Best Quality (Master) Backups of DVD's?

[brispuss]

Some of my retail dual layer DVD's of TV programs are just starting to fail and not playing (properly) when played using a stand alone DVD player.

Wanting to copy/back-up these dual layer DVD's (DVD-9) to single layer DVD's (DVD-5) to the best possible quality. The single layer discs are proposed to be used as master discs for copying to other DVD's as required for playback.

Been (trying to use)/using DVD Rebuilder with different encoders (CCE, Procoder, HCencoder, and other built-in encoders) and the results so far seem to be fairly good. However, I think there is room for improvement in quality of the output video. Some of the original DVD video is a bit grainy and/or is of low(ish) resolution which is still seen in the copies.

Are there some special settings available in DVD Rebuilder and associated encoders that minimizes or removes the "grain" and/or improves the resolution? What are suggested settings?

Are there other programs/encoders readily available that produce very high quality (master quality) outputs (which preferably removes grain and other distracting artifacts)?

[manono]

However, I think there is room for improvement in quality of the output video. Some of the original DVD video is a bit grainy and/or is of low(ish) resolution which is still seen in the copies.

An encoder ... encodes. You seem to want to filter your DVDs in various ways to try and improve on some iffy sources. DVD-Rebuilder allows for you to edit the AviSynth scripts it creates to add any filters you want. But that won't do you much good unless you know your way around AviSynth.

And if you really are looking to make the best quality backups, you'll feed your own AviSynth scripts with whatever filtering you want done into your encoder of choice. And maybe you're doing it already, but to cut a DVD9 down to a DVD5 with best quality you'll also remove all extraneous material - warnings, logos, extras of various kinds, extra audio and/or subtitle tracks, and maybe even shrink the menus. Almost all of the available bits should go to the main video(s).

...that produce very high quality (master quality) outputs...

Master quality? A master was used to create the DVDs in the first place. After you finish you'll be two encodes removed from the master used. And, apparently, the masters weren't all that good to begin with.

[hech54]

Some of my retail dual layer DVD's of TV programs are just starting to fail and not playing (properly) when played using a stand alone DVD player.

Replace your DVD player or clean the discs that are "failing".

Wanting to copy/back-up these dual layer DVD's (DVD-9) to single layer DVD's (DVD-5) to the best possible quality. The single layer discs are proposed to be used as master discs for copying to other DVD's as required for playback.

DVD-9 to another DVD-9 is the best you are going to get. Almost every attempt to "improve" on the quality, by a newbie or by someone who has otherwise never heard of AviSynth until now....is a waste of time and will result in reduced quality and about 10 extra steps involving more programs that you have probably never heard of.
Buy a bunch of Verbatim dual-layer DVDs....or big external hard drive. Less pain, all gain.

[brispuss]

Comments noted.

I'm trying to back up dual layer disc content to similar sized discs (at the moment) to preserve as much quality as possible.

The stand alone DVD player seems to play 98% of all my discs fine, it is just a few discs that seem to be causing playback issues. I suspect the issues are due to the discs starting to fail, as there is no obvious sign of damage to the discs (scratches, smudges etc) after close inspection.

I've been able to successfully process some discs using AVISynth and by using a filter to remove/minimize grain/noise from the videos.

However. On a few discs and only on a few scenes (ie not on all of the video), there appears to be very slight fluctuation of brightness and/or contrast. This definitely appears to be some fault and not an intentional effect as part of the video.

I don't want to adjust the brightness/contrast of video scenes where the brightness/contrast is constant. So, is/are there filters that smooth out or remove ONLY the fluctuating brightness/contrast and leave scenes with constant brightness/contrast alone?

[manono]

So, is/are there filters that smooth out or remove ONLY the fluctuating brightness/contrast and leave scenes with constant brightness/contrast alone?

None of which I'm aware. You'll have to apply your 'deflicker' filter on a scene-by-scene basis. And since the AviSynth ones are pretty much temporal in nature, they're liable to leave artifacts in the form of 'ghosts' or 'blending' in scenes where there's fast movement. A sample from the DVD showing the problem might be helpful.

[smitbret]

The "Best" master backup would be an .iso file stored on a HDD. No worry about compromising quality and it will be easier to burn to optical media later on.

[brispuss]

Thanks for the comments.

After some difficulty, I've managed to make a 10 and a 15 second copy of a scene where it can be seen that the brightness/contrast fluctuates. However, I can't seem to be able to upload this video successfully to this forum. I get the following message every time attempting to upload and attaching the video to this message -

"brispuss, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

1.Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
2.If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation."

It should be noted that I'm on a slow dial-up connection, and the 36/53 MB videos would take quite awhile to upload anyway. I don't know if the slow internet connection has any effect on the uploading issues or not(?)

The videos were eventually uploaded to a couple of file sharing websites via a local Internet Cafe using a broadband internet connection.

54 MB 15 second clip :-

Mediafire

4shared

36 MB 10 second clip :-

Mediafire

4shared

[manono]

I downloaded the first one. Why did you make a DV-AVI out of it and bloat the size when you could have more easily just cut out an M2V (or a piece) from the VOB? Makes no sense. You can control the flickering using the script below. Raise or lower the thSAD value (in boldface). If you want more deflickering, try up to 600-800. But, the higher the value, the more 'ghosts' or double images you'll get with fast movement. The filter also does a pretty good job on the grain. You'll need mt_masktools.dll, MVTools2.dll, and RemoveGrainSSE2.dll (or one of the other RemoveGrain.dlls).

Below is a link to a before and after MP4 using this script for the 'After' part:

AviSource("VTS_03_2_cut3.avi")

Crop(12,2,-14,-2)
BilinearResize(640,480)

rest=last
w=rest.width()
h=rest.height()
calm = rest.temporalsoften(1,255,255,32,2).merge(rest,0.2 5)
calm = calm.temporalsoften(1,255,255,16,2).merge(calm,0.2 5)
LOP = calm.bicubicresize(w/4,h/4).bicubicresize(w,h,1,0)
HIP = rest.bicubicresize(w/4,h/4).bicubicresize(w,h,1,0)
HIP = mt_makediff(rest,HIP)
mix = LOP.mt_adddiff(HIP,U=2,V=2)
sup1=rest.msuper(levels=1)
sup2=mix.removegrain(11).msuper()
bv2=sup2.manalyse(isb=true, delta=2,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)
bv1=sup2.manalyse(isb=true, delta=1,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)
fv1=sup2.manalyse(isb=false,delta=1,blksize=16,ove rlap=8,DCT=5)
fv2=sup2.manalyse(isb=false,delta=2,blksize=16,ove rlap=8,DCT=5)

rest.mdegrain2(sup1,bv1,fv1,bv2,fv2,thSAD=320)

[brispuss]

First, a reminder that I am a novice to video editing, so I don't as yet know what are the best procedures for doing any editing. OK?

Many thanks for the more constructive and detailed response on how to deal with the brightness/contrast fluctuations. I'll test this script on my videos and see how things go.

[brispuss]

Had some difficulty in finding some of the required dll's, but eventually downloaded them and installed copies to AVISynth Plugins directory.

Copied the above script and saved as an .avs file so it would run under AVISynth via VirtualDub.

I made a slight modification to the script to replace the source of the video and also added audio scripting.

Ran the script by loading into VirtualDub, but script errors immediately appeared. The main issue seemed to be spaces in the script which shouldn't have been there.

After script was edited and re-run, got another error message that Can not load FFTW3.dll. After much Googling, it seems that the file FFTW3.dll has to be present in the system folder (in my case SysWOW64 directory as I'm running 64 bit Windows), AND another file named FFT3DFilter.dll has to be present in AVISynth PLugins folder. Eventually managed to find and copy these two files to the appropriate directories.

Finally the .avs script ran without issue, with the resulting copy of the video saved as AVI format with Lagarith encoding to minimize file size.

Had excellent results with the resulting video in that virtually all grain was removed! Very pleased with that!! The brightness/contrast fluctuation was substantially removed so there is almost no sign of this fluctuation. Pleased with that result as well. However, I will try slight adjustment to script settings to try to minimize or even totally remove any sign of brightness/contrast fluctuation.

Thanks for the very useful script!

But there are further questions -

1) Is VirtualDub the better/best way to run the AVS scripts for AVISynth, or is/are there better programs than VirtualDub for doing this?

2) Once videos have finished being processed/filtered, what format should the resulting video be saved as, and why?

3) After all videos on the disc have been processed and saved, what is the best/easiest way to (re)create the DVD disc? Use AVStoDVD? And/or use some other program(s)?

EDIT: Although maybe reduced a little, the brightness/contrast fluctuations are still present within the sample clip despite trying a variety of thSAD settings. So it seems at this time some other filters/programs may be required to further reduce or remove these fluctuations.

4) What would be the suggested filters/programs for better removal of brightness/contrast fluctuations, please?

[brispuss]

Although effect is minimized by using degrain/denoise filters, still can't get rid of the varying brightness/contrast in the video.

Any suggested (specialized) filters (and suggested settings) for removing this slow cycle fluctuation of brightness/contrast please?

[manono]

After much Googling, it seems that the file FFTW3.dll has to be present in the system folder (in my case SysWOW64 directory as I'm running 64 bit Windows), AND another file named FFT3DFilter.dll has to be present in AVISynth PLugins folder.

I apologize as only now was I notified of this earlier post. I checked my script to determine which filters were needed for that function and because I already had FFTW3.dll where it was supposed to be, I wasn't notified it was needed.

1) Is VirtualDub the better/best way to run the AVS scripts for AVISynth, or is/are there better programs than VirtualDub for doing this?

You said you made a lossless Lagarith AVI from the script. If the intent is to make an intermediate AVI, then VDub is the best. Or, if no further filtering is needed you can run the script in whatever encoder you like that accepts AviSynth scripts. However, even if the intent is to make a final format video in a different encoder, it's a good idea to test out the script in VDub because it'll give you a good error message if something's not right where other encoders might not do that.

2) Once videos have finished being processed/filtered, what format should the resulting video be saved as, and why?

Isn't the subject of this thread about improving on your DVDs and then putting them on DVD5s? If so, the final format should be MPEG-2 DVD video.

3) After all videos on the disc have been processed and saved, what is the best/easiest way to (re)create the DVD disc? Use AVStoDVD? And/or use some other program(s)?

That depends on what you want. If you want to keep the menus, perhaps removing other things at the same time (logos, warnings, previews, extras, extraneous audio tracks, etc.), then you first make little DVDs of your episodes using Muxman to author them, followed by using the 'Replace' function of VobBlanker to replace the original versions with your 'new and improved' smaller ones. To save on menu size you can also use VobBlanker. If they're bloated, as they sometimes are, you can still them (convert motion menus to still menus). You can do similar things in AvsToDVD, but it'll create new and very basic menus.

4) What would be the suggested filters/programs for better removal of brightness/contrast fluctuations, please?

My own opinion is that AviSynth isn't very good at that. You can try some of these:

http://avisynth.nl/index.php/External_filters#Luma_Equalization

[brispuss]

Thank you very much!

As I'm typing this, I'm running DVD-Rebuilder and also using a slightly modified version of the AVS script posted previously to remove/minimize grain/noise. This is just an experimental run to see what the final videos look like.

After much Googling, it seems that the file FFTW3.dll has to be present in the system folder (in my case SysWOW64 directory as I'm running 64 bit Windows), AND another file named FFT3DFilter.dll has to be present in AVISynth PLugins folder.

I apologize as only now was I notified of this earlier post. I checked my script to determine which filters were needed for that function and because I already had FFTW3.dll where it was supposed to be, I wasn't notified it was needed.

That's OK!

4) What would be the suggested filters/programs for better removal of brightness/contrast fluctuations, please?

My own opinion is that AviSynth isn't very good at that. You can try some of these:

http://avisynth.nl/index.php/External_filters#Luma_Equalization

I'll look into these AviSynth filters in a little while, thanks.

I have (limited) access to (some) commercial video editing programs/suites. So if AviSynth filters are not really good at removing brightness/contrast fluctuations, what would be the better suggested (commercial or professional?) programs/filters to use instead, please?

Regarding attaching sample video clips to posts, it was mentioned previously that an m2v cut of the VOB file, or a cut of the VOB file be uploaded to minimize file size. As I'm still a novice at video editing, what is/are the procedure(s) for doing this cutting please?

[manono]

As I'm still a novice at video editing, what is/are the procedure(s) for doing this cutting please?

Open a VOB in DGIndex, use the [ and ] buttons to isolate a short section, and then File->Save Project and Demux Video. You can upload the resulting M2V video file here. Not much is needed - 10-15 seconds is usually enough.

Maybe someone else can make a suggestion for a commercial product that can even out your flickering.