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

[borghe]

Trim(first frame,last frame)

[Mythos2002]

Thanks for the information. As a followup, I hooked the LD Player to the TV and noticed there is noise in the orginal LD source.

My bitrates may be too high. I used 6000min, 7000average, and 8000 max.

I'm going to check through some of my earlier samples because I have seen a few that are better than my latest.

Mythos

[borghe]

hehe... obviously you are either not targeting DVD, haven't tried burning yet, or are burning to two discs (or your numbers are wrong). There is no way you will be able to fit VBR 7000Kb to a DVDR. You could of course master it for replication to DVD9, but looking around the best I have found is 1000 units at $1.55 each, and I highly doubt they would take the job.

With a 192Kbps audio track, most bitrate calculators spit out about 4800Kbps. From there you can get very good results with (I forgot to mention earlier) 300/4800/8000. You can tweak that by 10-20Kbps if you want but you won't notice it.

I am actually thinking about doing a 2-disc movie only version, just for "archival" sake, but that isn't on my mind at this very second.

[Robster]

Manually insert I frames not only at chapter stops, but also all shot changes

How do you do this?

[Robster]

My bitrates may be too high. I used 6000min, 7000average, and 8000 max.

I noticed my picture quality increased when I upped the difference between the average and peak figures. My best result so far is VBR minimum 100, average 6000, peak 9500. That wont fit a 2hr movie onto a single DVD-R though.

[borghe]

In TMPGEnc under the GOP Structure tab you select Force Picture Type and click the settings button. Now comes the fun part..... :\

You can either do one of two things. Catalog every last shot yourself or edit TMPG's detection. I did the second but I don't know if the first would be faster or slower.

If you do the first, it's real easy. Click on the first frame and hold down the right arrow key. Every time you see a hard shot change (i.e. not a fade or wipe), go back to the first frame of the shot and mark it as an I frame (red border, either up arrow or down arrow, forget which). Do this everytime the shot changes. Also make sure you mark each frame that you want to begin a new chapter.

To do it the second way, click the auto-select button. It will run for a while (1-2 hours on mine) and then have a ton of I frames filled in for you. Now you do the same thing as above with two exceptions. First, if you notice a shot change but it is in line with a red border (or flash after your eyes get tired ), don't worry about it. If you notice a shot change without the red flash, backup and add it. Simple enough, right? Wrong. There are many many incorrect scene changes that TMPG detects, mostly having to do with explosion "flash" frames. To be correct I removed those I frames. It is only a split second and I can only imagine it can't be good for your GOP to start on a completely white frame that is only like that for 1/24th of a second. So when you come across those (and there are many) press the opposite arrow key to unmark it.

This takes a long time and causes headaches. However it does dramatically increase picture quality. You can effectively do the same thing in CCE, but it isn't nearly as efficient to do it within that program. If you are intent on using CCE, you should first follow these steps with TMPG, save the results to a text file, do a mass replace to get rid of everything in the text file except for the numbers, then do another mass change to format the lines for CCE's project file, then finally cut and paste the info into CCE.

[Robster]

Thanks mate. Could you give a quick run-down on why this technique improves the PQ? Is it basically a case of the encoding engine resetting it's values at each shot change? Despite my results with the LD conversions, a lot of stuff has gone over my head.

[Robster]

Another question - when adding all these I-frames, is there any way to save them for future use? The reason I ask is because I've done several runs of TMPGEnc on the files and I dont want to have to go through 3 hours of this each time I start up.

[Robster]

Rule number 642: always look at the relevent part of the application BEFORE asking stupid questions like the one above.

(the big SAVE button obviously wasn't there before )

[Robster]

What about those disolves though? Shouldn't an I-frame be inserted just after those?

[miked00]

Thanks borghe for that "Trim" command. I've been playing with it, and I was wondering if, in my script, should I put it before or after my IVTC information? After the video is IVTC'd there are less frames in the video, so it might not be accurate, right? That's what I've been thinking.

[borghe]

technically wipes and fades don't require an I frame in that it is a gradual change. Now some of this is solved if, like me, you are completely emulating all 81 chapter stops, as quite a few of those stops occur immediately after a transition effect, so you insert an I frame anyway for the chapter stop. The few that don't have a chapter stop I just left.

As for how it affects picture quality, you are pretty much right. An I frame is basically a JPEG compressed picture that serves as a reference point for all subsequent P frames up to the next I frame, as well as any B frames immediately following it (or something like that). Basically put, it is the only "perfect" picture in the MPEG2 stream.

The potential problem occurs during shot changes. Look below

aaaabbbbccccdddd

Each of those is frames in a new shot. By setting your own I frames you can effectively cause this:

aaaabbbbccccdddd
IPBBIPBBIPBBIPBB

If you don't declare your own I frame and the scene detection algorithm doesn't pick up the shot change, you can theoretically end up with:

aaaabbbbccccdddd
IPBBPBBIPBBPBBP

As you can see, the start of the second shot is referenced in the middle of the GOP (and thus is based off of the previous shot) and the entire third shot is based off of one frame from the previous shot. And this example, though a little unrealistic in length, is very common in basis. Many examples I came across where an I frame was declared three frames from a new shot change..

By starting every shot with an I frame you are essentially creating a perfect reference for the rest of the shot and drastically increasing the efficiency of the econding.

Hopefully this makes sense.

[borghe]

MikeD, it really doesn't matter. Decimate by default will only look at a five frame series. In any five frame series there will (generally) only be 2 interlaced frames and three progressive frames. In this transfer (well, the Definitive laserdiscs that I'm working from) there are just a couple of instances where this may not hold true, but overall it holds.

[miked00]

Thanks, I'm still confused with this filter because it starts counting from zero. Like, if I want to cut out the beginning of capture at frame 170, and I have a set frame where I want the clip to end, I have to add 170 to that because when I open it, frame 170 becomes frame 0. Tough stuff.

[Robster]

Excellent, thanks Borghe.

I've started going through the first film an adding I-frames where appropriate. It will be interesting to compare the final encodings.

[Robster]

Borghe, something else:

The following screen grabs are three consecutive frames from Star Wars, within TMPGEnc's frame setting window.

As you can see the middle image is a kind-of halfway point between the first and second shots. So out of #2 and #3, which is the correct one to make an I-frame?

http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/pic1.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/pic2.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/pic3.jpg

[borghe]

robster - I had something similar to that happen to me, although not quite like that so I don't know if it's the same.

The problem in my case was that was an interlace frame with the first field in one shot and the second field in the second shot. It was coming up in my encode because I had Decimate(mode=3). This mode is supposed to detect breaks in the 3:2 pattern where pure video is inserted. Unfortunately for me, it included a ton of such shots. Once I went back to Decimate(mode=0) (the default) it eliminated all such shots and remember, I went through the entire movie frame by frame, so I mean ALL such shots. As far as I can tell, even though Star Wars may have pure video material inserted into the telecine, it still manages to hold a 3:2 pattern throughout.

Anyway, that was my problem. Again, my frame was similar to yours, only it was a true interlaced split-shot from, i.e. one field from one and one from the other combed together. Yours looks the same only instead of two distinct fields it looks like it took sixths of the two frames orf such. Unless it is just a result of your deinterlacer, in which case I have to ask what you are using?

[miked00]

I'm sorry for these questions...they seem like ones that I should be able to figure out, but can someone explain the Crop command? I have some video at the bottom and left of the frame that I would like to get rid of.

[borghe]

you can do crop one of two ways.

Crop(x offset, y offset, width, height)

The first two are your start point from left and top. The second two are your height and width. If you need to crop more, the respective number in the second set will get smaller.

The second way is to use crop inside of a resize command.

LancosResize(new height, new width, x crop offset, y crop offset, crop width, crop height)

Read this command's parameters backwards. First this command crops, THEN it resizes. So plug your numbers that you would have used in the crop command into the second part of the resize command. The first parameters of the resize command are then the new size of the image.

The second one is slightly more complicated, but supposedly there is an increase in speed by as much as 20% by doing it that way. (for the command, not the entire operation.)

[Robster]

Borghe, that is the .avi from the capture. The only thing that has happened to the file at this point is that it's been through VirtualDub to splice the three LD sides together, but that was in Direct Stream mode so no processing should have been applied.

[Mythos2002]

Thanks for the information. I'll change my framerates. I was thinking of 2500min, 4500average, and 7000 or 8000 max. I want 2500min since I believe that is the minimum requirement of DVD.

I did another LD Player test. This time I tried out another S-Video cable to make sure the noise problem isn't due to a bad cable. The noise is still there. Would an ADVC-100 help at all with this. When I look at the pictures of the captures you guys have, I don't see any noise. That may be due to no motion. The noise I see is only in the background during motion. I dont know of a better way to describe it. It's not pixellation like on a DVD.

When you guys who have the ADVC cards capture, how do you do it? Do you use a camcorder pass through, or just hook the LD Player to the ADVC card? Is there a certain firewire card you'd recommend using or does the ADVC come with one? It should come with one since it is so expensive. Thanks.

Mythos

[Robster]

Mythos, I've got the ADVC-1394. I chose that one because I didn't already havea Firewire input.

It's literally just a case of hooking up the S-Video and audio cable from the LD player to the card. That's it. I use WinDV to capture because it's free, small and doesn't mess about like some of the bigger packages.

You will always have a certain amount of noise on LDs. LD players were like vinyl record decks in that you had to go to the top end of the scale before you really started to hit peak performance.

Which discs are you transferring? I'm doing the original SW trilogy, the THX certified discs with the faces of Darth, Stormtrooper and Yoda on the front. These discs had a little more noise than the later Special Edition discs, which were some of the best LDs ever made.

You have to accept some noise and really, if you try and get rid of it all you'll end up with an overly-processed picture. I'll try and get a couple of example clips up over the weekend so you can compare.

Also, you may want to rethink your minimum encode rate. I had been using 2000 but now use 100. It's made a significant difference to the file sizes and yet the discs still play on the half a dozen decks I've tried them on. My current VBR rates are 100 min, 5500 av. and 9500 peak. The av. figure gets changes according to the size requirements but so far, I'm really chuffed with the results.

[Mythos2002]

Thanks for the information Robster. I may go the route you did since I don't have firewire either. An ADVC-100 comment scares me. It mentions a problem using the card and WinXP with SP1. I have WinXP with SP1 and have checked the Canopus forum and see there is a problem with that combination. I'm not sure if it affects everyone or just people with certain hardware. I have a VIA chipset, so that is something else that is iffy.

I can't wait to see some video clips. Thanks.

Mythos

[Robster]

What was the problem Myth? Was it anything to do with the video input 'blanking out' and requiring a reboot?

I had that. It turns out the problem was related to the capturing software trying to control the card like it was a DV camera (which is basically how Windows sees the device). Because the controls don't work properly with the card, the software gets confused.

I solved it by using WinDV. No controls, just a very basic GUI and it WORKS beautifully. Since using that to do my captures I've had NO problems whatsoever. You don't need a big stinking package to do captures, just something that will quietly sit there and dump the file to your hard drive. The card itself does most of the work.

[Mythos2002]

Robster,

I think the problem you described was it. There are links in the capture card comments sections which lead to the Canopus forums.

Thanks.

Mythos

[jez1]

Not to rub it in but Im sure glad I took the easy way out. I have all 3 episodes on DVD. Purchased from and auction site (won't mention any names). Don't know what source was used but the quality is great and they are tuly DVD's with menus and chapters and they are not VCD or SVCD. The box covers even look original. Already have requests to make copies. Anyway, good luck to all.

jez1

[MJPollard]

Not to rub it in but Im sure glad I took the easy way out. I have all 3 episodes on DVD. Purchased from and auction site (won't mention any names). Don't know what source was used but the quality is great and they are tuly DVD's with menus and chapters and they are not VCD or SVCD. The box covers even look original. Already have requests to make copies.

And the fact that nearly everything described in that paragraph is illegal is why we're doing this on our own, with our own legally purchased source material.

The auction site? Probably eBay. They really don't seem to care if the products are legitimate or not, so I'm not surprised they allow bootlegged products to be sold.

The source for these bootlegs? Probably laserdisc, since I have my doubts that they have access to the Lucasfilm masters.

True DVDs? Undoubtedly, and they probably use professional software, too. Take three guesses as to whether I believe they paid for that, too.

The box covers? Taken from dvdcoverart.com. No credit given to their creators, either.

Making copies of these for others? No comment, except to say that you're violating forum rules (i.e. no warez talk, period, with warez including pirated/bootlegged DVDs).

This message may make me look like an establishment flunky. Too bad. We're in this thread to discuss the legitimate activity of capturing the "Star Wars" films FROM OUR OWN LEGALLY PURCHASED SOURCES and burning them onto DVDs FOR OUR OWN PRIVATE USE. Talk of piracy and bootlegged DVDs isn't wanted here, and I don't think I'm alone in that sentiment.

[Robster]

Plus, my versions will be better than the bootlegs

[vhelp]

@ all..

Every so often, you get someone barging in here and insisting that we are
all wrong in archiving on our own, and they try and show us how/where
to obtain so called store-bought alternatives.. yeah, right hehe.. Anyways..

And to add to MJPollard's comments..

All these people's that flame our Star Wars (or any other "collectors" or
not, Movies) archive, transfer or conversions to CDR/DVDR's always keep forgetting that most of us here do this (and many other Movie titles on LD or VHS) for the hobby and enjoyment of it all. And, if we learn something new or old, that's even more fun

So, what may be boring to some, may not be so, to others.

And, also for what Robster stated.. to do better.

And, if anyone should decide to re-do the whole process again, today, next
month or next year, then that's their own choice. Maybe we find a new or
better technquie or improvment to quality or what-have you

See you all around.. TGIF
-vhelp

[miked00]

Does anyone know of a program where I can mux MPEG audio/video but set a delay time for the audio? My movies came out a bit asynch...the audio plays a little too early.