4:3 Letterbox to 16:9 anamorphic. Show me your methods!

[SatStorm]

Yes, those broadcast are a nightmare to convert! Those music channels are small independed stations and - unfortunatelly - the only place to catch up current (euro dance) music that doesn't have a distribution through the Viacom channels (MTV, VH1, Viva, TMF, etc). Viacom "push" rock, r'n'b, hip hop and pop made in USA and UK those days and it is really hard to find the videos of the current european dance hits. It is a wierd situation, in which - for example - you can hear current dance music on radio, club or the disco, the CDs and the mp3s sell really well, but the videos only rarelly air on the music channels!
"Rapture" is among the channels with the lowest quality, because of the bitrate.

In this specific sample, the "effect" from the interlace/progressive switch isn't present. I'll upload later (from home) a sample to show you what I mean.

I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but when I talk with others about those type of broadcasts, I refer them as "16:9 letterboxed" and I never had a misunderstanding (untill now). That type of broadcast is the standard today in Europe...

When I set TMPGenc 2.5 to output that source "progressive" the picture on the 1/3 of my projects blures a bit. Sharpening is not the answer, because it "restores" the blockiness a bit.

This is a very puzzled situation and because I have hundreds of such videos waiting to be encoded on my HDs, I need to find the best possible way to convert them anytime soon.

[manono]

Hi-

It is a wierd situation, in which - for example - you can hear current dance music on radio, club or the disco, the CDs and the mp3s sell really well, but the videos only rarelly air on the music channels!

Even here in the US, there's very little electronic or dance music to be seen anywhere on television, although it's very popular in clubs and concerts in many parts of the US. Since it's even more popular in Europe, maybe the time is right for a major native European music video channel. If the sample you provided is typical of what you get, then it's a very bad situation.

Sharpening is not the answer, because it "restores" the blockiness a bit.

Yes, if there are blocks to begin with, a sharpener will magnify them, for sure. There are good AviSynth sharpeners that don't create blocks, though.

[jagabo]

It's not "pseudo" progressive. It's progressive. I'm not real sure why you think there's anything unusual about it.

Yes, the frames are not interlaced, but if you look at the MPEG file it's encoded as if they were interlaced. I think this is what he meant by "psuedo interlaced".

So the MPEG codec treated the original progressive frames as if they were interlaced. Internally, it separated the each frame into two fields, and compressed the fields separately. Then, on decompression, the two two fields were decompressed and joined back into a frame. Since those two field came from the same picture the result is progressive. This differs from a progressive encoding where the entire frame is treated as a single image, not as interlaced images.

[SatStorm]

Here is the other sample I promised
http://dl2.megauploads.org/download.php?id=26F7DCD7

Just watch how it jumps from pseudo-progressive to interlace and back to pseudo-progressive all the time!

Any suggestions of what is best to do with it?


Here a more wierd situation:

http://dl2.megauploads.org/delete.php?id=26F7DCD70CDB

The video, is obviously "pseudo-progressive". But watch the titles of the song: They scroll and they are interlace!

So, how you characterize this kind of source? Progressive? Interlace? I call it "pseudo-progressive" because it is interlace, without the fields being on an offset postition. But how to output this source? And how to handle it when I crop the letterboxed black bars to make it 16:9 anamorpic?

[jagabo]

Just watch how it jumps from pseudo-progressive to interlace and back to pseudo-progressive all the time!

Any suggestions of what is best to do with it?

Leave it alone. If it's letterboxed leave it letterboxed.

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1585808#1585808

The video, is obviously "pseudo-progressive". But watch the titles of the song: They scroll and they are interlace!

That is quite common. Scrolling interlaced text is added to progressive frames. None of this is noticeable on a standard definition TV because you only see one field at a time.

[SatStorm]

Jagabo, I don't wish to keep my material letterboxed. I wish to make those letterboxed videos 16:9 anamorphic, in the best possible way!
The second sample is 4:3 and I gonna keep it that way. I just post it so to show you how the picture switches from interlace to progressive and back to interlace. How to encode that video? As interlace? As progressive?

Maybe it's quite common to add interlace text on progressive frames. But the question is: What is the nature of this broadcast? Progressive? Interlace? How to handle this source regarding the filters? How to resize / upscale when it is neccessary? And finally, how to output it? Progressive? Interlace?

I'm thinking the use of "blending" the fields on those pseudo-progressive sources, so to create a solid progressive frame. If I do this, maybe upscaling the vertical axis after the cropping is better....

[manono]

I'm trying to get them now. When I click on the 2nd link, it asks me if I want to delete Sample 2. Maybe that's not what you intended? And the first link is Sample 2. Or maybe I'm doing something wrong.

[jagabo]

Maybe it's quite common to add interlace text on progressive frames. But the question is: What is the nature of this broadcast? Progressive? Interlace?

The MPEG file is encoded as interlaced video (again, this is a matter of how the MPEG encoder handles the video internally). The frames that come out of the MPEG decompressor contain a progressive image with interlaced text overlaid on top of it.

How to handle this source regarding the filters? How to resize / upscale when it is necessary? And finally, how to output it? Progressive? Interlace?

If you want the text to look as good as possible resize as interlaced. The main picture will suffer a bit though. If you want the main picture to look as good as possible and don't care about the text resize as progressive. The text will turn out really ugly. You could try using Smart Deinterlace in VirtualDub or KernelDeint() in AVISynth. These will only deinterlace portions of the image they think are interlaced. These may also work reasonably well with your video that slips in and out of interlace.

I'm thinking the use of "blending" the fields on those pseudo-progressive sources, so to create a solid progressive frame.

If you do this your whole frame will get a little blurry.

If I do this (blend deinterlace), maybe upscaling the vertical axis after the cropping is better....

In terms of picture quality either way will look the same. But cropping first then resizing will be faster.

[manono]

Hi-

In principle, jagabo's right about leaving alone and encoding interlaced or mixed interlaced/progressive sources as interlaced. However, if you prefer to have progressive output whenever possible (as I do) when it doesn't degrade the video too much, or you're trying to develop some kind of a template to handle as many of of your videos as possible, I, for one, don't see anything wrong with making it progressive. I encoded Sample 2 for progressive PAL DVD:

http://rapidshare.de/files/35429735/Sample2.VOB.html

Still can't figure out how to download the other one, the one with the interlaced text, although evidently jagabo did.

[SatStorm]

Manono, the second link is wrong. I'll fix it when I'll return home.

I don't care for text: I delete all the logos, titles, screen messenges, etc from my videos, using the delogo and logoaway filters. It's the video that I care.

From what I understand, in theory at least, unfolding the source, croping the bars, adding filters, resize(upscale), fold them back and output the result as interlace, may be the best way.
If I encode this result as progressive, the final mpeg gonna look a bit blur.

Right?

[manono]

Will it blur? Depends on the quality of the deinterlacer used. If you didn't know exactly where the interlaced parts were in advance, I'd defy you to pick out the frames that had been deinterlaced in the reencoded sample I uploaded. Even if you did know, you might not be able to tell. They look fine to me. And of course, the originally progressive frames don't get deinterlaced, so they don't degrade. Now, I didn't use logoaway, nor did I sharpen. I just encoded as progressive, deinterlacing the interlaced frames, and then cropping, resizing, and adding borders, to redistribute the black.

If you deinterlace and make progressive before other filtering (crop, resize, logoaway), none of that unfolding/folding fields is necessary.

If you use a bad deinterlacer, like a blend deinterlacer, then yes, the deinterlaced frames will be pretty obvious. If you use a deinterlacer that deinterlaces everything, then that's not good either. You want one that leaves the already progressive frames alone, and only deinterlaces the interlaced frames. I'm not positive, as I don't filter in VDub, but I don't think there is any such VDub deinterlacer.

[SatStorm]

There are various Virtualdub filters to test. I have a great collection of them (about 12 - 13 I think...). I'll find the best, after all, this is my hobby for about 8 years now! It doesn't show (mostly because I don't use avisynth and I'm not so active in the forums anymore), but I know my stuff...

I never de-interlaced my sources before, because I kept the broadcasts 4:3. I'll continue to do this since the results are O.K.

But for the widescreen videos, I wish to create anamorphic 16:9 DVDs from letterboxed sources. So, I have to find the best vertical resizing method and how to handle the source.

I already found a limitation: You can't crop and expand the cropped result of those images using virtualdub when you unfold the source. There are some videos which are widescreen but not 16:9 (or wider). So, you have to crop them, and resize them adding some lines to the left and the right of the picture (yeap, that's letterboxing again...). With this pseudo - progressive source, you can't do this if you unfold the fields: The result is an interlaced mess.

The more I thinking it, the more I realise that the best option is to blend those fields as a last step, before feeding the encoder. I don't trust TMPGenc to handle this convertion (interlace input, progressive output). It must be done, in the best possible way, before!

[jagabo]

There are various Virtualdub filters to test. I have a great collection of them (about 12 - 13 I think...).

For VirtualDub you should try Smart Deinterlace with the Edge Directed Interpolate option:

http://neuron2.net/smart/smart.html

It worked about as good as AVISynth's KernelDeint(order=1) on Sample 2.mpg (about the same as Manono's example). But all the deinterlacers sometimes mess up.

I already found a limitation: You can't crop and expand the cropped result of those images using virtualdub when you unfold the source. There are some videos which are widescreen but not 16:9 (or wider). So, you have to crop them, and resize them adding some lines to the left and the right of the picture (yeap, that's letterboxing again...). With this pseudo - progressive source, you can't do this if you unfold the fields: The result is an interlaced mess.

Use the Resize filter's Expand Frame and Letterbox Image option before the other filters. Resize to the same size as the source in the top portion of the dialog then use the Expand/Letterbox parameters to add bars to the sides.

The more I thinking it, the more I realise that the best option is to blend those fields as a last step, before feeding the encoder. I don't trust TMPGenc to handle this convertion (interlace input, progressive output). It must be done, in the best possible way, before!

Occasionally I find a source that doesn't deinterlace well so I resort to a sort of blend deinterlacing: use VirtualDub's Blur filter followed by Sharpen (~45). The Blur will blend the interlace comb artifacts, and Sharpen will restore a lot of the sharpness (without restoring the comb artifacts). This has the additional benefits of reducing some of the DCT artifacts. Of course, as with a blend deinterlace, it leaves you with "double exposure" frames when there is a lot of motion.

[SatStorm]

Well, stop the press!
The ultimate solution is called "Dee Mon Video Enhancer v1.2"

The problem is... it's a bit complicated solution! I have to load my DVB source to virtualdub mpeg2, crop the bars and delogo whatever is inside the widescreen area and save to an mjpeg avi. Then, I load the mjpeg avi to "video enchancer", in which I can use the virtualdub filters! So, I add msu_smart deblocker and static noise reduction filter. Then, I set the output to be 720 x 576. This little program does it's thing and the result is a wonderfull anamorphic 16:9 avi file. Perfect vertical resizing far better anything else I saw. I feed that new avi to my encoder and that's all.

There is also another problem: the speed: On my AMD 2.600+, a 5 min video needs about 6 hours to convert...

So, give me a hi-end four core intel CPU now or suggest me something else!

[FulciLives]

If I had the money my friend I would send you a new computer ... but I don't have that kind of money LOL

A good friend of mine (who used to have a lot of money but now he doesn't ... long story) was lamenting on a forum group dedicated to film soundtrack music (that's his "thing") that his old yet trusty Philips CD recorder (the stand alone kind that plugs into your stereo system) had stopped working and how he didn't have any money for a new one.

Today he said he got a package from UPS addressed to his home address but not with his real name ... it was addressed to his user name on that forum group.

Here some kind soul bought him a brand new Sony model CD recorder.

So ask away ... you never know 8)

Just know that if a new computer magically appears on your doorstop that it didn't come from my broke ass LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Been wanting to fool around with your samples ... even downloaded the first two ... but been too busy with work and whatnot. Sorry I couldn't participate more in this thread.

[SatStorm]

Ok, here is an update.
First of all, I forced to buy a new PC...
Now I have a C2D 6600 (my first Intel in 8 years)

I started posting my results and I end up to write a guide!
Here it is: https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1626081#1626081

I hope that it's gonna help someone out there!