DragonBox x264 PC or TV levels?

[TheNeverhood]

Hey

I have been encoding some episodes from my DragonBoxes and I need some help. I'm not sure whether or not to use the TV to PC level conversion in Ripbot264.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/164206

Goku vs. Vegeta (Source): http://files.videohelp.com/u/246075/Goku%20vs.%20Vegeta%20(Source).mkv

Goku vs. Vegeta (CRF 22, None, PC): http://files.videohelp.com/u/246075/Goku%20vs%20%20Vegeta%20(CRF%2022_%20None_%20PC%20colours).mkv

Goku vs. Vegeta (CRF 21, None, TV): http://files.videohelp.com/u/246075/Goku%20vs.%20Vegeta%20(CRF%2021_%20None).mkv

[jagabo]

The contrast is off and darks seem to be crushed around Y=26. But TV->PC is too much. The colors seem to be way off too. Brights are too pink. Unless that's what they wanted.

[TheNeverhood]

Thanks.

There's a thread on Kazenshuu about colour correcting the DragonBox: http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19448

Here's an excerpt from the thread:
"The answer is that masters Toei used on the Dragon Box -- like a lot of shows from the 1980s -- have aged. This has affected video in two noticable ways:

-The film prints have yellowed, greened, or otherwise developed what is known as a color cast. That is, color that shouldn't be there that has seeped into the entirety of the picture. You can see the color cast mostly in the eyes. The eyes should almost always be a shade of grey in any cartoon or anime, but on the Dragon Box they are often tones of yellow, green, or red. This is a byproduct of the film aging.

-The film masters have lost color information in general. In the case of the Dragon Box, the film has primarily lost color within blue/cyan, which generally turns a sort of seaish green color. There also seems to be loss across the board in red/magenta. Often, skintones and Goku's dougi will look pinkish and tangerine instead of more red or orange tones like they should. Depending on which way the color has cast from film age changes how heavily you need to apply color correction to each individual hue!"

EDIT - are there any free applications that can auto-correct the colours?

[jagabo]

are there any free applications that can auto-correct the colours?

Not really. There are auto white balance filters but they don't work very well, especially with animated material.

[SameSelf]

EDIT - are there any free applications that can auto-correct the colours?

It is not automated to my knowledge and may be overkill for what you want to do, but Davinci Resolve is free.

[TheNeverhood]

Thanks again for helping me. Much appreciated

You see, once I have encoded the source files, they will be deleted. So I want to get this right. They're taking up nearly 300 GB of HDD space. Not a HUGE amount by today's standards, but still quite a lot.

What about paid options? Adobe After Effects? I saw this video about someone using Adobe After Effects for auto-color correction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JESJp8OFBT0


Thanks, SameSelf, I will have a look

[jagabo]

I don't think you'll find any auto color correction filters that work well for an entire animated video. The ones that allow tuning require you to tune for every shot. That ones that don't allow tuning screw up as many shots as they help.

I tried some quick white balance adjustments in AviSynth:

ConvertToRGB().RGBAdjust(r=0.85, b=0.88, rb=3, bb=-8).ConvertToYV12() # reduce pink cast
Tweak(sat=1.2) # increase saturation
ColorYUV(cont_y=20) # increase contrast

That worked pretty well for many shots (before/after):



Note how the guy's shirt and eyes are now white. Skin tones look batter. The girl's hair looks a little too greenish. Leaving a little more red in the picture would make the shirt a little off white but the hair would look more yellow.

The sky in later shots turns greenish rather than blue:



Maybe it's supposed to be greenish.

[TheNeverhood]

Wow, that's great!

Though, for the second screenshots, I don't think it's supposed to be greenish.

I just encoded the same episode from the Orange Bricks (these are 16:9 and I don't think they have the same color problems as the Dragon Box)

Goku vs. Vegeta (CRF 22, None) - orangebrick: http://files.videohelp.com/u/246075/30%20-%20Goku%20vs%20%20Vegeta%20(CRF%2022_%20None...rangebrick.mkv

[jagabo]

Here's something that more closely matches your latest images:

LWLibavVideoSource("Goku vs. Vegeta (Source).mkv") 
src=last

blues = ColorYUV(cont_y=0, off_y=-10).Tweak(hue=-15, sat=1.2)
uvmask = Overlay(UtoY().ColorYUV(off_y=-128).ColorYUV(gain_y=256), VtoY().Invert().ColorYUV(off_y=-128).ColorYUV(gain_y=256), mode="multiply").ColorYUV(gain_y=15000).Blur(1.0).Spline36Resize(width,height)

ConvertToRGB().RGBAdjust(r=0.88, g=0.98, b=0.90, rb=3, bb=-8).ConvertToYV12()
Tweak(sat=1.1)
Overlay(last, blues, mask=uvmask)

ColorYUV(cont_y=105, off_y=24)
dehalo_alpha(rx=1, ry=3)
TemporalDegrain(SAD1=200, SAD2=150, sigma=8)

I added a hack to keep blues rather than shifting them to green. Purples are still off in some other scenes.

[TheNeverhood]

Thanks, that's perfect

But I can't get "dehalo_alpha" to work in Ripbot264. I don't know anything about AviSynth. It works fine if I remove "dehalo_alpha" and "TemporalDegrain".

" Script error: there is no function "dehalo_alpha" "

I downloaded RgTools.dll, masktools2.dll and the dehalo_alpha script to the AviSynth plugins folder in the Program Files.

[jagabo]

You don't need dehalo_alpha or TemporalDegrain for the color adjustments. I used dehalo_alpha to remove some over sharpening halos, and TemporalDegrain for general noise reduction (you might go for stronger settings on this video). I don't know how Ripbot264 handles avisynth. But those two filters aren't included in AviSynth -- you'll need to download and install them if you want to use them. TemporalDenoise requires several other third party filters.

http://avisynth.nl/index.php/DeHalo_alpha
http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Temporal_Degrain

[TheNeverhood]

Thanks again, I appreciated the help. It's pretty amazing what you can do with AviSynth. I'm amazed

The difference is remarkable: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/164533

[jagabo]

Here's a little more you can try:

LWLibavVideoSource("D:\Downloads\Goku vs. Vegeta (Source).mkv") 
src=last

blues = ColorYUV(cont_y=0, off_y=-10).Tweak(hue=-15, sat=1.2)
uvmask = Overlay(UtoY().ColorYUV(off_y=-128).ColorYUV(gain_y=256), VtoY().Invert().ColorYUV(off_y=-128).ColorYUV(gain_y=256), mode="multiply").ColorYUV(gain_y=15000).Blur(1.0).Spline36Resize(width,height)

ConvertToRGB().RGBAdjust(r=0.88, g=0.98, b=0.90, rb=3, bb=-8).ConvertToYV12()
Tweak(sat=1.1)

Overlay(last, blues, mask=uvmask)

Stab(dxmax=2, dymax=2).Crop(2,4,-2,-2).AddBorders(2,4,2,2)
dehalo_alpha(rx=2, ry=3)
ColorYUV(cont_y=105, off_y=24)
TemporalDegrain(SAD1=400, SAD2=300, sigma=16)
Dup(threshold=5.0, blend=true, show=false)
Santiag()

The main additions are the use of Stab() and Dup() to reduce the frame bounce and otherwise stabilize the frame. Santiag sharpens lines a bit and reduces aliasing. I cranked up the noise filtering too.

This does lead to a few problems:

The Dup() filter with a fairly high threshold sometimes blends frames together that shouldn't be. For example about 8:10 into the video there's a shot where everyone is sitting around a table and one person is talking. Since here lip motions are very small they get blended together and aren't moving. Reducing the threshold to 2 will eliminate that problem but a lot of the bouncing will return. See the attached sample with the original video on the left and the over filtered lips on the right.

The high noise filtering may cause some artifacts during panning shots -- some small details may be lost. Tune the settings to suit your desires.

[jagabo]

Here's an example where purples are still off:

orangebrick:


off:

[TheNeverhood]

Is there a way to simply color match the two sources?

It looks noticeably worse here:


After applying your script


I also have the DragonBall Z bluray collection and this is the source I would like to color match with the Dragon Box:

[jagabo]

Yes, I know there would be some problem shots where colors similar to the sky colors wouldn't turn out right. This type of color correction is very hard to do in AviSynth. You would be much better off with a good video editor.

[TheNeverhood]

What video editor would you recommend for this?

I'm thinking about using Avid Media Composer (there's a 30 day free trial), and there's a lot of tutorials on YouTube.