Logo removal results. Opinions welcome

[Invader Bugs]

hey, can someone help me with this too?

im trying to remove the "Nickelodeon" logo from an episode of "Rocko's Modern Life" but i think since its a cartoon, that its not working as well, can someone try and figure this out? also, can someone tell me a good Logo Remover?

[FOO]

That "O" is nearly opaque. All you can do there is spread what is
around it , onto it. Works great if it's sitting on a uniform background.

I got to be pretty much an expert with DeLogo , and then the damned
logos started turning on and off , so I discovered the Range settings, which
fixed that.
THEN the jerks started animating/moving the logos , and I had to give up.
I really hate the big banners advertising what the next show is.

Some of the NLEs have moving effects, so you can put a black
blob over a logo and move/resize dynamically , but the only
reason I do that is so I can say I did

Whatever happened to Video Paint from Ulead. It was in the Media studio
6.0 demo and not in later demos. That may have possibilities

[lordsmurf]

I tried this again last week. Just doesn't look very good. Leaves a mess on screen.

[Matt D]

can't agree with you Smurfie. Logo's themselves are a mess on the screen. How can you possibly think that image 1 here is better than image 2?


In #2 you can actually see the rest of Sulu's hand, you can see the buttons that were completely obscured by that stupid logo.


How bout this one?



You really think that the video looks better with that logo over her face? Sorry, but even if the process adds some minor noise, it's WAY WAY better than having to look at the logo.

[lordsmurf]

Well, still shots look fine, I made those too. But I get easily distracted by the corrupt pixel mess that is left behind. Again, this is a motion-only kind of thing, you cannot see quality from the stills.

[Matt D]

See Smurf, I have the exact reverse of this problem. To me when the camera pans and a logo crosses an actor's face, that's distracting. It's just not ignorable. Logo's in general bug me, my eyes are drawn right to them quite often which is what they are designed to do. A tiny bit of noise distracts me not one bit, especially from across the room as I watch my video. At normal viewing distance you need to know exactly where to look to see the noise, but I can guarantee you that that logo is blindingly visible.
Anyway, the logo itself is not perfectly clean. As this pic shows there is a definite amount of "corrupt pixel mess" before any removal process.



If the area is going to be noisy anyway, I'll take slightly more noise with obscured video restored over noisy with annoying network logo blotting my screen.
If this noise bothers you, that's too bad really. How did you ever watch VHS tape without going completely insane?

[lordsmurf]

It's the old "threshold" scenario. It's what you see that I cannot, and what I see that you cannot. It's why some people still think VCD is perfect, and why some still criticize pro DVDs for being "imperfect".

[NamPla]

This is interesting tests.

But I agree with Lord Smurf. I would rather have a logo on the screen than some amorphous Predator-like blob. The brain can cancel out the stable logo & you ignore it. On the other hand, your brain will be distracted whenever there's movement across the "de-logo'd" area of screen. (That's why still captures don't work here, we need to see it in action).

But your de-logoing is impressive, by all means. Better than I ever achieved with Virtual Dub's filters.

Has anyone tried avisynth filters for de-logoing?

[Tommyknocker]

I have to agree. Matt D, would it be possible to email me a small portion of one of your DeLogo-ed videos so I can make it available for all to judge for themselves.

[Matt D]

I totally understand what Smurf is talking about. When I first tried logoaway I didn't like the bluring at all because it did move and draw attention constantly.
I'd love to share some of the moving video with you all. I can easily prepare a clip, but these episodes are over a gig so even a short clip of 30-40 seconds is going to be megabytes long even if I reduced the bitrate to VCD levels. At that bitrate there will probably be pixelation in areas that have had no restoration done, so I'm not sure it would be as convincing as at normal bitrate.
Still, if you want the clip to host it I'll send it along to you Tommyknocker.

[Invader Bugs]

i think its a pretty good filter, especially for those who make dvds of tv shows that wont be on dvd. the one thing i dont like is how its not too good on regular 2D animation, like what i posted, seeing as they all the black outlines around the character

[yoda313]

Hello,

I have a question. Can you set up a delogo map to remove those animated pop up logos? You know the ones used after a commercial break to show what's playing now and what's coming up?

I think my best bet might be to put the mask to cover the whole area and then just use that for the whole movie (including the lower right network logo). Any thoughts on the preview popups would be welcome.

Kevin

[Matt D]

I haven't posted to this thread for awhile, but figured I'd bring it back to see if it can help anyone else. Unfortunately I haven't been able to send any actual footage to some of the naysayers due to MSN not allowing attachments over 10megs, but I am still removing logos with great results.
I recently tried removing the TBS logo from some Family Guy episodes and DeLogo came through again. The logo is just GONE! Not even a glimmer of the thing remains. I've also had great luck erasing the CBS logo from episodes of CSI:NY.
Yoda313, I wouldn't even bother with the pop-up stuff. They can't be blended away so blurring them is the only option. Personally I am less willing to tolerate blurring than I am a logo, so I would just leave it alone.

[Tommyknocker]

I haven't posted to this thread for awhile, but figured I'd bring it back to see if it can help anyone else. Unfortunately I haven't been able to send any actual footage to some of the naysayers due to MSN not allowing attachments over 10megs, but I am still removing logos with great results.
I recently tried removing the TBS logo from some Family Guy episodes and DeLogo came through again. The logo is just GONE! Not even a glimmer of the thing remains. I've also had great luck erasing the CBS logo from episodes of CSI:NY.
Yoda313, I wouldn't even bother with the pop-up stuff. They can't be blended away so blurring them is the only option. Personally I am less willing to tolerate blurring than I am a logo, so I would just leave it alone.

Yes, I am a naysayer as well. Sure wish there was a way to see your handiwork, so it would shut me up. Until then, I remain skeptical. The weather sure is nice here in Missouri.

[yoda313]

Hello,

Yoda313, I wouldn't even bother with the pop-up stuff. They can't be blended away so blurring them is the only option. Personally I am less willing to tolerate blurring than I am a logo, so I would just leave it alone.

Yeah, kinda thought so. Oh well. It does work pretty well for a lot of stuff.

Kevin

[Matt D]

Tommyknocker- I don't blame you for being skeptical, I tried this thing as a lark just to see what it could do, and it does work very well. I'm not suggesting that you not be a skeptic, just that people should try it out.
I'm certainly not trying to shut you up, but I would like to show you that it does work on moving video without causing distortions or warping or other distracting issues.
The only problem I've had is associated with certain colors (like I've explained earlier) showing a ghost of the former logo. This is noticable on a monitor, but on a TV you have to know exactly where to look.

[Matt D]

I tried sending a smaller delogo'd clip to Tommyknocker, but his mailbox was full so I guess he will not be hosting it. If anyone else could host a hilarious 30 sec Family Guy clip about 10mb in size that would be cool.

[Tommyknocker]

I emptied it, so please try again.

[Hairless Heart]

Hi

Had a quick play about with the Virtualdub delogo filter yesterday and was very impressed with the results. I have got a question though. The file I started with was a 30 minute Mpeg2 which came in at about 700MB. To test the filter, I only applied it to the first couple of minutes of the file and then played back the avi file, which was fine. The size of that avi file though, was almost 1 Gig! For a couple of minutes! Surely I must have been doing wrong ?!?

Any ideas?

Cheers

Doug

[guns1inger]

virtualdub will be saving out as an avi, possibly uncompressed, hence the large difference in file size. Try frameserving the output to tmpgenc instead so you can encode back to mpeg-2 after filtering

[ns]

Great to see others experimenting with this also. I've been playing with a VirtualDub Plugin called 'Logoaway' and I like it. Here's a shot from an old Twilight Zone without the 'SciFi' logo in the bottom right-hand corner.



BTW: Glad to see some other Michiganders on here. GO BLUE!

NS.

[hoomi]

A skightly off topic question:
Has anyone found any way to remove the dynamic logos and texts from a video file.
I am talking about the logos that jump all over the screen while video is playing. Is it possible at all to remove/mask or even rename these?

[yoda313]

Hello,

The animated logos are probably too difficult to remove. You'd be fighting a larger area to remove than a static one. It's probably best to leave it alone.

Though, give it a shot and let us know how it went

Kevin


--No harm in trying --

[BJ_M]

MSU makes a delogo filter also for vdub .. anyone tried it ?

[Matt D]

Yes, I tried the MSU filter along with all the others. IMO it's utterly useless because it "removes" the logo by blurring it. The result is a blurry, shifting, warping mess from hell.

[jimmalenko]

I too, would rather see a logo than pixelation.

... but all power to ya for trying

I've followed this thread with interest since it began, hoping for some miraculous breakthrough, but unfortunately this, in it's present state, is not for me

[Matt D]

Well, I have had great luck with DeLogo because it will blend out your logo with masks. The results are very very good but it all depends on the logo really. Some come off really easy and some are harder and will leave some residual markings so I just end up leaving them on.
Well, as soon as some kind soul offers to host it for a week or those interested can see my example clip. If it wasn't far away better than a blurred shifting blob I wouldn't waste your time or mine.

[jimmalenko]

Bump-aroony ....

http://www.compression.ru/video/subtitles_removal/index_en.html

I just happened to come across this in the guides section, while looking for something else. Naturally, the screenshots on the author's page look fantastic, but I'm yet to give this one a test-drive myself to make up my own mind yet. It claims to be able to "automatically" detect logos, plus it is meant to be able to handle motion logos, so it might be worth checking out ...

[CaZeek]

I don't see how either of those screen shots are possible, unless he manually redrew the pictures on the screen. They're not even alpha-blended logos, they're solid blocks of color.. that's some advanced technology

[johns0]

jimmalenko,i tried that filter and its not worth it,takes too much time to try and figure out where to position it plus it causes the encoding to go about 5 fps,delogo filter i found was way faster(30fps) and and no problems getting the logo covered.