Iam looking for anFaster way to filter-cleaning vhs capture?

[leffe]

Does anyone know any faster way to clean up my captured avi in software i dont have afford to buy new vcr.

I capture from analog tv source or vhs source to avi 720x576 huffyuv.
Then cut out commercials and filter in virtualdub, frameserv to Tmpgencoder.

Since my tvreception is weak i get mutch noise, and I am loocking for some good filter that clean the picture and work fast.
On one capture 46minutes take me 12 hours of cleaning, Virtualdub only serv me 4fps and i am in PAL country so realtime would be 25fps.

In Virtualdub my filtersettings are:
deinterlace (mode: unfold) "Virtualdub internal filter"
DotCrawl Comb Filter default settings 3-frame dead-reckoning, 4-way 5-tap with saturation [MMX]
Temporal cleaner beta 0.5 default settings
Smart Smoother HiQuality (2.11) Duiameter 5, Threshold 50,amount 254, Maintain Diffweight 0
deinterlace (mode: fold) "Virtualdub internal filter"

then i frameserv to tmpgencoder and crop the blackbars around then encode 2-pass DVDcomplicant mpeg-2 720x576.

Sample image before filtering: http://m1.314.telia.com/~u31415258/temp/forefilter.jpg
Sample image after filtering: http://m1.314.telia.com/~u31415258/temp/efterfilter.jpg

[pijetro]

In Virtualdub my filtersettings are:
deinterlace (mode: unfold) "Virtualdub internal filter"

Throw this one out for starters. DVD supports interlaced. I'll assume that the target viewing is for television..

[lordsmurf]

In Virtualdub my filtersettings are:
deinterlace (mode: unfold) "Virtualdub internal filter"

Throw this one out for starters. DVD supports interlaced. I'll assume that the target viewing is for television..

He is interlaced:

THIS ONE UNFOLDS
deinterlace (mode: unfold) "Virtualdub internal filter"

THIS ONE FOLDS
deinterlace (mode: fold) "Virtualdub internal filter"

It cleans in frame-by-frame mode, not field-based filtering this way. Can give good results.

Fast method? Sorry, you need hardware for that. It's either lengthy software or expensive hardware. Maybe ATI VideoSoap with ATI MMC, but don't expect miracles, just minor noise corrections. Maybe slight color corrections.

[FulciLives]

You could try AviSynth with the Convolution3D "video noise" filter. Much faster than any of the VirtualDub filters or the "video noise" filter built-in TMPGEnc.

You can use AviSynth and Convolution3D with TMPGEnc but for even faster results use it with Cinema Craft Encoder.

Here is a recent guide I wrote:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=225951

Good Luck

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[leffe]

Ok tnx everybody

The fold thing i wasnt sure if i kept it interlaced, but it loocked better in Virtualdub preview, so that i stay with it then.

FulciLives
Yes i saw your guide recently and was trilled to try it.
But my avisynth is corrupted or something, I had it working for acouple of months ago, but at that time i did not have any good guides.

But your guide looked good, but in Virtualdubmod avisynth keep craching and i have uninstalled old avisynth and installed new one.

I think i will format Windows and try agin.

[SatStorm]

Fast filtering don't exist, sorry.

If your source are commercial tapes, then learn avisynth for faster and great results.

If your source are various TV recordings, then it is more complicated. You need preview, you need filter chains, you need many things to combine. The easy but slow way is virualdub (which offers preview). The fast but difficult way is avisynth. The results gonna be about the same on both roots.

I use virtualdub and I don't care for the time I spent filtering my stuff. And I can say for real that each source taped from TV broadcasts differs one way or other from another. So, ready avisynth solutions are useless for my needs...

[deckard8]

The best and fastest Virtualdub filter I've used for this purpose is the Static Noise Reduction Filter (Snr) available here :

http://www.shdon.com/view.php?doc=vid_snr

Also have you used the built-in noise reduction in Virtualdub when capturing? I know if you overdo it it can make the edges a bit blurry but at a low setting it can remove a lot of noise in real-time as you capture.

[lordsmurf]

Work on your signal. Powered amps, coax line filters, etc. I have to do this.

[SatStorm]

LS, if you were replying in me, then once again you deal with this issue by having in mind the situation you probably face there.

Now, let me describe you, why you can't work on the signal:
As we know, UHF is channels 21 - 69.

In Athens, we have a TV station at each of those channels. (except 36UHF, which is the official VCR frequancy). Last time I count them, there were about 40 free channels transmiting in Athens.
Those channels, don't transmit from the same place. Athens need 3 transmitions centers to cover the whole area. An area of about 20 Km that is
What happens now: Most of those channels, have a transmiter at each of those 3 transmission centers.
So, most of those UHF frequeancies, are used twice or three times at once: What I mean: Channel A transmits from mountain A, Channel B transmits from Mountain B and Channel C transmits from mountain C, but at the same frequancy. So, when you have a roof antenna and you target one of those mountains, it is impossible to stop the noise from the other mountains.
The same (and worst!) is the situation in Italy.
The morphology of Europe, differs a lot what you probably face there. Mountains are everywhere, we have islands, etc. So, when the weather allow it, TV signals "travel" from far distances to Athens, to make the things even more worst.
Also, each station use different power transmiters. There are channels with powerfull transmitters and channels with much lower power transmiters. There is no way to boost with a UHF amlifier some frequancies and cut some others. And if you try, the signals from the other mountains start appear in your screen.

This is the price we have to pay here, for free TV. In Greece we don't have pay TV, neither cable. We only have free channels. Countless of them. Like what they use to be the situation there at the late 60s (multiplied by many TV stations...)

Also, keep in mind, that for you there, it is always NTSC.
For us here most of the broadcasts are products of convertions: NTSC to PAL (all the material from USA), SECAM to PAL (older archives, French stuff) and pure PAL material (all the latest European productions, so our local ones) that transmiting.

So, you always need to adjust one way or another something. And it is not only this: The hardware solutions the TV Stations are using to convert are not always the best, because of the cost or the importance of the material.
Also, when a TV Station bought a program 20 years ago (a movie for example), did the convertion back then and never touch that material again. Now, they have to convert them again to PAL (from SECAM) if they don't wish to buy it again.
So, stuff from the 80s that rerun now, like music shows for example, use to be NTSC to SECAM. Now, they convert them to PAL, because they don't wish to buy them again. Can you imagine how they look? You can't imagine how they look!

So, filtering it is again neccessery here. You are able to correct some stuff manually.

Don't mention my VHS tapes. Things recordered years ago, when I was younger and I couldn't even imagine all those issues with the quality later (after all, my tapes looked excellent on my 21" TV 15 - 20 years ago...) now that I convert them to DVD need heavy filtering. Those are not commercial tapes: There are tapes recorded from TV stations with a situation I already described.

And I can keep posting stuff if you want about this subject, with countless variations. My point is that your suggestion for " work on your signal " is not the solution of the problem.

[ronnylov]

Maybe you filter too much leffe? Try encode it without the filters and compare the results. In many cases the filters make it look worse when looking at the final results on a TV. But if you encode at low bitrates the filters may be necessary but with VBR and maybe 6000 kbit/s average I think you don't need to filter that much.

If you like cleaner TV-recordings then get yourself a DVB card. In Sweden were we live you have a good change to receive DVB-T transmissions in good quality.

[leffe]

Ok tnx again It seems like the hard way is the only way

deckard8: Well i tried
Static Noise Reduction Filter (Snr)
but it didnt take away all of the dirt (at full strenght 32), but served me 14fps instead of 4fps. So i think i stick with my 12 hour encodes then i am pleased with the result but not the time it take, i will do an last test and combine Snr & Tmpgenc noice filter.

Apperently i dont have as bad source like SatStorm and for that I am glad
I will check my cables again, then do my encodes on an other computer.

lordsmurf: my cable company was here and did some testing and even gave me stronger signal than my neighbours, since i complained about the bad recepion.

And in time get me one of those DVB-T or DVB-C card (with hardware encoding best?) ronnylov was talking about, when I got enough money.

[Alan69]

Fast filtering don't exist, sorry.

Have to say this isn't exactly true.

ATI capture with Videosoap set to Combo Filter 1 set to medium or high does very well. Decreases sharpness a medium amount and takes a decent CPU to do it and not drop frames, but it can work wonders on both bad cable and old tapes in real time. Not perfect and some trade offs but much better than the original.

Cable's good here but when I go back to the beach in a couple weeks I'll try and remember to make a test cap of the same channel with and without. Didn't try it for a long time since it wasn't clearly stated what it was doing, but after testing the videosoap filters seperately Combo 1 is the filter to use for general noise or interference. Better at removing dots etc than just the soft focus filter.

Alan

[SatStorm]

That is not filtering...

[Alan69]

That is not filtering...

LOL what sort of nonsense is that SatStorm? Just how do you propose that doing filtering in VirtualDub after the fact is magically different 'filtering' than doing filtering as it's written through VideoSoap?

That's the silliest thing I've heard in a week.

[lordsmurf]

LS, if you were replying in me,

I wasn't. Looking at the original poster again.
It was just general advice for everybody. Try the signal first.
You've obviously done all you can do in this regard.

That is not filtering...

Oh come on now ... it is too.
It's just very limited. Perfect for minor things. Even a few medium things.

[SatStorm]

Well, I don't consider filtering things like Sharpness, Blurness, luminance adjusment, chroma correction and the correction of the broadcast flaws of NTSC (PAL has less issues regarding this). Neither I consider filtering the cropping, inverse telecine, or the de - interlace proccess.

I consider for filtering the elimination of noise, the elimination of logos, the chroma shifting correction, the elimination of ghosting, the elimination of lines at the screen because of bad reception, etc. You can't do those things real time.

And about the "clean" DVB / T / S / C transmissions: This is a myth. Noone follows what the "book" say about them (720 x 576, CBR 8000kb/s). The broadcasters choose to get more channel per TP, than follow the rules for a good picture.

By tradition, the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norgway, Finland, etc) have good picture quality at their broadcasts (after all, they use to use D2-MAC, the best broacast system ever existed). But when you see that the PPV channels at Thor 2 / 3 (Canal Digital packet, encoded in conax) are transmitting 352 x 576 with 3100 CBR, you realise how far away from perfect this picture is and how much filtering is needed...

The bottom line is don't expect that great picture with DVB transmissions: If the source of a channel is analogue and the transmission is a product of "on the fly" analgue / digital convertion, the final picture has digital AND analogue noise.
What you gain by capturing DVB is that you don't have to deal with the issues of the analogue captures that can easily eliminate (those issues many ATI users consider filtering....), but the rest noise issues are there, plus you have to deal with macroblocks (existed on all the DVB transmissions from what I saw till today).

I started with DVB transmissions before start doing analogue captures (!) so maybe that's why I don't consider adjustments as filtering.

It is more than certain that you gonna have to deal with all those issues in the close future, when you start grabb direct DVB transmissions (and not through analogue cards, like capturing with ATI). But untill then, the easy thing is to reply that I'm talking nonsense and silly things.

[lordsmurf]

ATI VideoSoap are noise reduction filters.

[SatStorm]

ATI soap does a bluring and sharpness at the same time from what I know. That's why it doesn't eliminate the "flickering" like Dynamic Noise Reduction at virtuldub.
It is impossible to use real filters realtime, because most filters based on the comparison of 2 frames (or 2 fields)


Here is an example:




This is Viva Plus, a well known German music channel.
This is a frame direct from the DVB satellete stream (it is not an analogue capture).

The analogue noise it is obvious here: Just notice the "mosquito" at the dark areas.

What we have here:
The video source is a Beta master tape, converted to DVD (probably realtime), transmited by Viva plus, an analogue channel.
Then, SES Astra get the analogue transmission, convert it realtime to DVB and transmit it

You don't have to deal here with issues like ghosting, choma, luminance, etc. But you have to deal with noise! Analogue + digital noise.

[FulciLives]

SatStorm ...

Join the dark side and start using AviSynth and Convolution3D :P

As for ATI cards I don't have one but the Smurf does seem to know what he is talking about. I trust him when it comes to ATI stuff.

But my point is ... in short ... is that I think you 2 need to give this thread a break 8)

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[SatStorm]

Now I'm grabbing!

Here is how an analogue SECAM broadcast look when it is converted realtime to DVB with 5000Kb/s CBR




This is the Russian National Channel.
The noise is obvious again here...

[SatStorm]

On the other hand, here is a good DVB transmission



Berlusconi's Mediaset channel (720 x 576 @ 9000kb/s )
Amazing picture....

[SatStorm]

And my final picture for today....

MTV Italia




What we have here?

A 352 x 576 @ 3100kb/s transmission.

The signal transmits from the roof of MTV Italia, to the broadcast center, with an ANALOGUE LINK! There, they digitize it realtime and broadcast it DVB through satellite (W2, 16 East)

There are even situations that this feed (it is used by MTV Italia for their terrestrial transmissions through TMC2) has lines from nearbye channels...

@FulciLives: The variations are so many, Convolution3D can't help.... That's why I have to set up each time I encode something manually and I need preview at the same time!
Thank God, I have virtualdub mpeg2 and I can import direct there my DVB captures and filter them as analogue source...
Before that, any attempt I did to encode that shit, was a disaster move...

The bottom line is, we need always to filter before we encode...

[lordsmurf]

When your get right down to it, digital noise reduction is simply blurring (maybe with resharpening and/or edge correction) ... done at both the temporal axis and within the still frame. VideoSoap does a bit more within-the-frame, and not the best temporal. Again, it's there, but only reserved for light and maybe medium use. Using the max ATI filters can cause some pretty obnoxious temporal artifacts. The higher the filter, the more you increase the pixel range and the temporal range. Some of the more complex filters do better (especially virtualdub and avisynth ones) ... but it's still the same thing at the heart of the operation.

Your DVB still looks better than my cable. I wouldn't really bother filtering them. Maybe a 9% light blur or 15% despeckle in VideoSoap at most.

I tend to save my heavy filtering for video that's just ruined, normally old VHS, in the hopes I can make it viewable or even good quality again. That's when I bust out the big guns. I used some VirtualDub on my last mini-project for an old commercial on ruined VHS. That 90 second took about 6 hours in all, but worth it.

[SatStorm]

You must have a real problem there with the picture quality of your channels!
Those examples I provided are unacceptable in Europe, especially when you compare those channels with their original analogue feeds (Awesome quality)

On the other hand, I might became picky myself, about the picture quality subject.
The bottom line is that I can eliminate all this stuff and so I'll keep doing

[ronnylov]

I have an All-in-wonder Radeon card and also a DVB-C card which both are connected to comhem cable network in Sweden, which have some analogue channels and other digital channels. Some channels are in both analogue and digital versions.

At least in my case the digital channels are mostly in superior quality compared to the analogue channels. Some digital channels are of lower quality but the big national channels SVT1, SVT2 and TV4 are better as digital. Here in Sweden they will close down the analogue terrestial broadcasts soon, I think in year 2007, so in the long run you still have to get a dvb receiver to be able to capture them. Of course it is possible to use an analogue capture card connected with a video cable from a standalone receiver box, but it will be better quality if you grab the digital transmissions directly with a dvb-card in the computer.

Maybe cable companies and houses with central antennas will continue to convert the digital channels to analogue on their cables even after the analogue transmissions over air has been ended. I think most of my analogue channels on the cable probably are converted digital broadcasts already.

[Alan69]

ATI soap does a bluring and sharpness at the same time from what I know. That's why it doesn't eliminate the "flickering" like Dynamic Noise Reduction at virtuldub.
It is impossible to use real filters realtime, because most filters based on the comparison of 2 frames (or 2 fields)

How do you post speaking with authority when you know so little? I do not understand you at all, and it is not because you are right or complex.


Let's point out your errors:

Filtering is removal of unwanted parts of a signal. Do you think the comb filter in most TV's is somehow magically storing a frame in a TV set with no memory? No, it's not, you are clueless of what you're talking about.

Most of what you listed as not filters ARE filters, and most of what you said were filters are transforms. Get some learning besides being a simple button pusher in a few programs before you tell others like you know what you're talking about. You have negative knowledge, reinforced wrong knowledge because you didn't do the basic independent learning before you started making up bad ideas to explain things in your head.

VideoSoap of course is looking at more than one frame, you simply don't know what you're talking about yet again. It is trivial to hold a few frames in before writing them out to disc, what the hell do you think it's doing with all those CPU cycles? Combo filter 1 does despeckle temporally, that is why I mentioned it. It is obvious by the results on speckled cable channels.

"It is impossible to use real filters realtime, because most filters based on the comparison of 2 frames (or 2 fields)"

The sheer error of that quote alone should be enough for anyone to decide to ignore you permenantly.. Hell even saying 'most' knowing there are exceptions but still saying 'impossible' in the first is silly on the face of it. Much more so thinking it's impossible to store a few or few hundred frames in memory as they're coming in and do the processing in real time..


I now officially consider you a clueless newb. You may be able to push buttons on other people's programs, and may be able to compare results, but you clearly have no real understanding of what's going on behind the output. And you have little business telling your stuff like fact, and trying to spread your incorrect ideas to others less knowledgable. Stick to simple opinions and basic observation, your analysis isn't good.

Alan

[Alan69]

That is not filtering...

Oh come on now ... it is too.
It's just very limited. Perfect for minor things. Even a few medium things.

Exactly. Limited choces, but Combo Filter 1 on medium/high took out both foreground interference pattern and random speckle noise on a particularly bad cable channel, and actually didn't harm the clarity too much. Quite decent for an on the fly filter, and far better than the other filters in VideoSoap on the random dot noise. Basically considered VideoSoap useless until I tried that one, and wonder if it got improved in the newer MMC. Don't recall it being as good in my initial testing, but I may have just not turned up the strength high enough, it needs medium or high to do much.

Alan

[lordsmurf]

Don't jump on satstorm too much. He's a nice guy and knows a lot of stuff. Plus he attacks video from a different point than most of us in the USA.

[SatStorm]

Beyond that, adam69 follows my posts and answer in a very bad way, trying to make me look stupid, newbie, clueless, etc.
It seems that he has a personal vendetta with me. (Who knows why)

Anyway, the forum rules cover me on this, and if that continues, I'll act the way it is determined for those situations.