Star Wars Conversions-Hit me with your best shot...

[Robster]

Mythos, to keep the aspect ratio correct use:

Video Tab: Aspect ratio - 16:9 display

Advanced Tab: Source aspect ratio - 4:3 525 line (704x480)
Video arrange method: Full screen (keep aspect ratio)

The 704 number may be different depending on how much clipping you've done. My clip figures are Top 106, Botton 101, Left 10, Right 8, but that may be different on yours.

[txpharoah]

Wow. NINE PAGES and much of it has little to do with STAR WARS.
Will this post never die? :P

[Robster]

much of it has little to do with STAR WARS

No, but it has much to do with Star Wars conversions, which strangely enough is what the title suggests

[flaninacupboard]

Wow. 1130 POSTS and much of it has little to do with HELPING PEOPLE.
Will Txpharoh never die? :P

[Mythos2002]

What is everyone using for noise reduction and color settings? What filters, programs, settings, etc.? Thanks.

Mythos

[Robster]

Mythos - I'm just using TMPGEnc for the colour/brightness adjustments. And after toying with it's noise reduction and the Temperal Smoother found in VirtualDub, I've decided my transfers looks better without them.

[flaninacupboard]

i've not made any brightness adjsutments, but i have used the noise reduction filter built into TMPGenc set to 6 1 8. this seems to be about right for making the mpegs no longer look noisy, but keeping plenty of detail.

[Mythos2002]

I just hope I won't need a better capture card. I haven't really looked at the LD's on TV. Is there a little analog noise inherent in them? I'm using the S-Video connector. I know that is the best connector to use, but would the RCA connectors be better for this project?

I would love to have one of those ADVC-100 cards, but I lack the money.

Mythos

[Robster]

LDs always have a certain amount of video noise, but how much is visible will depend above all else on the player itself.

[flaninacupboard]

mythos, if your LD player has S-video out, use it. the Y/C seperation nneds to happen somewhere, and your player will undoubtedly do a better job than your capture card, especially given the S video stage in your player is designed to cope with video at the LD frequency, as opposed to broadcast standard. yes there is always noise in lasers, although personally i have found that some titles are -way- better than others. my natural born killers for instance is spot on, wheras i have a woeful copy of "things to do in denver when you're dead" that i can;t even watch!

[Mythos2002]

Thanks for the info. I just did another test and used the following line in my script:
Temporalsoften(4,4,8,15,2)

I'm pretty pleased with the results. It seems AVISynth is the way to go for noise reduction. The only filtering I did in TMPENGEnc was Noise Reduction 6 1 8 as you advised, clip frame, and simple color correction of 12 for brightness and contrast.

I may look at some of the other AVISynth filters. I heard TemporalCleaner is a good one since it doesn't blend. It shouldn't be long before I'll be ready to capture and encode the entire film. I may use an external encoder for the audio, but I haven't had luck with Besweet working yet.

My only question is that my 1minute and 10 second MPEG was 61.5mb with the audio included at 384. Is that too big? Should I lower the audio to 224? I also used 7000 8000 6000 for the bitrates. Are those too high if I want to fit the whole film on one disc?

Mythos

[mastersmurfie]

OK...this is exactly what I've been looking for...I have tried almost all of the guides posted here, and this is what I've come up with, and it works great for me (Star Wars Trilogy SE VHS-the output can only be as good as the input):

Capture with ATI AIW PRO 32 MB(very OLD card) MMC 7.7 in DVD mode (NTSC 720X480; 8MB; 48K stereo)

cap half the movie, save, then cap the second half. Convert to DVD compliant files with Ulead MovieFactory 2; burn to two DVD-Rs with NERO

OOORRRRRR...

Cap the whole movie, same settings; convert with MovieFactory 2 to DVD compliant; then "shrink" with InstantCopy...

I have done all three "original" VHS SE using this method...(it's the cheapest for me, and the results are MORE than I expected)

The only thing that I do not like is the switching between "bright and not so bright", which is made possible by the MACROVISION protection, but I'm not willing to spend money on an external device to correct that right now...

[miked00]

Hey, I too am converting my Star Wars VHS tapes to SVCD...I'm having trouble with the audio being out of synch. Is there a trick for this? my avisynth script is as follows:

loadplugin("c:\program files\avisynth 2.5\plugins\decomb.dll")
avisource("d:\capture.avi")
Telecide(guide=0)
Decimate(cycle=5)
TemporalSoften(4,4,8,15,2)

Do I need to process the audio also to make it 23.97 fps?

[Mythos2002]

Where is your audio becoming out of sync? Is it after your capturing or after your encoding?

As far as AVISynth, my scripts don't have anything mentioning audio. If you use Virtualdub, you could open your capture or your script, go to framerate, and choose "Change so video and audio durations match". That may help. If the audio becomes out of sync after encoding, you may have to play with the filter settings a little or change a setting in your encoder so that the two streams sync up.

I hope that helps.

My latest test script is:

LoadPlugin("g:\decombfilter\Decomb.dll")
LoadPlugin("g:\decombfilter\TemporalCleaner.dll")
avisource("G:\Test\empire1test2.avi")
Telecide(guide=1,gthresh=30,blend=true)
Decimate(mode=0,cycle=5, threshold=2.0)
Temporalsoften(4,4,8,15,2)
TemporalCleaner(6,8)
LanczosResize(720,360)

Mythos

[miked00]

Hey Mithos...I saved my audio out to a WAV and compressed to MP2, then muxed the video and audio, that seemed to help the snych a bit. I checked in Virtualdub at the framerates and even if I made it so the durations matched it would still be the same (23.977fps). So for now I won't encode audio and video at the same time, just video, then I'll add audio later.

[borghe]

A question I have is about converting to 16:9. I have a feeling I am understanding what you guys are talking about regarding to letting TMPGEnc handling it all (source material, display aspect ratio, and centering method). My question is how will that compare to how I am doing it in AVISynth: crop down to only the picture (about 710x276), expand to 720x360, then add 60pixels of black to the top and bottom.

As for noise reduction, on my mom's 32" Toshiba virtually none of the noise is visible, but on my 55" Mits it is slightly more pronounced. I have encoded this movie for what seems like a billion times so far. some times to increase quality, some times to lower file size (how ironic to both of those ). I guess I could work on noise reduction if you guys are seeing a noticeable improvements. I will load my script into VirtualDub both ways and save to bitmap and see if I can tell the difference. As far as edge enhancement, I didn't like how MSharpen looked on the movie, and after I loaded comparison bitmaps in Photoshop my wife ended up not liking the sharpened picture either. What was funny about that was she didn't know why she didn't like the one picture (I didn't tell her what the difference between the two was), but she was very certain that the sharpened picture didn't look as good.

Maybe I'll do the same thing with noise reduction. Although as I said, on my mom's 32" TV the noise wasn't at all noticeable so I'm thinking even on a 21" monitor it is going to be hard to see... Looks like I'll have to reencode and play it back on my TV anyway. :\

[miked00]

My audio is still a bit out of synch. So that some of you may be able to help me, these are my goals:

To somehow IVTC my sources
To have nice smooth video
Have good synched audio

I think my audio being out of synch may be because of something during the IVTC process, I'm not sure though. On page one or two of this thread, someone mentioned deinterlacing and then IVTC-ing the video. Is this really needed? I think a reason my audio may be out of synch is also because of errors during the IVTC process. I read the Decomb documentation (as I would like to use Avisynth to process the video) but I couldn't make sense of all the options and parameters since there are so many. I know I need to use Telecide and Decimate, but past that I'm pretty lost as to any other functions. Some scripts I had considered are:

Telecide(guide=1,gthresh=50,chroma=true,threshold= 30)
Decimate(cycle=5)

Telecide(guide=1,gthresh=30,blend=true)
Decimate(mode=0,cycle=5, threshold=2.0)

Those are some that I had seen and I figured that I would give them a shot. If there is a way to end up with totally smooth progressive video, but still at 29.97fps instead of 23.967fps, I'll use it...if anyone has any ideas for me, let me know. Thanks

[borghe]

to me it seems there is virtually no way to end up with completely smooth progressive video. The problem is that every source that is being worked with from here is interlaced, and apparently even the Definitive Collection LD has some actual video material inserted into the telecine, so an IVTC process will virtually always come up with errors. the only way, as has been pointed out earlier, is to setup an IR repeater to frame advance your laserdisc 10fps second (or so) and then capture DV at the same framrate you are advancing the CAV disc at. Outside of that, you will always end up with some jerkiness apparently. A straight deinterlace will give you progressive video with few anamolies, but you will still have the jerkiness that exists in the video itself (something I never even noticed until working on this project).

All of that being said, I have found best results with

Telecide(guide=1,post=false)
Decimate()

guide=1 is pretty much mandatory and I haven't really found any combed areas in the video that would cause me to want to mess around with thresholds. The one time I did mess around with thresholds out of a section of 10,000 frames every single one was identical. I have post processing off as I haven't noticed a single difference with it on in my case and it speeds things up considerably.

Decimate I have found starts leaving many incorrect frames if you venture outside of mode=0, cycle=5 (default).

Again, all of these are only in my instance with my laserdiscs and my capture device (Sony TRV330 DV-passthru).

[Mythos2002]

I have a couple of questions about LD Player settings. I have the Pioneer CLD-D703 and it has settings for D-VNR Standard and Variable. Which one should I use and should I use the max settings if I use Variable? I haven't noticed much of a difference with any setting?

I also have a question concerning capturing modes in Virtual Dub. I choose any resolution, but I can only choose UYVY YUV 4:2:2 interleaved. Is that bad? Maybe that is why there is noise in the captures. Should I get a DAC-100 or ADVC-100? Will they let me choose different Data Formats to capture in? What data formats do you guys capture in? For those with the DAC-100 or ADVC-100, what program do you capture with since Virtual Dub won't work with those cards? Thanks.

Mythos

[borghe]

I don't use those cards but I use Premiere6.5 to capture from my camcorder being that VDub doesn't support DV over firewire...

[flaninacupboard]

mythos, a DV card like the ADVC-100 will only output DV. there's no movement on this one this isn;t really a problem if your end product is DVD, the colour compression in MPEG2 is higher than in DV. i heartily reccomend the ADVC-100 or -50 (i have the -50 as i don't need to output my DV) it solved all of the noise and colour blance issues of my old bt878 card. as for the noise reduction on the player itself, don't switch it on at all. as you know, any type of noise reduction is not perfect, it's better you get the raw signal and play with it yourself than try and play with a pre-processed signal.

[DivXExpert]

I really like DVIO to transfer DV matrial. Try that. Premiere requires alot of power, and is pretty bloated if you are just transfering and not editing.

[vhelp]

@ divXExpert..

I'm with ya. DVIO all the way.
Even though I am windows 98, and FAT32/4gig limited, i have no issues
w/ these limitations thus far. Those that are beyond 4gig limit, will
only benefit even more. Also, since I have a second connect off my
satellite rec'ver (RCA) I have NO NEED for viewing on my screen what
my ADVC-100 is capturing. And, the fast response of stop/start is just
plain perfect for me. I have it down to a science, and I couldn't be
all the more happier w/ this setup. Also, as was stated by user, that
these other apps are HUGE and CAUGH up a lot of garbage if all you are
doing at first, is capturing video

@ borghe,

My suggestion to you would be to use PDVD and set to the following, as you
said that you are shooting for 16:9 encodes...
In PDVD v3.0, Ctrl+C and click Screen, then set like this:

* 4:3 pan&scan screen: [Change to 1024x768]
* 16:9 Widescreen: [Change to 1024x768]
* Screen Control: [ ] Run full screen, [x] Keep screen AR

1, When you put in a TRUE 16:9 DVD disk, it will actually output your Movie
playing in 16:9 (stretch your screen under 1024x768) and look very nice..
more TRUE-like looking (IMO) !!

2, When you encode (on your own) and using what I call, simulated 16:9
.....encode, if you set your OUTPUT to 16:9 view in TMPG, your PDVD will
.....display as 16:9 and look nice.

Please, don't take the 16:9 view as looking scruntched or compressed or
whatever people usually complain about. Too many false hopes from other
users that have spread incorrectly. I find this 16:9 view quite pleasing to
my eyes.. and that's not even when I select FULLSCREEN view. In fullscreen
view, it looks good to, and more or less, TRUE-like !! But, the great thing
about this viewing under PDVD, is that I don't have switch to fullscreen, to
enjoy viewing. I like to leave it at non-fullscreen view, as it fills my
PDVD's windows' 16:9 just perfectly and with great viewing pleasure !!
Unfortunatley, WDVD and Zoomplaer and others DO NOT 16:9 like PDVD does.
They only do it under FULLSCREEN mode !! So, you can't enjoy it non-FS.
So, I recommend PDVD (powerdvd v3.0) for the best viewing of 16:9, give above.
But, just to note, when I first set this up like this, I thought this is too
crummy looking, and changed it back. Then, I started to really get interested
in this 16:9 encoding and final ouput, that I imediately was hooked to this view.
Also, though MOST people don't really realize, when they encode a Movie
that was 16:9, AND, you encode to 16:9 (as best as your skills allows) you
can actaully make great looking final encodes (based upon your skills)
But, you have to properly figure out the proper way of 16:9 'ing things (what
I call, "lining things up") In other words, depending on how it's INPUT,
then encoded OUTPUT.. ie, (4:3 INPUT, or 16:9 INPUT) A good example of
this format is the DVD Movie, "Event Horizon". This great Movie was made
in 4:3 mode, but letterbosed (fullscreen) It's still a 16:9, but it was
produced in 4:3 format, but you can STILL make it 16:9 !! since it was
letterboxed (aka, widescreen)

Now, if everyone were to setup their encodes (for 16:9 or letterboxed) of their
Movies, more can come of this. Remember, bottom line.. if you movie is 16:9
or showing letterboxing (and you know it TRUE 16:9/letterboxing) then, you
SHOULD be encoding your movies as 16:9 (IMO) Add to that, that sooner or
later, we'll all be shopping (and conversating about best price/model/brand)
for WideScreen TVs, and we'll all be asking for best way to either "transfer"
or "re-convert" what we have encoded for these WideScreen TVs !!

So, be smart (and utilize my wisdom) and start preparing (encoding) for
those 16:9 future TVs you'll all be conversating about reall soon on this
great FORUM.

Oh, yeah, @ borghe..
try out my PDVD setup, and start doing some 16:9 trial and error. Remember,
you won't be able to enjoy (or test) these 16:9 encodes w/ WDVD or Zoomplayer
or any other player, because they don't support 16:9 view at 1024x768 view
like PDVD does. So, please don't waist your time trying to debug this
types of encodes w/ those other SW players. Only PDVD !!
And, remember, only for 16:9 movies (not fullscreen movies w/out letterbox)
That goes for everyone out there !!

Be good all.
-vhelp

[borghe]

vhelp.. I'm one step ahead of you.. The reason I am encoding to 16:9 isn't to be cool... it's so that it shows up on my Mits 55819 anamorphically and doesn't require me to change to a zoom mode. I know technically I am losing a small bit of detail be stretching the image to an anamorphica frame, and technically a little bit more is lost when it plays on a 4:3 player and gets every other line eliminated, but it's all about convenience for me. Besides, I've watched early encodes on my mom's 32" Tosh and it looked pretty nice.

mythos - I did A/B comparisons of multiple frames using TemporalSmooth by copying the frame from virtualdub to photoshop with and without the effect turned on. To my eye, the result on my capture is that the tiny amount of noise that was virtually indistinguishable before is now gone, but so is a small amount of detail. For my money, I would rather have that small amount of noise that the average eye doesn't notice to get back that small amount of detail that the average eye doesn't notice. Out of curiousity (and if you already said just out of lazniess from looking back in the thread) what media are your captures from?

[DivXExpert]

I find that noise often gives film a more natural look. For things like cartoons and such I can understand why you don't want noise, but for the SW films, I think it would be fine. The only prob is that it is slightly less compressable with the noise, more blocks and such.

[miked00]

OK, I've got Star Wars captured. I had to do it in two parts because I didnt have enough disk space (I needed 65gb and I had 54gb.) I've got it all encoded to SVCD and I used borghe's settings. The only problem is that my audio plays a bit early. Is there a way to correct this? I had to delete the original capture file, so anything using that file is out of the question.

[borghe]

You have to demux and remux the mpeg in a program that will allow you to offset the audio. I don't do that too often so I can't recommend one though..

[Mythos2002]

I'm about to go crazy. I just did another test on a darker seen and am getting a lot of noise during motion. The motion itself is smooth as well as the foreground objects. However, the background features a lot of block noise whenever there is motion. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Would a better LD Player take care of this or do a need a better videocard as well? I thought the CLD-D703 was a good LD Player. It's a D704 minus the AC-3.

I made a test DVD and the picture on my TV looks just as bad as on the monitor.

Any thoughts on this?

Mythos

[borghe]

Depeding on your bitrate, some artifacting is just unavoidable. I am only able to encode at 4.75Mbps (deciding to do something else with the audio). Even with only one audio track at 192Kbps the best you will get out of this movie is 4.8Mbps. that is just too low to end up with absolutely no artifacting.

My video is to the point now that I actually feel for what it is, a low bitrate movie, it looks gorgeous. Here are some of the steps I've taken (some may be propreitary to TMPGEnc):

IVTC. You will end up with slightly jerky motion in very few instances but you will reduce the number of frames by 20%. This will allow more bits to be distributed to each frame.

Keep the bitrate up as high as possible

Use Highest Quality(Slowest) Motion Search Precision. You will get minimal gains vs. time but every little bit helps.

Manually insert I frames not only at chapter stops, but also all shot changes. This one will take a while, but here is what I've found. Enabling detect scene changes in TMPGEnc is the equivalent of going into Force Picture Type and auto-detecting with a threshold of 100. Well, I went through all 172184 frames of video (a total of about 3 hours) and added in about 600 more shot changes for a total of about 1900. That means I added 50% more shot changes that could very well have been encoded into the middle of a GOP on either a P or B frame. Picture quality went up noticeably..

If you captured with a DV passthru camcorder, under Quantize Matrix enable Encode as Basic YCbCr. Your colors will thank you. This can apply to other DV transfer methods as well, but I will only speak for mine.

DC Component Precision is 10bits.


Doing all of this I have ended up with a picture that I am extremely happy with. It isn't perfect, but short of continuing to flip laserdiscs or forcing Lucas to release them on DVD (originals, not SE), this is probably the best we will ever see them. I can live with that.

[miked00]

Is there a way to tell Avisynth to only process a certain number of frames?? What I want to do is take the entire movie file (60gb) and frameserve it to TMPGenc so that I won't have to split the big MPEG2 file later on. I can't frameserve Vdub ---> Avisynth because Avisynth likes YUY2 and VDub frameserves in some type of RGB...please help