) and use the AviSynth filter Convolution3D as a filter. In the script ... after applying the filter ... resize to half D1 resolution (352x480) and for best quality encode at a CBR of 5000kbps which will be DVD compliant.

That is about as good as you can get it.

I really like the Convolution3D filter. I think it is one of the best filters out there. The FLAXEN VHS filter (which is a VirtualDub plug-in) is also very good but SLOW as hell. Confolution3D will slow the encoding but it isn't too bad ... I mean any type of filter like that will slow down the encoding.

So a sample AviSynth 2.5x AVS script would look like this:

LoadPlugin("mpeg2dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("convolution3d.dll")
AviSource("D:\capture.avi")
crop(0,0,0,-12)
SeparateFields()
Convolution3D (preset="movieLQ")
Convolution3D (preset="vhsBQ")
Weave()
AddBorders(0,6,0,6)
LanczosResize(352,480)

In the script above I'm cropping off 12 from the bottom and then centering the image by adding equal amounts of black on the top and bottom. Just about all VHS captures will have GARBAGE along the bottom. I find it usually takes 12 to get rid of it all but your capture may need less or more.

Also I have Convolution3D twice. Pick the one you want and put a "#" in front of the other so it is ignored like this:

#Convolution3D (preset="vhsBQ")

Now that line will be ignored in the script.

Anyways those are the two presets that seem to work the best with normal stuff ... there are other presets for ANIMATION etc.

The last line then resizes the whole thing to Half D1 resolution. Going full tilt D1 is just a waste of bitrate for such a poor quality source.

Hope this helps

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
If you find that 5000kbps is not giving you as much as you would like on the DVD time wise then try a 2-pass or multipass VBR with a MIN of 1500kbps and a MAX of 5000kbps and an AVG of 3000kbps to 4000kbps

I wouldn't drop below 3500kbps though if you want it to look good.

[filmjax]

I wish I could try AVISynth, but the link is down and I can't download it. I'll keep trying...

[Thorn]

The sad fact is that noisy video will get degraded much more when compressed to mpeg than clean video. That's why the pre-processing is essential, and minimizing compression is also essential.

I'm no expert on video restoration, but I've had some good success using the temporal smoother (a must for jittery vhs if you don't have a TBC) and the smart smoother. I've also used the flaxen vhs filter and some other tv-related filter. It all depends on the specifics of the input, and you have to do a lot of tests to see what looks best for the footage.

Note that you degrade the video a little with these, and abusing the filters can make the video choppy and blurry. With the right tweak, however, you'll minimize noise introduced in compression.

as for avisynth, aren't there still a few dozen versions floating around the net? Search for some of the alternate links if you want to get going before you're able to get back to avisynth.org.

[filmjax]

I did a test with the smart smoother filter for Vdub and the results were pretty good... certainly much better than the previous results. Unfortunately it wants to take 10 hours to run the filter through the 43 minutes of video, ugh.

I ran a small chunk of the DV-AVI through the filter and then did all my tests again... for some reason VCD looked the best in terms of smoothness. DVD at a bitrate of 8000 still had some blocks.

[FulciLives]

I did a test with the smart smoother filter for Vdub and the results were pretty good... certainly much better than the previous results. Unfortunately it wants to take 10 hours to run the filter through the 43 minutes of video, ugh.

I ran a small chunk of the DV-AVI through the filter and then did all my tests again... for some reason VCD looked the best in terms of smoothness. DVD at a bitrate of 8000 still had some blocks.

Try Half D1 (352x480) at a CBR of 5000kbps or even 6000kbps if you want to go "overboard".

Trust me ... there will be no macroblocks.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[troyvcd1]

If I use this script:

LoadPlugin("mpeg2dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("convolution3d.dll")
AviSource("D:\capture.avi")
crop(0,0,0,-12)
SeparateFields()
Convolution3D (preset="movieLQ")
Convolution3D (preset="vhsBQ")
Weave()
AddBorders(0,6,0,6)
LanczosResize(352,480)

And then do I just encode with CCE at normal resolution or do I have to do half d1 in CCE. ie do I have to enable the half d1 checkboxes in CCE.
Also should I do CBR at 5000 or should I do vbr at something like max 8000, min 2000, avg 5000.

[FulciLives]

If I use this script:

LoadPlugin("mpeg2dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("convolution3d.dll")
AviSource("D:\capture.avi")
crop(0,0,0,-12)
SeparateFields()
Convolution3D (preset="movieLQ")
Convolution3D (preset="vhsBQ")
Weave()
AddBorders(0,6,0,6)
LanczosResize(352,480)

And then do I just encode with CCE at normal resolution or do I have to do half d1 in CCE. ie do I have to enable the half d1 checkboxes in CCE.
Also should I do CBR at 5000 or should I do vbr at something like max 8000, min 2000, avg 5000.

In my script I have Convolution3D listed twice. You need to pick the one you want to use and delete the other. I normally use "movieLQ" because "vhsBQ" is generally too much filtering and often will create ghosting.

Otherwise you can use the script as is ... just make sure to plug in the correct DIR and PATH info for your own files.

I use this script with CCE and you do not have to check the half resolution boxes because you are doing your resize to half resolution (352x480) in the script.

As for the bitrate a CBR of 5000kbps or above is fine but if you need to use something lower than 5000kbps so as to fit your capture on one DVD then you should do a VBR encode in which case I would use a MAX of 5000 and a MIN of 1500kbps to 2000kbps and then your AVG as high as you can set it to still fit your stuff on one DVD. For instance an AVG of 4000kbps with 224kbps AC-3 or MP2 audio will fit 3 hour long episodes or 6 half hour long episodes on a single DVD recordable (assuming you edit out the commercials).

Also please note that the crop and addborders is for VHS sources. You might not need to do this with cable TV or if you do you might get away with a smaller value. Some VHS tapes have more noise and might require you to crop even more than 12 from the bottom.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[adam]

I don't recommend arbitrarily raising your min and lowering your max. With such high bitrates it might not make any difference, but its certainly not going to help quality and it could only hurt.

There is really no reason to ever use a min bitrate above 500kbits or so. 1500kbits is way too high. As for a max of 5000, why would you do that? Set it to 9000 at least. If the encoder never goes that high fine, but if it comes across a complex scene then a bitrate spike at that point will certainly help quality.

As always, for DVD I recommend a min of ~300, a max of (9800 - total combined audio bitrate= ~9000) and an avg calculated according to how much content you want to fit per disk. At half D1 I don't see any reason to use more than 4mbits average and even this is probably overkill.

I think the reason you are seeing such bad quality is because TMPGenc is pretty poor with interlaced sources, just like most other encoders. For interlaced content Procoder absolutely blows away TMPGenc and CCE. The difference is literally night and day. Now that doesn't mean I recommend deinterlacing, because that is much worse. The best option is to do an IVTC but sadly with many broadcasts this isn't possible. If you use alot of interlaced sources than you may want to consider looking into Procoder. I guarantee you will get better results with much less work. Interlaced sources just are not TMPGenc's strong points.

[FulciLives]

Adam ...

I suggested using 5000kbps as a MAX because we are talking Half D1 here and in my tests Half D1 hits the MAX bitrate at around 5000kbps (not 4000kbps).

In my CBR test clips I can see a difference between 4000kbps and 5000kbps with the same source clip. Above 5000kbps I cannot see a difference. Again this was using NTSC Half D1 clips.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[adam]

And if that is the case with his particular source, then he will get an actual max around 5Mbits even though he allowed the encoder to go as high as 9Mbits. Like I said, there is no reason to arbitrarily limit the max lower than what the standard allows. If the encoder needs to use it, then let it and if it is not necessary than no harm done. But even with a VHS capture it is still entirely plausible that there may be a very complex scene which would benefit from greater than 5Mbits.

Raising the max will never hurt quality. Lowering it might.