De-interlacing and "improving" DVD video

[senso]

Good night,

Sorry for the kinda vague title, but this is my first time messing with video at this level.

I have discovered a childhood series in DVD format, I riped it with makeMKV, and if I play it with MPC the image is horrible, its text book interlacing issue.
So I found this forum, read a bit here and there, and tried out Hybrid (just using random things) and the interlacing is gone, but can I also improve the video, maybe remove some of the grain, and make it a bit sharper, just know where to start from..

Interestingly enough, the interlacing issue doesn't show up on the Hybrid original image preview..

I tried to upload images and a cut 30 seconds video, but the popup stays forever in the Uploading File(s) - Please Wait message.

Image in MPV:


Image in hybrid:

[Selur]

you should try re-uploading the video snippet,...
(you could also upload it to mediafire or similar and share the link if for some reason uploading here does not work for you)
You might also want to mention what gpu you use to let others know whether using machine learning filters is an option.

[senso]

Good evening Selur,

I upload the cut video to mediafire:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/wij11sf0h1403k5/video_cut.mkv

I have an RTX 2070 with 8GB of VRAM, and an i7-9750H with 32GB of RAM.
Thanks for your help.

[Selur]

I thought your source is a DVD. The file you shared is H.264.

General
Unique ID                                : 294879020170879421002260428034051980311 (0xDDD7A22C85E0A4977973141A1620BC17)
Complete name                            : c:\Users\Selur\Desktop\video_cut.mkv
Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 4
File size                                : 12.6 MiB
Duration                                 : 30 s 3 ms
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 3 536 kb/s
Frame rate                               : 1 244.176 FPS
Writing application                      : Lavf61.9.106
Writing library                          : Lavf61.9.106
ErrorDetectionType                       : Per level 1

Video
ID                                       : 1
ID in the original source medium         : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L3
Format settings                          : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 30 s 3 ms
Bit rate                                 : 8 999 kb/s
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 1 244.176 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Original scan type                       : Progressive
Scan type, store method                  : Interleaved fields
Scan order                               : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.017
Stream size                              : 1.56 GiB
Writing library                          : x264 core 164 r3204 373697b
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=18 / lookahead_threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=23.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Original source medium                   : DVD-Video

Audio
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 189 (0xBD)128 (0x80)
Format                                   : Vorbis
Format settings, Floor                   : 1
Codec ID                                 : A_VORBIS
Duration                                 : 30 s 3 ms
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 112 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 1 555.211 FPS (31 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -3 ms
Stream size                              : 34.2 MiB
Title                                    : Stereo
Writing application                      : Lavc61.32.101
Writing library                          : libVorbis (Reducing Environment) (20200704 (Reducing Environment))
Language                                 : Portuguese
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : DVD-Video

Menu
00:00:00.080                             : Chapter 01

....
=> Best use mkvtoolnix to cut the mkv you got from MakeMKV.

Cu Selur

[Selur]

Not sure whether the DVD source also has broken frames like your sample, or whether that happened during the DVD->(h.264, vorbis) conversion.
But frames like:


used: BasicVSR++ + 2x_BIGOLDIES. (2x-BIGOLDIES is probably too agressive)
are not really reparable automatically.
=> Correction, seems like this is a problem that only occurs when using hardware decoding.
With software decoding, it looks better:

(I used TFM for the field matching to handle the combing artifacts)

An unconverted sample from the MakeMKV output would still be better.

Cu Selur

[senso]

Sorry for the messed up file, I used ffmpeg to cut it, and didn't check if it transcoded the video or not.

Here is the file, cut with MKVToolNix:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/1bxaixckjy2pezr/A1_t00_%25281%2529-001.mkv/

If it is not asking much, BasicVSR++ is this one?
https://github.com/ckkelvinchan/BasicVSR_PlusPlus

And for BIGOLDIES, do you use some sort or GUI (chaiNNer for example, since others are either paid, or not updated for some time)?

Thank you for your time, and sorry to make such basic questions, but this is a whole world unknown to me, so many tools from various places seem to be used, its a bit overwhelming.

[Selur]

I used Hybrid with the torch-addon to use BasicVSR++ and 2x-BIGOLDIES, note that I used 1x-ToonVHS in the file I attached before. Note that 1x-ToonVHS (should be renamed to 1x_ToonVHS when used in Hybrid) and some denoising is probably enough and BasicVSR++ might be overkill. (I mainly added it to combat some of the glitches I saw.)
In Hybrid try:

• "Filtering->Vapoursynth->Frame->Misc->TFM" (for the combing artifacts)
• "Filtering->Vapoursynth->Other->VSGAN" with the 1x_ToonVHS pth file. (also enable 'Fix Color')
• "Filtering->Vapoursynth->Denoise->KNLMeansCL" with 'Distance' 0 and Strength '5'

Personally, I would also add some line darkening, but that is a more personal preference.

Cu Selur