30p > 20p then blend removal possible?

[domb84]

I'm experimenting with restoring an old film from the 30s to some extent which was apparently "lost". The only version I can find looks to have had a terrible transfer. It's been badly encoded to 29.97p, where it seems every other frame was duplicated. Once that's been rectified I'm left with a 20p source that's been badly blended. 3 out of 5 frames seem to be blended, plus It's been deinterlaced as well to compound the issue.

I'm not great with Avisynth but I've been experimenting. The only things that yield some kind of results are to remove the duplicate frames, and then maybe to remove the bulk of the blended frames (which results in a whopping 9.5fps, and then maybe re-interpolate new frames from that and clean up the cut-scenes.

LWLibavVideoSource("<file>", cache=false, prefer_hw=2)

# remove duplicate frames
AssumeFPS(30,sync_audio=true)
TDecimate(mode=1, cycle=3,denoise=false,noblend=true)

# remove ghosting / blended frames
srestore(omode=6, mode=6, thresh=12)

If anyones got any better ideas to try and claw back something from the blended frames I'm open to ideas! Here's some of the worst blending from a pan.


[Attachment 60387 - Click to enlarge]

And a 10 second sample from the original file.

https://mega.nz/file/VKZEzByS#ArscTqzWEU1M_CkQkYeGYOn6b6sQIvU6pSdgYDqLn-M

[domb84]

I seem to have had some success with the RestoreFPS plugin, but in all honesty I can't work out how it works from the documentation and it's pure trial and error in my script.

If anyone has played with it in the past and can give me some hints that would be very helpful.

#DirectShowSource("\\nas\Restoration\source\Where's That Fire (1939)\Where's That Fire (1939) 480p MP3.avi", seek=true, audio=true, video=true, convertfps=false, seekzero=false, timeout=60000, logmask=35)
LWLibavVideoSource("\\nas\Restoration\source\Where's That Fire (1939)\sample.avi", cache=false, prefer_hw=2)

# remove duplicate frames
AssumeFPS(30,sync_audio=true)
c = TDecimate(mode=1, cycle=3,denoise=false,noblend=true)


# remove blending

function phase(clip c, float phi){
c
RestoreFPS(25, phi)
}

Animate(0,100,"phase",0.0,0.3)

#SRestore(frate=24, mode=1, thresh=12)

[Attachment 60389 - Click to enlarge]

[johnmeyer]

This properly gets rid of the telecine (i.e., doubled frames)

tfm(display=false)  
tdecimate(display=false,mode=0,cycleR=2,cycle=6)

The blends, IMHO, are the least of your problems. There are missing frames that were lost in one of the conversions. Missing frames are hard to detect.

[domb84]

Indeed there are a lot of issues. The duplicated frames I already had resolved. If i can minimise the blending then perhaps I can work on the missing frame issue later. Main thing at the moment is the awful blends.