ADVC 100 UPSAMPLING ERROR Firmware upgrade fix

[uriel23]

Here is the bottom line of all my research, and the way it was corrected with firmware. YEAY!

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1685733

With canopus help they RMA'd it upgraded to the new firmware employed by the ADVC 110.

The other way is Avisynth. Read on.

Uriel

[uriel23]

We now have the fix but for the Techies it may be worth looking at the history, this is an old problem even before dvd. Many manufacturers have sold Dvd players with this problem. Newer machines should have improved chips or firmware. There are some good illustrations of the problem at this site which show the chroma error.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_8_2/dvd-benchmark-special-report-chroma-bug-4-2001.html

[bendixG15]

Thanks for the info, closure, they call it.

I spent many hours researching this and have made my peace
a while back.

[uriel23]

Hey BendixG15

Glad we're both still here to tell the tale.

Don't suppose you know how to use Avisynth to rectify the chroma issue.

I have 120GB worth of captured avi's I need to sort.

Been on it now for sixteen and a half hours, today not including other days. The half was a Guinness.

Never used Avisynth before its been lingering in a zip file for some time. downloaded the newest version, first had to learn how to use it a bit quick, then spent most of the time trawling through posts to find answers and trying various script.

I know its not a mission for fix chroma upsampling and came to the conclusion its not 411 reinterpolation as thats NTSC but I need 420 Reinterpolation for the UK Pal system which my footage was captured from. I think this to be the case. Any takers?

After downloading ReInterpolate420.dll I extracted the dll file to the plugins folder of avisynth.

I then opened notepad and copied this script and added the title of one of my avi's

loadplugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\ReInterpolate420.dll")
avisource("F:\Scenalyzer Captured Files\new timer0334.avi")
ConvertToYUY2()
ReInterpolate420(interlaced=true)

Renamed and saved with the .avs extension instead of txt by typing it in.

Opened in virtualdub then saved as new AVI.

Imported new Avi into premiere pro and frame served into Tmgenc as usual. Authored and tried in standalone machine.

Not happy

Still with the chroma problem.
New captures look great now, but just need to sort out this older footage recorded before canopus fixed the firmware. Please say there's someone out there that has written a simple script to sort this.

There has been so much missinfo going on and the writers of some scripts start things but one other thing needs fixing they say they will look into it then the thread gets hijacked and the main objective forgotten. Most of this is from 2003ish about 10:32a.m.

Hope someone can help.

Uriel23

[edDV]

Just read through Don Munsil's 2001-03 (HomeTheaterHiFi) article but fail to see how it relates to the ADVC-100 and what the fix is. The article talks about certain MPeg2 hardware encoders and MPeg2 chipset decoders.

You didn't say where you were from initially. This is a PAL consumer DV and DVD issue. NTSC DV and both NTSC and PAL DVCPro use 4:1:1 sampling which don't have this issue. 4:1:1 chroma is always field coincident by definition. 4:1:1 sampling also has better multigeneration performance since it doesn't have to go through 4:2:0 chroma reinterpolation each decode and encode cycle.

4:2:0 DVD was never intended to be a source for post production. Even Sony says their DVD camcorders are for those that don't want to edit their video. I don't know what Sony says about their 4:2:0 DV PAL camcorders.

If you were seriously generating original video or transferring film you would be working in 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 anyway but 4:1:1 works for those on a budget.

The Canopus ADVC DV hardware codec was claimed to be closely matched to Sony's pro camcorder codecs. What is this "fix" and is Sony going to retro all PAL camcorders? For NTSC it shouldn't be an issue.

Your title of this thread says ADVC-100. Your other thread says you returned a ADVC-110. You said they flashed a PROM. What problem did they fix? You talk about a VCR pause issue. Can you post a framegrab of the problem that you see?

[uriel23]

Hi edDV

Think you miss read the other thread, I returned ADVC 100 not 110. I was told by Grass Valley (Canopus Thompson) that the fix had been intergrated into the newer ADVC 110 what that is I dont know. They told me to send my ADVC 100 to them. On their RMA report sheet to me when returned it simply said Hardware has been flashed successfully. Now all captures look fine when authored to dvd. I am in the the UK using PAL.

I had posted links to illustrate the problem but the screen shots from other forums have since expired. They said the problem was with the canopus codec and that avisynth fixbrokenchromaupsampling would work in avisynth.

Then in other threads people jumped in and said this is not the fix and would make it worse.

when the Canopus decoder performs the RGB conversion it seems to use a luminance range of 16-235 instead of 0-255 used normally for computers

Others said it was an interpolation problem where chroma was being duplicated and came up with avisynth reinterpolate 411 and 420.

Maybe the Don Munsil site is complicating things but I thought the images there illustrate the problem I see with my old AVI's. This does not happen now I have had the ADVC fixed.

Here's where it all started:-

Pics are now working again, check out the canopus with fix and with bug shows what I see on my old captures. Also it says this:

About Canopus codec, the "fog effect" comes from the YUY2->RGB conversion, as stated by ScrollLock in the sticky thread, as it uses a luminance range of 16-235 instead of 0-255.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=33526&pp=20

Here's one of the forums I got the reinterpolate stuff from.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=82787

Will get some of my own grabs up shortly. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks for your time!

[uriel23]

Ok Just opened the avi's in Virtualdub and did screen caps then cropped in photoshop. Hope thats ok. These were captured via the ADVC 100 using this method

Satalite Sky Digital Scart into JVC SVHS HR-S8700 deck using S Video out and into ADVC 100. Captured using Scenalyser Live.


http://aycu07.webshots.com/image/12366/2001576967409074671_rs.jpg

http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/13869/2004998368992287212_rs.jpg

http://aycu36.webshots.com/image/12515/2004934891560397846_rs.jpg

http://aycu07.webshots.com/image/13526/2004977016116699297_rs.jpg

http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/12561/2004979304409866995_rs.jpg

http://aycu11.webshots.com/image/12890/2004961843874254809_rs.jpg

http://aycu12.webshots.com/image/15131/2004902538588722575_rs.jpg

http://aycu20.webshots.com/image/14419/2004975553219254819_rs.jpg

[uriel23]

Just to add one thing this is live tv capture not from VHS or anything.

[edDV]

Well I'll try to sort it out further but the ADVC 100/110 only works with interlace video and YCbCr not RGB. NTSC mode uses 4:1:1 (no problem), PAL uses 4:2:0 (interpolated chroma pixels). All DV and DVD MPeg2 is 16-235 for luminance per standard.

The doom9 link refers to the Canopus DV encoder-decoder which is a software codec. The 16-235 vs. 0-255 issues discussed there relate to converstions between 0-255 computer RGB and "studio RGB" or YCbCr which honor 0-15 and 235-255 overshoots.

The ADVC uses a hardware codec and does not do these conversions. It takes analog NTSC or PAL and converts to 720x480i or 720x576i DV format and visa versa.

I think the Canopus ADVC "fix" must relate to 4:2:0 or was for some other issue.

[edDV]

Ok Just opened the avi's in Virtualdub and did screen caps then cropped in photoshop. Hope thats ok. These were captured via the ADVC 100 using this method

Satalite Sky Digital Scart into JVC SVHS HR-S8700 deck using S Video out and into ADVC 100. Captured using Scenalyser Live.

...

Thanks I'll look at it this evening (noon here)

[uriel23]

Thanks for your help.

Was looking for a clip of Torchwood or Dr Who. I am a props maker and worked on the show. I live about 15min from the sets and the whole BBC production here in South Wales. Saw the Tardis just before Christmas in for a service. I have a clip of these Cryogenic containers I made, a sex alien steals one then smashes it. The main character grabs the hand that was in the container the audience not knowing it belongs to someone special, theres a hint in the final episode. Not sure when the second season starts. Couldn't find it never mind.

Here's a still of what ADVC is capturing since it came back from Canopus.

http://aycu36.webshots.com/image/11835/2003117598289007357_rs.jpg

[edDV]

Thanks that helps. A before picture of the same frame would be even more helpful.*

Others note that this cap frame is a 50KB RGB JPeg** so has compression artifacts. We are looking for color space filtering artifacts not compression artifacts.


* or a recapture of a frame that you thought had problems before the "fix".

** a PAL DV frame would be 1 Mb or 125KB.

[uriel23]

I just captured that tonight. Unfortunately I can't show you a frame before the fix as all footage was captured live from tv. Not sure if I have any old camera footage captured before the fix. If I do and still have the original master I'll recapture.

Also if it helps I can export frames from Premiere pro as bitmap. I did compress the files as jpegs in photoshop sorry, thought the photo sharing site would only take so much but thinking on it that probably compressed again. Maybe need to rethink how I show stills to avoid artifacts. A BMP from premiere is 1.18MB. I lecture photoshop at college 12 hours a week and just been talking about this.

Will look for footage tomorrow its 1:30am here now gotta get some shut eye, had my Heroes fix for another week!

Nos da!

[edDV]

Max file size here is 2MB so the BMP will work (as a file).

[uriel23]

Appologies had busy day, working on theatre comedy with Welsh playwrite, will look more tomorrow. I have an old authored dvd and the master tape although its old VHS-C, I appologise again.

Could re-capture and make stills but I know there's lots of drop out on there which wouldn't be very good. Can't think of anything else other than asking canopus what was the problem they corrected and ask them if my old avi's can be fixed somehow.

[uriel23]

One other thing ed you say max file here is 2MB. I'm probably being very stupid but how do I upload here? doh!

[edDV]

Not easy for the new, enter file at bottom of "post Reply" window.

[uriel23]

Double doh! thanks will try and sort that out later.