To Re-encode or to not re-encode?

[deadlettr]

I have a NTSC/AC3 DVDR of a Prosumer shot (meaning it was two video cameras on tripods but not really professional operators) show of a band my brother was in back a couple years ago. I wasn't involved with the original capture/transfer/editing - I just happened to come across the disc in my stuff recently.
It's shot dark and the colors are off some but I think it could be made better and given back to him after all this time to show off to his friends. No, I'm not expecting miracles here but I actually do think it could be remastered to a better level of watchablity.
I've looked through a bunch of postings and websites and the general thinking it seems is once you have a DVD standard mpeg file (or VOB) you really shouldn't re-encode it because of quality loss, BUT I've also seen where people remaster digital DVD media with good (or better results than the original) so someone must have a method here.
My background experience with DVD creation is that I have slowly transfered old VHS tapes that I have to DVD, so I'm at least capable of doing the corrections needed as I've done this on VHS transfers (at least to my standards) and I use VirtualDub when doing my transfers then use Vegas 6 to convert to DVD compliant mpeg so that would be the way I'd like to finish this conversion so my questions are mainly:

)I can get from ripped VOBs>>mpg (I've figured that much out-although pulling the ac3 audio was tricky until I read around in these forums) Now can I just load the mpg into Vegas and render as a lossless avi codec for VirtualDub processing....then back into Vegas 6 to convert into a DVD complient mpeg?
)Will I be able to prevent heavy loss by re-encoding with Vegas 6? The segment is only about an hour long so I could really crank up the bitrate if needed.
)Are there any statistics I should pull from the original VOBs (like bitrate and such) that I should use for figuring the best settings when I re-encode? I ask this incase there's some mathmatical reason I need to use certain settings because of the original VOBs
)Should I just say heck with it and use the knobs on the TV to adjust each time I watch it? That's a joke obviously.....
)Since I'm not a person who normally rips DVDs for remastering I'm not really looking at purchasing any huge software suites but if someone has suggestions on other editing software out there that might assist I'm open to suggestions....if it's free great!,....if it's not then I'd have to find some other option it has that I'd want to use in my normal VHS>>DVD transfers.

I do thank any inputs in advance here....mods - If you think this should go in one of the other forums please move at your discretion and thanks for doing so.

[jdizzy40]

If you stripped it from the disc then its already DVD Compliant. What you are wanting to do must be ran through a piece of hardware, Expensive and not worth buying for one project. Some software might be able to improve it a bit, however if you start with low quality, that's what you end up with unless you have a lot of money to invest in hardware.

[danzeb]

I can only give you a partial response from my limited experience.
I am not an expert on restoration but I did a similiar project with a 'too dark' video and was very happy with the result. The final DVD was not perfect but it was better than the original. Areas that were totally black showed nice detail. Maybe it could have been better but it was significantly better than the original. Get the file into VirtualDub and apply a filter like Brightness or Donald Graft's enhanced Brightness. You might all want to try Smoother if the picture is grainy. It worked for me. All depends on the original video. Once that is done then just Author it and do a comparision test.

Perhaps someone can suggest some better filters or techniques.

I don't know the answer to your encoding question.

[deadlettr]

I agree on "Garbage In Garbage Out" and maybe that's confusing the question here. So lets drop the portion mentioning any restoration and just discuss the re-encoding (maybe I'll redo and post in the Advanced Conversion forum).
If I rip the VOBs from a DVD, then use Vegas to convert to lossless AVI codec so I can do whatever to it (I want AVI because VirtualDub is such a great program),....then use Vegas to convert back to DVD compliant mpeg, what can I do to minimize the quality loss?

And thanks for the inputs so far!

[guns1inger]

Not a whole hell of a lot, really. You could skip the vegas bit altogether by using the latest version of virtualdubmpeg. You could then work directly from the demuxed video and not have to convert to lossless avi until you have finshed fiddling.

[deadlettr]

I hadn't even realized that there's a MPEG version of VirtualDub. That's good news, but how does it do when re-encoding (anyone have comments on how good is it compared to Mainconcept or TMPGEnc?)

[FulciLives]

Some things I would like to note.

It sounds like you intend to do no editing but just play around with the picture controls, correct?

In other words adjust the brightness, contrast, color saturation and hue etc.

First thing I would do is use DVD Decrypter to RIP the DVD and use IFO mode. Select the main movie and make sure that FILE SPLITTING under IFO SETTINGS is set to None. This will give you one large VOB file that contains the entire video from start to finish sans any of the menu stuff.

Now take that VOB file and run it through DGMPGDec which will spit out the audio file (hopefully it is PCM WAV or AC-3 but it also works if it is MP2/MPA audio) ... a D2V project file will be created as well and if you want you can also have it demux the video to a M2V/MPV file. You only need the M2V/MPV file if you intend to use VirtualDubMod (which works with VOB and MPEG files).

And here you come to a choice.

You can use VirtualDubMod with the VOB file or the demuxed M2V/MPV file OR you can use the D2V project file with AviSynth.

In my opinion you would be better off with AviSynth as it is much more powerfull and you can preview an Avisynth script in WMP or even in VirtualDubMod.

As far as adjusting the video image properties (contrast, brightness, color etc.) make sure you realize that a computer monitor will not mimic a NTSC TV correctly. Generally speaking a NTSC image looks darker on a computer monitor than on a TV and that is just one difference.

So here is what I would do.

1.) Properly set up your TV with something like VIDEO ESSENTIALS which is a DVD that helps you to properly set up the contrast and brightness and color levels etc.

2.) Play back the original DVD and start to "fool" around with your controls and get an idea of what needs to be done. Do you need more brightness or more contrast or both? Do you need to adjust the color hue towards red or green? Do you need to adjust color saturation to more or less.

3.) Adjust the TV back to the reference levels as you did in step 1

4.) Now on the computer adjust the properties going in the direction you determined on the TV. Try not to go too far though. Make small adjustments. This will be done using filters in either VirtualDubMod or AviSynth, whichever you choose to use.

5.) Encode a small (short) segment of the video. It really only needs to be a few minutes long. Use something like a CBR of 8000kbps so you can encode quickly and not worry about MPEG artifacts.

6.) Quickly author (nothing fancy just get it done) and burn the sample onto a DVD-RW or DVD+RW and remember that you usually need to burn at least 1.0 GB or a stand alone DVD player will not work. Maybe even put a small (short) sample of the original VOB on it as well so you can compare the original with the newly adjusted encoded sample without switching DVD discs.

7.) With the TV set back to reference levels play back the original and the newly adjusted segment. See if it looks good to you. Using the newly adjusted segment again try adjusting the level on the TV to see if it needs to be more bright or more this or less that etc.

8.) Go back to step 4 and create another clip with further adjustments ... check it out on the TV ... keep doing this until you think you "got it".

As for the audio ... I would not fool around with it if it is PCM WAV or AC-3 but if it is MP2/MPA I would convert it to a 48K 16-bit Stereo PCM WAV file then use that for the audio (or go one step further and convert it to AC-3 format).

There are so many different filters for both VirtualDub and AviSynth that I am not even going to get into all that ... it will be a bit trail and error but there are many filters to do what you want to do.

Good Luck! ... This will make a nice Holiday gift!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[danzeb]

John,

Thanks for the info it was very helpfull to me.

The original question from deadlettr included a question about re-encoding and what settings to use. I look at the original file and use the same bit rate but I'm not sure if that is the best approach.

dennis

[FulciLives]

John,

Thanks for the info it was very helpfull to me.

The original question from deadlettr included a question about re-encoding and what settings to use. I look at the original file and use the same bit rate but I'm not sure if that is the best approach.

dennis

You use the most bitrate you can. This is based on the running time, nothing more, nothing less. If you have to use a bitrate of less than approximately 5000kbps - 4500kbps then you might consider using HalfD1 resolution.

But if I recall isn't this only about an hour long? If so you should be able to use a very high bitrate.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[deadlettr]

FulciLives - Excellent posting and I do appreciate the time it took you to put all that down in the simplified manner you did...even an idiot like me understood! You're absolutely on the ball on what I'd like to do with this footage. Easy enough for me to work on with my Canopus 300 and VirtualDub when pulling from a VHS....but I'm not so sure when dealing with something that's already set up in DVD format so this will be a learning experience with AviSynth if I can wrap my head around it (ok, maybe I'll cheat and take the VirtualDubMod path if I still can't figure it out). I remember when I started messing with transfers I tried the AviSynth and didn't have the patience to puzzle it out, but I'm more at ease with what I do now so maybe it's time I give it another shot. And with danzeb's follow-up post (thank you too) on the bitrate that answered the question I probably would've asked since there's usually some strange math going on in the background with conversions and such and I'd want to make sure to use the right fingers to count on.
Time to get cracking I guess over the Thanksgiving holiday when I have a couple uninterrupted days.... .