FILM9 - Restoration software for old films (8mm, Super8, 16mm) and video

[Alwyn]

How sad. A keen newby is beaten into submission by "the elite". Hang in there, Past Colours, you have nothing to apologise for. It's not your fault you've been treated so badly when obviously you didn't deserve it. And good on you for making a fist of your life in what are obviously appalling circumstances.

[Remco00]

https://files.videohelp.com/u/298231/MVI_8730_V0.mp4

Dear all,

I've been using Film9 in the past, switched to the Video Fred scripts but it was a bit complicated for me so back to Film9 again.
Generally I get good results in removing grain etc, but what I notice is that every time the scene changes the first few frames are not treated. Almost as if for every frame film9 compares with the previous frame but because it's the first frame from that scene there's nothing to compare with. Has anybody seen this before?

In the above link there's an example of a movie that I scanned with my speed adjusted Bauer T502 (16.666fps) and a Canon 650D DSLR in video mode. Film9 settings: remove dirts : double action, scratches clean: enhanced action, degrain 100% triple action. Color base autogain + autowhite switched on.

Hope anybody can help.
Thanks!

Dear all,
thanks to the help of Gelinox I found out that the above problem is caused by the rolling shutter effect. This is because I use my DSLR camera in video mode. Unfortunately I don't have other options at the moment. I learned that the NEAT plugin can fix this problem. Unfortunately I can't use this plugin in Film9 so I'm back to scripts / Davinci Resolve (which works great but I prefered the ease of use of Film9).

Hope this helps for other people.

[Gelinox]

Hello Reemcc00

Effectively for dust correction, the images are compared with each other.
On your film, there are duplicate images, which makes it impossible to clean some dust.
I don't know if it's the speed of your projector that isn't perfectly set at 16.66 fps or post-processing done by yourself afterwards.
But the goal is to get a Super8 frame for a video frame.
The adaptation of the speed is done later.

It is on this condition that you will obtain the best corrections.
It is also very important to devote as much time as possible to obtaining a perfect capture (light, size of the image, etc.).
The best defect correction is the one you don't need to do.
Your result is a good start.

Now, the defects between each shot (exposure), are often the result of the Super8 camera.
Restarting the film in the camera gave an under or overexposed image, we see this very often.
To remove these transitions which can be annoying in video, I use scene detection in DaVinci, it takes each transition for a scene. These scenes contain only one, two or three images. Then you have to identify them and delete them with the sorting option that is in this software. It's quite fast and efficient.

[johnmeyer]

To add to what Gelinox said, your capture is not "frame accurate." The proper way to transfer film is to use a system which gives you exactly one frame of film onto each frame of video. Your capture has some frames which are duplicates of the previous frame (easy to fix) and some which are blends of adjacent frames (harder to fix). If you want to apply any sort of restoration using Film9 or any other tool, none of them will work with your capture because the software relies on looking at differences between frames and taking action on those differences. When two frames are absolutely identical, the software gets very confused and doesn't work.

The right thing to do, if you can, is to modify your capture equipment and software to produce frame-accurate results. If that is not possible, or if you have a huge number of captures already, you can try using the script developed at doom9.org:

The power of Avisynth salvaging "botched" transfers of old 8mm films to DVD

[Past Colours]

I don't think that "scripts" is the best outlet for your unbridled creativity. I think there are better visual tools like After Effects or DaVinci Resolve or any NLE that allows more than sequencing events.

Currently working with a few programs

Photoshop, Corel Video Studio, Topaz, Cartoon Animator: Some are deemed a little lo brow, but they have sufficed. I've just installed DaVinci Resolv and am a little excited to see where that leads

Would love to get a better understanding of how to implement and utilize scripts for improving old film and video downloads if they are indeed applicable, prior to colourization however I'm a little reticent to ask, I'm still hiding under a rock.

Regards
Peter

[johnmeyer]

Would love to get a better understanding of how to implement and utilize scripts for improving old film and video downloads if they are indeed applicable, prior to colourization ...

I previously provided links to the film restoration scripts posted over in doom9.org. I only provided links to VideoFred's work, and did not include links to the branch of that development which I created. I somewhat streamlined his work; I made it much faster, not only by eliminating certain things, but also by using faster plugins and enabling multi-threading. My scripts are 2-5 times faster, depending on how many threads you can enable and how your computer is configured.

I can provide links to my work, but if you haven't done any work yet with AVISynth, since I didn't include links to each and every plugin used, my scripts are probably harder to get working. So, while I can understand how either VideoFred's scripts or my derivative would be extremely daunting, you are probably better off starting with his scripts because he provides everything you need in one download.


Since you still want to get a "get a better understanding of how to implement and utilize scripts for improving old film and video," let me try to help.

I can suggest that you do the following.

First, download AVISynth+

https://avs-plus.net/

and also download VirtualDub (which is used to load the AVISynth+ scripts):

http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

If you still have a computer running Windows XP or Windows 7, either of those would be preferable to using Windows 10 or 11, simply because there can be some issues with certain plugins on more modern systems. However, if you only have Windows 10/11, then go ahead and proceed. I would also recommend downloading the 32-bit versions of both programs, even if your O/S is 64-bit. Again, this is to improve compatibility because many AVISynth plugins have not been recompiled for 64-bit operation.

I would then try to get a simple script running, something like this:

AVISource("E:\My Video.avi")

You type that into Notepad, save it with the file extension .avs and then open that AVS file in Virtualdub. If you've got everything working, you should see "My Video.avi" in Virtualdub and be able to play it and scrub the timeline using the play head in Virtualdub.

Once you have that working, you can download all the film restoration plugins that VideoFred provided in one of his links, and then try implementing just one single restoration step, such as changing the brightness.

Thus, the whole idea of my recommendation, which I provide in answer to your request for help in understanding how to utilize scripts, is to take small steps, build up your confidence (and make sure the basic framework works on your computer) and then start getting more adventurous by adding functions to your basic script.

[Past Colours]

Would love to get a better understanding of how to implement and utilize scripts for improving old film and video downloads if they are indeed applicable, prior to colourization ...

I previously provided links to the film restoration scripts posted over in doom9.org. I only provided links to VideoFred's work, and did not include links to the branch of that development which I created. I somewhat streamlined his work; I made it much faster, not only by eliminating certain things, but also by using faster plugins and also enabling multi-threading. My scripts are 2-5 times faster, depending on how many threads you can enable and how your computer is configured.

I can provide links to my work, but if you haven't done any work yet with AVISynth, since I didn't include links to each and every plugin used, my scripts are probably harder to get working. So, while I can understand how either VideoFred's scripts or my derivative would be extremely daunting, you are probably better off starting with his scripts because he provides everything you need in one download.


Since you still want to get a "get a better understanding of how to implement and utilize scripts for improving old film and video," let me try to help.

I can suggest that you do the following.

First, download AVISynth+

https://avs-plus.net/

and also download VirtualDub (which is used to load the AVISynth+ scripts):

http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

If you still have a computer running Windows XP or Windows 7, either of those would be preferable to using Windows 10 or 11, simply because there can be some issues with certain plugins on more modern systems. However, if you only have Windows 10/11, then go ahead and proceed. I would also recommend downloading the 32-bit versions of both programs, even if your O/S is 64-bit. Again, this is to improve compatibility because many AVISynth plugins have not been recompiled for 64-bit operation.

I would then try to get a simple script running, something like this:

AVISource("E:\My Video.avi")

You type that into Notepad, save it with the file extension .avs and then open that AVS file in Virtualdub. If you've got everything working, you should see "My Video.avi" in Virtualdub and be able to play it and scrub the timeline using the play head in Virtualdub.

Once you have that working, you can download all the film restoration plugins that VideoFred provided in one of his links, and then try implementing just one single restoration step, such as changing the brightness.

Thus, the whole idea of my recommendation, which I provide in answer to your request for help in understanding how to utilize scripts, is to take small steps, build up your confidence (and make sure the basic framework works on your computer) and then start getting more adventurous by adding functions to your basic script.

YES ! Thank you for your valuable insight, I cannot explain how much that that simple cracking open of the seal means to me. Not knowing where to start or not understanding how to was the biggest hurdle, the light is now beginning to shine

Peter

[Gelinox]

I appreciate the help John provides and I don't want to confuse Peter in his future choices.
But I said it earlier in another post, I don't think Avisynth scripts are a good solution to invest learning time.
The links provided by John are all between 6 and 11 years old and even if it works well and John obtains magnificent results,
other programs (Resolve for example) have also made very significant progress since then.
These programs also require training, but this is limited to a few hours.

[Past Colours]

I appreciate the help John provides and I don't want to confuse Peter in his future choices.
But I said it earlier in another post, I don't think Avisynth scripts are a good solution to invest learning time.
The links provided by John are all between 6 and 11 years old and even if it works well and John obtains magnificent results,
other programs (Resolve for example) have also made very significant progress since then.
These programs also require training, but this is limited to a few hours.

Thanks Gelinox, I did note the disparity between Johns recommendations and your previous suggestions: It was apparent to me that there would have been considerable evolution in commercially driven software between the period of Fred's original software, Johns highly refined updates to it and your Film9 efforts.

I'm guessing that having knowledge in scripting and how Avisynth operates with Virtual Dub gives someone a firm and well rounded total understanding of the science or methodology on how to create the various processes to effectively "Fix" old film and Video issues..I.E. DIY. However what you seem to be saying is Commercial Software tech has in many ways ( but obviously not all) caught up with the hands on DIY, undertanding the how, it was done by real enthusiasts in the preceding decades.

But now off the shelf programs are really beginning to take the need away for that total immersive understanding of the "how" ; by engineering the code / script yourself in a kind of exclusive limited cartel, to a newer, commercially available, accessible by all type of software approach.

This is happening across the entire Internet / Computer world as you no doubt know, A.I. is rapidly stripping the human exclusivety of tenure from so, so, many fields of endeavour.

I run an:
I9 11900 8 Core/16 thread processor
32 DDR4-3200 RAM
SSD 2TB
4TB HDD Seagate Barracuda
Nvidia 12 GB RTX 3060

The various software I have seen looks excellent. I trust I can up school myself sufficiently to be able to understand the "How" on upcoming software evolution by learning the older hands on coding DIY methods. I'm guessing given another 5 years and the A.I. development will make everything I have seen that has been the fore runner on this forum by some real pioneers, totally obsolete, except for those that wish to hold true to the pathways they have trodden.

Would that be a fair summation ?

Peter

[Gelinox]

Perfect summary.
All forms of learning are welcome.
Avisynth uses DLL's which are the real core of this system.
Scripting is actually parameters passed to these DLLs. They are the ones doing the job.
I don't see much difference between moving a brightness slider on modern software or writing the instruction in a script.
But it may be a bit simplistic as a shortcut.

[ConsumerDV]

Past Colours, I suggest starting with VirtualDub without Avisynth and play with native plugins first.

DaVinci Resolve has a free version.

Feel free to quote only the portion that you are answering to, not a whole message.

[Past Colours]

Past Colours, I suggest starting with VirtualDub without Avisynth and play with native plugins first.

DaVinci Resolve has a free version.

Feel free to quote only the portion that you are answering to, not a whole message.

Thanks ConsumerDV, Ive downloaded Davinci Resolve and will play with Virtual Dub

[Remco00]

Past Colours, I suggest starting with VirtualDub without Avisynth and play with native plugins first.

DaVinci Resolve has a free version.

Feel free to quote only the portion that you are answering to, not a whole message.

Thanks ConsumerDV, Ive downloaded Davinci Resolve and will play with Virtual Dub

You might want to look at the NEAT video plug in. It's not free, but worth every penny (think around 75euro). Does a great job removing noise, dust, scratches, etc. I think there's a trial version available.

Davinci uses a lot of resources and it takes ages to render though but if you have good hardware (which i dont have unfortunately) it should work.

[Remco00]

To add to what Gelinox said, your capture is not "frame accurate." The proper way to transfer film is to use a system which gives you exactly one frame of film onto each frame of video. Your capture has some frames which are duplicates of the previous frame (easy to fix) and some which are blends of adjacent frames (harder to fix). If you want to apply any sort of restoration using Film9 or any other tool, none of them will work with your capture because the software relies on looking at differences between frames and taking action on those differences. When two frames are absolutely identical, the software gets very confused and doesn't work.

The right thing to do, if you can, is to modify your capture equipment and software to produce frame-accurate results. If that is not possible, or if you have a huge number of captures already, you can try using the script developed at doom9.org:

The power of Avisynth salvaging "botched" transfers of old 8mm films to DVD

Thank you so much for your help. This might the reason indeed. This is probably the reason why I get better results in Davinci Resolve + NEAT Plugin. Neat allows me to set a threshold where it looks further than 1 frame. However, it takes ages to render in Davinci so I prefer Film9 or the VideoFred scripts. I will have a look at the link you provided, thanks for that.

Unfortunately adjusting my projector isn't really an option, it has already been adjusted to run at 16.66666. I used to own a Reflecta super 8 scanner (not the super 8 / normal 8 one they still sell, but the bigger, slower one). Indeed that scans 1 frame at the time and scripts worked much better. However, I hated that machine

[Gelinox]

To do a test, I took the clip found in this thread that John pointed out to us:
Avisynth power recovers "botched" transfers of old 8mm movies to DVD

Here is what I get with the paid version of Resolve (I don't know if the filters I used are available in the free version). I only changed the stomboscopic effects:
Video test

[lordsmurf]

Publishing PMs without correspondent's consent is seriously uncool.

Publishing PMs without correspondent's consent is seriously uncool.

There's nothing wrong with this practice, as long as
- any private info is scrubbed
- it's edited down to the core tech question(s) of the conversation, for the purpose of sharing the answer with all, not hide it in PMs. Most people don't think this way, because they don't help others, or at least not to volume.

There was a guy named [name redacted] seven years ago in this forum, who sent me PMs every week and wanted all sorts of private hand holding. I made the mistake of helping him via PM, and it never ended.
So, I've learned to stop these inquiries as soon as they happen.

We should compare notes. I've had far too many of those over the decades. Not just years ... decades.

Umm..yeah Hi Guys..I'm still in the room

Hello.

- Nobody was offended.
- You seem like a nice person with interesting hobbies and career.
- If you want some Avisynth help for film restoring, johnmeyer is absolutely who you should interact with. But in public, so we can all see his help and advice. Post away, he'll help, others may help, I might even help.

You're fine.

And I like the word "dunky". That was new.

Some years ago, I took John's scripts into the interlace analog domain, trying to unscrewup bad film>VHS conversions. It's a different beast. The sort of footage he and I work on can't be crammed through a GUI, freeware, or even payware. It needs specialized software, and that's what Avisynth is. It's worth learning.

[lollo]

Originally Posted by ConsumerDV
Publishing PMs without correspondent's consent is seriously uncool.

Originally Posted by lollo
Publishing PMs without correspondent's consent is seriously uncool.

Originally Posted by lordsmurf
There's nothing wrong with this practice, ...

No. A PM is a Personal/Private message. It should not be published without author's permission.

Most people don't think this way, because they don't help others, or at least not to volume.

When I receive a PM asking for technical support, I suggest the sender to publish the content in the forum, to help other readers with the solutions. But it's his choice.

[Gelinox]

There's nothing wrong with this practice

Let's move on, the problem is definitely solved, I don't think it's useful to come back to it.

lollo :
I just watched the VHS restorations you do on your site.
First of all congratulations for publishing them, some talk a lot about them and never show the result of their work.
I am not a specialist in this type of restoration, but for me it is very light and very little marked (I respect this choice). Do you also think that it would not be possible for you to use other tools?

edit : I'm not thinking of Film9, but of other nle

[lollo]

First of all congratulations for publishing them

Thanks!

but for me it is very light and very little marked

Can you explain what do you mean by light and little marked? These are S-VHS/VHS captures of the 90s, so the starting point is not that good. I try to do not over-process the videos to keep a natural "analog" look (difficult to achieve), and on some of them I highlighted in purpose some of the classic defects (plastic look, halos, too much denoise, ...)

edit: also keep in mind that all of my captures are from recorded TV programs, and as a collector, I just want to fix the aspects that are related only to the analog recording, and do not wish in any way to fix the problems inherent to the original broadcasted videos, because I wish to own the "original".

Concerning the usage of other tools, I am an AviSynth fan, bevause it has everything that is necessary for "problem fix/restoration needs" that I met. I will add soon VapourSynth, because its better support for AI upscale, but that is just for fun.

However I am open to use other tools as well, if you have any suggestion, please let me know, I trust your point of view. But do not talk to me about NeatVideo or Topaz Video Enhance AI: I did a lot of experiment/comparison of these 2 tools versus AviSynth filtering on my captures, and there is nothing they can do that cannot be matched or beaten by AviSynth/VapourSynth in my case.

[Alwyn]

To do a test, I took the clip found in this thread that John pointed out to us

How does one download a Vimeo video? I'm logged on but can't find a Download feature.

[Alwyn]

But do not talk to me about NeatVideo or Topaz Video Enhance AI: I did a lot of experiment/comparison of these 2 tools versus AviSynth filtering on my captures, and there is nothing they can do that cannot be matched or beaten by AviSynth/VapourSynth in my case.

That's the point (for me at least). Even if I can get close, I'll use Neat every time, because it sits in my editor. Scene changes are dealt with with a couple of clicks doing a new run of Neat.

[Gelinox]

How does one download a Vimeo video? I'm logged on but can't find a Download feature.

By using this site (sorry in French language), but you just have to put the url address:
https://telecharger-videos.com/vimeo

That's the point (for me at least). Even if I can get close, I'll use Neat every time ...

I have no experience in VHS restoration, I only do film scans.
It's true that for VHS, Neat is perhaps less used than for film grain.

Can you explain what do you mean by light and little marked? These are S-VHS/VHS captures of the 90s...

Again, I've never worked on VHS captures, so I don't know anything about that.
I am just amazed sometimes by the very poor quality of the original images and the difficulty there must be in improving these images.
But I would like to try!
Regarding my remark, I allow myself to attach a link that you post on your site: https://imgsli.com/ODkwMDIhttps://imgsli.com/ODkwMDI
The corrections are light and I understand your arguments.
Have you tried to make these corrections with recent software?

[lollo]

Regarding my remark, I allow myself to attach a link that you post on your site: https://imgsli.com/ODkwMDI

You refer to a sample where I showed no improvement in purpose

The filtering used in that example is Median() and the goal was to show that if there is no analog noise randomly distributed, a multiple capture (3 in this case) and the averaging is not effective. A simple temporal denoise is more effective. See the full discussion here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/12386-dist-amp-recommendations.html

edit: you can find some basic restoration attempt here: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/399360-so-where-s-all-the-Topaz-Video-Enhance-AI-d...e9#post2626539

[Gelinox]

You refer to a sample where I showed no improvement in purpose

Indeed difficult to guess from your site.

The corrections are more visible on the other extracts.
For fun and testing, is there a raw extract on a site?

[lollo]

Sure!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qxLw2eFiLwvOhg2VFu4jVVy1a27L8cqy/view?usp=sharing (be careful, this is a mix of interlaced and progressive frames)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PhDvv_hAehsm_tHRfX3IKU3IHKutdMBS/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ykwLGc8nq27RQ2JfqJWH_qfZgJXoB3kL/view?usp=sharing

Enjoy your restoration

[Gelinox]

Great, thank you, that's very nice!
I'm going to have fun and also sweat a lot, lots of things that I've never encountered.

[Gelinox]

The first file proposed by lollo:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1baeCL8HThW-lAn2x0ChvwhovjbNUn7OQ/view?usp=sharing

Technically, I did not encounter any particular difficulty requiring specific tools. But I don't usually work on this kind of files, so I don't know if my settings are too much or too little, or just off the mark. Objective opinions welcome.

[lollo]

Thanks a lot for your sample!

My first impression is that you removed some details, typical of NeatVideo aggressive denoise if not well parameterized:


[Attachment 65048 - Click to enlarge]

This is my attempt at the same frame:

[Attachment 65049 - Click to enlarge]

and I also see aggressive sharpening, highlighting halos:


[Attachment 65050 - Click to enlarge]

This is my attempt at the same frame:

[Attachment 65051 - Click to enlarge]

On the other hand I see a good stabilization, because original recording is a bit shaky.

In any case, the best way to judge, is to put side-by-side your restoration versus mine, without mp4 compression.

Here is the result of my AviSynth restoration, add yours on left side and upload: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s485xeKY1z4SVq4Z1ZafRVQGVOLmGfXp/view?usp=sharing

[rrats]

You might want to look at the NEAT video plug in. It's not free, but worth every penny

Avisynth can output similar/same results and it's free

[Gelinox]

My first impression is that you removed some details, typical of NeatVideo aggressive denoise if not well parameterized:

It was agreed that I would not use Neat for these test, and I did not use it.
As said in a previous post, I don't think Neat is super efficient for this kind of media.

As you suggested in your last message, I just made another version that I put side by side with a version .avi restored by you.
I imagine, but it's up to you to tell me if you have time, that it gets closer to your settings.

For information, I will not have treated this clip as you did, I find it has good sharpness, but too much video noise.
And I'm not nostalgic for the quality of those old VHS. But I respect your choice which is worth mine.

Get the file here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SlFPmoLfC_5TExut6bzDRyADjanNqBdf/view?usp=sharing