Convert 30FPS MP4/FLV to DVD-compliant MPEG2

[davexnet]

The converttoyv12() is superfluous but acts as a no-op if the source is already in this format. It's not harmful to have it there.
The addborders, spline16resize and MCJMFPS (this is the motion compensation; I did advise earlier to deselect it from the preferences
and choose one of the other hard frame rate conversion routines) I don't know why they're there. Provide me the FLV source and the avs script
you're using and and I'll take a look.

I can find this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnauDzs-WJA
but this gave a WEBM file when I downloaded with youtube-dl

[jagabo]

I'm wondering what Avisynth does in such a situation, when a source video is in 720x480 and a script contains a XXXResize(720,480) command : does it do nothing, considering that the source is already in the target resolution, or does it proceed anyway, with some quality loss ?

If both sizes are the same it does nothing. If only one size is different it only resizes in that one dimension.

[davexnet]

I wanted to mention that my log does not contain as much info as the OP's log,
for example the AVSscript1 section. I'm wondering if a debug mode has been turned on somewhere.

Edit - this is the reason the addborders and resize were in the script - you did not correct the bad aspect ratio.
I recreated it with one of my test scripts

The best things to do would be to upgrade to the 289 alpha and delete this key from the registry before running it -
then it will be clean (you'll have to add/check your path preference but it should not take long)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AVStoDVD

BY the way, you can see from the script another technique that A2D can do. Instead of using pulldown
to convert 25 > 29.97, it can slow down the frame rate to 23.976, sync the audio, and do pulldown to 29.97 in HCenc.
This is useful for PAL movies if you want to remove the typical 4% speedup when converting to NTSC

[abolibibelot]

The converttoyv12() is superfluous but acts as a no-op if the source is already in this format.

Is this the same for resizing ? (See edit in my previous post : what happens when 720x480 footage is processed by Avisynth with a Lanczos4Resize(720,480) command ?)
EDIT : Alright, this was answered by “jagabo” above.

The FLV video I used (attached file) is longer (7m12s), and no longer available (it was downloaded in 2011, YouTube's management of video formats has changed a lot in the mean time, and how downloading utilities deal with them must have changed as well). For all the others I could re-download a slightly better quality stream in WEBM with 48kHz audio (so no re-sampling necessary). With youtube-dl, the -F switch (upper-case "F") displays all the available formats for a given URL. For this one you found, MP4 and WEBM are available up to 480x360. By default youtube-dl chooses the one it identifies as the “best”, which is not always actually the best one. But it's possible to select either one, or a combination of one video stream and one audio stream, with the -f switch (lower case "f"). As a test I downloaded 4 different streams and noted the parameters as identified by MediaInfo :

youtube-dl -f 43+251 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnauDzs-WJA -o "YT - %(title)s [%(id)s -f 43+251].webm"

480x360, VP8 / Opus, global bitrate 921kbps (wrongly identified as "640x360" in youtube-dl)

youtube-dl -f 134+140 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnauDzs-WJA -o "YT - %(title)s [%(id)s -f 134+140].mp4"

480x360, AVC / AAC, global bitrate 549kbps

youtube-dl -f 243+251 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnauDzs-WJA -o "YT - %(title)s [%(id)s -f 243+251].webm"

480x360, VP9 / Opus, global bitrate 411kbps

youtube-dl -f 18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnauDzs-WJA -o "YT - %(title)s [%(id)s -f 18].mp4"

480x360, AVC / AAC, global bitrate 623kbps

But, surprisingly, the WEBM video here (first one) is in much better quality than the FLV one I have, despite being in lower resolution.

480x360 WEBM resized to 640x480

720x480 FLV resized to 640x480
So I'd be interested in having the complete sequence in this quality...

Somewhat related question : I know that video downloaded from YouTube are bound to be in low quality anyway, and I don't expect to get a pristine result, but one in particular has quite egregious blocking artifacts :

Is there any kind of filtering that could improve this ? (I made that conversion from the WEBM stream in 352x288 which is the best one available now. The former conversion had been made from a MP4 stream in the same resolution but slightly blurrier, with Magix Video Deluxe and its included MainConcept encoder rather than Avisynth + HCEnc ; I'm wondering if the extra sharpness is a good thing in this case, as it makes those artifacts more conspicuous overall. Perhaps using BilinearResize rather than Lanczos4Resize would slightly improve the outcome.)

[abolibibelot]

Edit - this is the reason the addborders and resize were in the script - you did not correct the bad aspect ratio.

Yes, that's what I did mention repeatedly — I can't correct the aspect ratio, no matter what I type there ("4:3", "4/3", "1.33", "1.333"...).

The best things to do would be to upgrade to the 289 alpha and delete this key from the registry before running it -
then it will be clean (you'll have to add/check your path preference but it should not take long)

Do you know what exactly is wrong with the current registry key state ? And again, is the 2.8.9 alpha version stable ? What changes have been made between those two versions that could be relevant to this issue ? (It's not exactly trivial to run software in "alpha" stage and to tweak the registry.)

[jagabo]

If your video has macroblock artifacts use a deblocking filter before sharpening. Like deblock_qed().

[davexnet]

The alpha is stable:
Version history / Release notes / Changelog

AVStoDVD release 2.8.9 Alpha 190616 (June 16th, 2019)
- Some bugs fixed
- Added support to PGS BluRay subtitles
- Added handling and display of MediaInfo BitDepth video tag
- Added support to 8 channels audio source (Downmix.avsi script file updated)
- Improved Muxing routine: better errors handling and switch to FFmpeg (instead of Mplex) when no audio source is present
- Improved usage of FFMS2: now YV12 colorspace is always specified (A2DSource external AviSynth function updated as well)
- Improved AviSynth program info retrieving routine (now using AVSMeter)
- LAV Filters updated to release 0.74.1
- AVSMeter updated to 2.6.5.1 (2.6.5 modded release to improve reading speed)

Since you're going to upgrade, best get rid of the old registry key and start fresh - only have to do it once.
I noticed the Wendy Williams clip from Youtube was surprising clean - try and use it.
The O'Reilly clip is really poor, I doubt if there is much you can do. You could try deblock, you can turn it on in A2d
title edit/avisynth/enhance tab
There are some members of the forum who excel in this kind of restoration (jagabo,manono, etc,etc)
but this clip is really poor and I would not expect too much

[abolibibelot]

So, with AVStoDVD 2.8.9 and after deleting that registry key, same problem, I still can't correct the aspect ratio... é_è
Oh wait... It doesn't work with "1.33", but it does work with "1,33", despite the fact that the default value was displayed as "1.5" ! è_é (But it still doesn't work with "4:3" or "4/3" which are more accurate...)
And I still get those unnecessary lines :

Video = Video.ConvertToYV12()
Video = Video.AddBorders(0,30,0,30)
Video = Video.Spline16Resize(720,480)
Video = Video.MCJMFPS(29.97)

I noticed the Wendy Williams clip from Youtube was surprising clean - try and use it.

It is indeed, as shown by those screenshots I made, but it is much shorter than the one I had originally downloaded and subtitled and included on that DVD (2m16s out of 7m12s). It would be weird to append that segment in better quality in the middle then go back to the blurry one. And I doubt I could ask the uploader if by any chance he/she still has the original unedited clip 9 years later... (It was uploaded on 2010-10-13.) I'm not even sure if YouTube still allows to send private messages anymore (I recently read a message from 2018 on my seldom seen GMail account saying that “private messaging in Creator Studio is ending soon”, not sure if it's the same thing).

The O'Reilly clip is really poor, I doubt if there is much you can do. You could try deblock, you can turn it on in A2d

(Actually this one was from a show called "Backstage". The Bill O'Reilly interview clip is a bit better.)
Tried Deblock, it does nothing at the default quant=25 value, blurs the artefacts with higher values like quant=40 but then the whole frame gets blurred and it loses detail, of which there's isn't much to begin with. What are the aOffset / bOffset supposed to change ? Even at the maximum value they seem to do nothing. And deblock_qed() doesn't do better, it even seems less efficient, despite the higher number of parameters. Isn't there a way to apply such filtering on moving portions only ?
Well, at least the audio is decent... é_è

If your video has macroblock artifacts use a deblocking filter before sharpening. Like deblock_qed().

What would be a good sharpening filter in such a case ? Is it better to apply the shapening before or after resizing ?


Noone has any clue regarding the subtitles issue ?
It's very weird because if I watch the individual VOB, the subtitles are displayed normally, but if I open the whole DVD folder and watch the same sequence from there, they appear in dark gray as shown earlier. What could possibly explain this ? Is there something wrong in the IFO files which could somehow reduce the number of colors of the bitmap images on playback, or replace a color with another ?

EDIT : If I open the VOBs in DVDSubEdit, I see this :

Apparently, all the available colors are black or dark gray. Why is that ? How can I fix that ?
Then I tried "use automatic CLUT", which improves the aspect although it's still not right :

If I set this to "use IFO CLUT", I get the wrong color.
What exactly is "CLUT", and how come the colors are being changed between the VOBs and the DVD ?

[abolibibelot]

So according to this :
“Try to specify subtitles.rgb from subdirectory "data" as Palette in title properties.”
And according to this :
“You have to use a palette. In the DATA subdirectory of DVDStyler there are two palettes files (colors16.rgb, subtitles.rgb).
Alternatively you may edit the color of the ISO with DVDSubEdit.”

Alright then... But how to create a “palette” in the right / expected format ? SubtitleCreator can export a palette in three formats : .ifo, .mxp, .clb ; only the .mxp one is in plain text. In it I can see this :

Section=Settings
{
	Item=Palette
	{
		Name=DefaultPalette
		Color 0=0, 48, 250
		Color 1=252, 0, 0
		Color 2=0, 0, 0
		Color 3=255, 255, 255
		Color 4=1, 253, 2
		Color 5=254, 0, 253
		Color 6=253, 206, 3
		Color 7=0, 122, 121
		Color 8=123, 123, 123
		Color 9=224, 224, 224
		Color 10=122, 0, 5
		Color 11=0, 123, 4
		Color 12=0, 23, 118
		Color 13=219, 0, 251
		Color 14=219, 122, 4
		Color 15=123, 0, 126
	}
}

While in the subtitles.rgb file in DVDStyler's "data" subdirectory, there's this :

000000
FFFFFF
000000
FFFFFF
000000
FFFFFF
000000
FFFFFF
000000
FFFFFF
000000
FFFFFF
000000
FFFFFF
000000

How can I convert one format to the other ?
And again, how can I get DVDStyler to enable the subtitles by default ?

[videobruger]

Is this about the best that can be done with DVD subtitles ?

For DVDStyler I prefer to use .ass subtitles and convert them to idx/vobsub using EasySUP and mux them with the video using MKVToolnix. .ass subtitles offers much more formatting options than .srt subtitles.

https://sourceforge.net/p/dvdstyler/discussion/318795/thread/e4ab351e/


I find those nice looking and while other programs can produce nice looking subtitle EasySUP is the only program that I know of that supports the ass tags needed for the subtitles in the link above.

How could this be explained, and fixed ?

About your black subtitles you need to use a palette. See here @2:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdRcJeIFzHM

[abolibibelot]

For DVDStyler I prefer to use .ass subtitles and convert them to idx/vobsub using EasySUP and mux them with the video using MKVToolnix. .ass subtitles offers much more formatting options than .srt subtitles.

Apparently it's pretty much equivalent to SubtitleCreator. I already got a decent result with that tool, and found about the MKV muxing trick. Considering the limitations of DVD subtitles, what would be the advantages of using ASS over SRT ?

About your black subtitles you need to use a palette. See here @2:30

I found out about the palette too, the question now is how to convert the palette exported from SubtitleCreator to a format which DVDStyler understands. I did it the hard way by converting each RGB value to hexadecimal (0, 48, 250 => 0030FA, and so on). Apparently it worked.
And then how to make sure that the subtitles will be enabled by default ? Is VLC Media Player reliable to assess how an actual DVD player will behave in that regard ?

[videobruger]

And again, how can I get DVDStyler to enable the subtitles by default ?

Several options.
Under "Action" for a button you select which subtitle track to use. Notice subtitle and audio is to be selected in the Titleset domain not the VMGM domain. (It's part of the specification for a video-DVD)


[Attachment 51827 - Click to enlarge]

Use a pre-command for the title like subtitle=64;. See p 14 here https://www.dvdstyler.org/docs/dvd_styler_guide.pdf

[abolibibelot]

Under "Action" for a button you select which subtitle track to use. Notice subtitle and audio is to be selected in the Titleset domain not the VMGM domain. (It's part of the specification for a video-DVD)

I've also seen this in the mean time, but I'm not sure I understand this — what does it mean here "in the Titleset domain / VMGM domain" ?
In this case there's a button on the main menu which leads to the main video (Title 1) ; then a second button which leads to a secondary menu with a selection of six extra videos (titles 2 to 7) ; then a third button which leads to another secondary menu with a selection of audio tracks.
Does it mean that if I set the “action” for the first button in the main menu (which is under “VMGM”) it won't work ? Or am I completely confused ? Well, indeed, I just tried, I get a warning : “Please use titleset menu to select subtitle track.” But what exactly is the titleset menu ?

And I don't quite understand this either (from the PDF guide) : “Still, adding 64 to the stream number shows all subtitles in tracks with non-forced subtitles. Track 64 shows everything in stream 0. Track 62 disables subtitles, and track 63 finds the viewer's default language tag (with stream 0 default).” I don't know how I could have guessed “add ‘subtitle=64;’ as a pre-command” from this...