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.: The Zion DVD Project :. (Released) — Page 14

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Originally posted by: MeBeJedi
It's me - eandtc! Welcome to my other board.

So this is where all the cool kids hang out...

Actually, I've begun [rotoscoping] with Combustion 3.


I'm using a freeware app that can read AVS files and output PNGs to be re-integrated into AVS with a script (generated by the app itself).
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@Karyudo:
Here's the link to the Doom9 forum-thread containing the LimitedSharpen-function.

Normally PAL doesn't need IVTC, since PAL material is usually created by speeding up 24p-film material (actually 23.976p) to 25p, instead of telecining it (which is only necessary to bring 24p to 60i-NTSC). BUT sometimes there's PAL material that wasn't created from the original 24p source, but from the telecined 60i crap... and this is usually done very crudely, with fields being blended together and other nasty stuff. You should really try Doom9 and its forums regarding this stuff. Especially the AviSynth Usage forum is pretty cool.
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@Laserschwert:

I'm a longtime user/abuser of Doom9's excellent forums, but that's getting to be a victim of its own success: finding things there is getting harder and harder as the number of posts goes up. I do wish people could write more descriptive thread "headlines"...

So I'm just being lazy by asking you directly.

Because I'm seeing good results in VDubMod with my PAL caps, and I know it's 100% film source, I didn't think I'd have to worry about IVTC. But since I've never had to deal with PAL before (livin' in NTSC land as I do), I thought I may as well confirm my suspicions. Thanks!

BTW, 25fps PAL stuff is still telecined: the telecine is the machine that converts film to video, regardless of what video standard it's going to. But I know what you mean: 24fps with a 4% speed-up and 2:2 pulldown gives nice 50i for PAL, easily converted back to 25fps progressive (or directly to 24fps if you junk the audio!).
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Originally posted by: zion
Is there a way I can just save [the LimitedSharpen script] as a plug-in so I don't have to include the whole thing in my scripts?


Probably! In general, scripts can be given an '.avsi' extension, stuck in the plugins sub-directory of AviSynth, and they will auto-load. I don't know for sure that will work here, but I'll be trying it myself shortly, too.

[edit]
OK! After messing around with MaskTools and colourspace conversions, I've got it working. Lookin' good...


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This is the way to make it work:

First of all copy and paste the LimitedSharpen script in to a new, empty text-file. Save this as limitedsharpen.avsi into your AviSynth plugin-folder. The missing function "yv12lutxy()" is contained in the MaskTools plugin, which should be unzipped into a directory other than your plugin-folder (just create a subdirectory). Then, as seen in the script I posted, you'll load the MaskTools plugin, pointing to the correct location, of course.

EDIT: Karyudo beat me about the first part of the answer
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Thanks guys. I'm still having a problem though. I made a folder in my plugins directory for MaskTools and I'm calling it in my script like this:

LoadPlugin("D:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\MaskTools\MaskTools.dll")

When I load the script, it's saying "there is no function named yv12lutxy." Is there something else I need, like a newer version of AVIsynth?

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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Originally posted by: zion
Is there something else I need, like a newer version of AVIsynth?


I'm using an older version of AVISynth, so that's probably not it.

I put just the DLL in the default plugins folder, and all the HTML files (plus the CSS and few sample AVS files) into the Docs folder. I didn't use the 'LoadPlugin' line, and it works fine.

Finicky stuff, this AviSynth, isn't it? Good thing the results are worth it!

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Putting this new script aside for a moment, here are my latest results, which should mark the end for my current hardware setup as my new stuff will be coming in this coming week:

http://www.aptirrelevance.com/videoprojects/images/thANH.toot.d5000.01.jpg
ANH.toot.d5000.01

http://www.aptirrelevance.com/videoprojects/images/thANH.toot.d5000.02.jpg
ANH.toot.d5000.02

http://www.aptirrelevance.com/videoprojects/images/thANH.toot.d5000.03.jpg
ANH.toot.d5000.03

http://www.aptirrelevance.com/videoprojects/images/thANH.toot.d5000.05.jpg
ANH.toot.d5000.05

http://www.aptirrelevance.com/videoprojects/images/thANH.toot.d5000.09.jpg
ANH.toot.d5000.09

http://www.aptirrelevance.com/videoprojects/images/thANH.toot.d5000.12.jpg
ANH.toot.d5000.12

http://www.aptirrelevance.com/videoprojects/images/thANH.toot.d5000.13.jpg
ANH.toot.d5000.13

http://www.aptirrelevance.com/videoprojects/images/thANH.toot.d5000.14.jpg
ANH.toot.d5000.14

(more screenshots on the web site)

I think these are my best results so far. As you can see, these shots are not oversaturated and there is a bit more detail since my raw capture was not as dark.

I started with a more neutral capture setting in VirtualVCR, then captured all three ANH LD's and TooTed them together. Then in AVIsynth I cropped the video down to size, and used Laserschwert's second de-ghost method:

v1=AviSource("e:\zion.avi").ConvertToYUY2.GuavaComb(mode="NTSC").SeparateFields.SelectEvery(10,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,9).Weave.AssumeFPS(23.976)

v2=v1.crop(4,0,0,0).AddBorders(0,0,4,0, color=$FFFFFF).blur(.5)

v3 = overlay(v1,v2, opacity=0.2, mode="Darken") # remove only bright halos

return v3

Then in VDubMod I IVTC'd, resized to 2x and ran the MSU smart sharpen and denoise filters, then resized back to 720x274. From there, color corrected each shot individually with Adobe Premiere. Then resized to anamorphic back in AVIsynth.

I know there's a lot of dot crawl in these caps. I was switching between GuavaComb and DeDot and I think I had them both disabled when I did my final save.

So what do you guys think? When my new LD player and capture card get here, I'll be doing another capture like this, only I shouldn't have to do any deghosting or noise filtering.

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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@zion:

I don't suppose you could give frame numbers for your caps, could you? I'm trying to find the same exact frames in my own clip, and some are very difficult to find quickly. (In fact, maybe all preservationists should agree on a common 'Frame 0000' so these things are easier to compare globally...?)

My initial impressions are that you've gone too blue, and that maybe there's too much contrast. I hardly see any stars around the escape pod or the Star Destroyer, for example. I dunno: it's sorta beginning to look like it's over-processed. In my opinion, trying to make this look too much like the 2004 DVD isn't necessarily a good thing. As Mike Verta has shown, there have been some dubious decisions made for the DVD regarding colour-correction, etc., that maybe shouldn't be held up as a model.

Or perhaps this is just a reflection of how different the PAL and NTSC versions are? You're definitely having to make your silk purse out of more of a sow's ear than I am.

I'm gonna have to post some sample frames of my own in order to back this up, aren't I?
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Too blue eh? You may be right about that, I've been staring at this video so long that I've kinda gotten used to it.

One thing that blew me away about the DVD's was how black things were compared to the LD's. I've tried this round to emulate that by darkening just the shadows. To my eye, it looks pretty good. But this may be why it looks too contrasted to you.

I don't think I can really provide frame numbers for you, as I'm not really capturing from the beginning of the film, and the Faces LD's are not CAV so I wouldn't be able to use the LD's frame numbers as a reference since CLV doesn't have any. Perhaps a description would help? For instance, the closeup of Leia (#13 there) is the third frame of that shot.

It's true that the stars suffer a lot from the large amount of filters I'm using. I'm hoping that with my new equipment I won't have to use half of them. I've already experimented a little with editing in new starfields, so that's probably what I would do in a worst-case scenario.

At any rate, I'd really like to see some of your screencaps.

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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@zion:

re: blackness --

I think you'd probably find capping from the Japanese 'Collector's Set' quite interesting: it's the same NTSC transfer as 'Faces' and the DC, but it's noticably darker right off the top. I suspect it has something to do with the fact Japanese NTSC is IRE 0, while US/Canada NTSC is IRE 7.5. Or something like that. I think I've got it right, but I'm no member of the ITU or IEEE...

re: my caps --

Here are three caps. I've tried to get the exact same frames as you; these were the easiest. The two space ones are without any enhancement at all -- just resizing. The face one has some sharpening (thanks, Laserschwert!) applied, but otherwise that's it. Well, except for resizing again, of course.

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/2654/zionthread01040285ih.jpg
http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/5646/zionthread03055831gk.jpg
http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/4927/zionthread09110557qb.jpg

I think I will probably eventually get around to some colour correction. At least on the corridor shots, I think everything's a bit yellow-looking. For the meantime, suffice it to say that these caps are not optimized. Like you, I'm interested in getting the best. With all the tools available, everything starts to blur and it gets really, really tough to know what looks right anymore. Also like you, I'm keen to hear from some interested observers as to how I might tweak things to make the results better.

By the time I'm done this monster of a project, I suspect I may have broken the thing down shot by shot and tweaked everything a bit!

(P.S. You'll notice the bit of crud on the very right of the first cap, on the brown surface of Tatooine, just inside the bluish halo. That's the sort of stuff I've been rotoscoping out. I've probably done this frame already, but I re-capped this LD side recently and haven't gotten around to re-aligning the script to replace the frames I've fixed.)
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Yeah, my strategy from the beginning (a long time ago now...) was to find and acquire the best possible source first, and then work on making it look as good as it could with as little post-processing after that. So I've done a bit of LD collecting as a result. I have the DC, several copies of 'Faces', the Japanese 'Collector's Set', and a few different PAL sets. Not to mention the SE LDs from both the US and Japan. Oh, and some DVB broadcasts and suchlike. I doubt anyone has a much more complete collection of junk than I have...

I started with a Denon LA-2300 for capping AC-3 from the SE discs, and then I got the idea to go PAL (in large part because I hated the idea of stray combed frames being left over from the infernal IVTC), so I had to pick up a PAL player. I kinda figured, "In for a penny, in for a pound," and got myself a Pioneer CLD-D925 -- the best PAL-spec player Pioneer ever made. Maybe not as nice as some of the NTSC-only players made for the Japanese market, but still the best I could get my grubby little hands on.

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@Zion:
It's strange that the MaskTool-filter doesn't seem to work... after all the yv12lutxy-thingy is contained in it... maybe a typo in the path? I happen to put typos into my scripts all the time, wondering why they don't work.

Oh, and could I get another one of your captures to play with? A brighter one? The Vader/Leia-scene would do fine again...

@Karyudo:
I think you've gone a little too far with the sharpening of the face-image... it's got some "painted" looking areas. (especially in the out-of-focus areas)
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The reason the Japanese LDs are darker is because while the Japanese use NTSC, their flavor of it (NTSC-J) was darker then the US version. It may have been because their TVs defaulted to brighter images, I'm not sure on that point.

From what I've read, NTSC-M is the modern "global" version and came about around the time of DVD so that DVDs could be standardized. All flavors of NTSC are all inter-compatible, but each has it's idiosyncrasies and the NTSC-J is usually darker than NTSC-E (I think that's what the older US version was, but not sure.)

The reasoning is that NTSC had (has) flaws and extensions or fixes to the standard kept getting added. NTSC-M is a newer standard that takes all the various meddling with the base standard and incorporates the various enhancements.

It's a moot issue today unless you are dealing with the kind of stuff we are all trying to accomplish.

Usually though PAL is considered the best source as it has more resolution (just shy of 100 more lines) in the image. With LDs, take away most of the black bars and you have a small number of lines that need to be resized to make up the DVD image so the more that are there in the beginning, the better. PAL has more lines than NTSC so many people have chosen to grab PAL images (they also have no interlacing) and retime the video (slow it down) to 23.976 fps from 25. Assuming the frame count is standard and everything else is done properly, adding the correctly timed US audio should mesh perfectly.
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Originally posted by: Karyudo
Yeah, my strategy from the beginning (a long time ago now...) was to find and acquire the best possible source first, and then work on making it look as good as it could with as little post-processing after that. So I've done a bit of LD collecting as a result. I have the DC, several copies of 'Faces', the Japanese 'Collector's Set', and a few different PAL sets. Not to mention the SE LDs from both the US and Japan. Oh, and some DVB broadcasts and suchlike. I doubt anyone has a much more complete collection of junk than I have...


Nice, but I think I can rival your collection. I have the DC, Faces, Japanese Collectors Edition, the US 1985? OT Special Widescreen Edition, US Special Edition, Uk Special Edition, UK OT Pre-THX Set, German Pre-THX Set, german THX set and german Special Edition Set. I think the only european Versions I am missing are from france. I still wish I had more japanese versions, but these are extremely hard to get here in europe.
I also have the offical SE VCDs, some asian bootleg DVDs and VCDs, 5 or 6 fanmade DVD-Sets and last but not least about 30 VHS sets (mostly PAL), including the USS Executor Box, the US THX Widescreen tapes and some rare german collector editions.
So you are not the only crazy collector on this board :-).

btw. I am also working on a PAL version, and probably a NTSC versions made from my PAL source. Your screenshots are really nice, I wish I still had my Pioneer 515, but It broke down and now I only have an average sony 440 PAL only player. Which PAL version was your source?

Greetings
Grisan


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Originally posted by: grisan
So you are not the only crazy collector on this board :-).

Wow. I should have limited my claim to "the biggest collection of stuff owned by a sane North American". Because you, my friend, appear to be neither!

I kid. Really, that's a stupidly impressive collection. You never picked up any digital TV broadcasts, though, eh? Or actual film? Maybe I'm still in with a chance...

I am also working on a PAL version


Oh, I know! I've been following your thread, too.

Which PAL version was your source?


You're going to love this: those caps are from the French versions you don't have. Of course. I've got both the German and French versions, but the French version has nicer saturation, I feel.

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I have two DVD sets based on german DVB broadcast. But no actual Film versions (yet) :-(
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zion,

when you make your interim file and use premier pro, etc, what codec are you using for the AVI? I ask because I've stuck a huffyuv avi into premier pro and it looks crap, all rainbow colours etc.
When a woman says yes, she means no - when she says maybe, she means no.

http://www.auky37.dsl.pipex.com/falconlogo_web.jpg
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I've had absolutely no problems with HuffyUV in any of the programs I've used. Vegas, Combustion, VirtualDub.

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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Maybe you two guys (tellan & MeBeJedi) should clarify just a bit: HuffYUV with RGB, or HuffYUV with YUY2?
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Sorry...YUY2

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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That's most likely your problem right there tellan. I'm using Huffyuv in Premiere Pro without problems. My settings for the Huffyuv codec are Predict Median (YUY2), Predict Gradient (RGB), field threshold 240 lines, and I have "Always suggest RGB format" checked and "Enable full-size output buffer" checked.

If you change your settings, you might have to recapture in order to make your AVI's work in Premiere.

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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Originally posted by: Karyudo
I kinda figured, "In for a penny, in for a pound," and got myself a Pioneer CLD-D925 -- the best PAL-spec player Pioneer ever made. That's the one I got. Although it's true that it was Pioneer's flagship model in their last range of laserdisc players, some people say that the older model CLD-2950 which it replaced had a slightly better picture quality (but fewer features). It's all subjective though.

Did you find, as I did, that turning the HQ circuit on actually makes the output picture worse? Certainly not as sharp.
Originally posted by: Karyudo
Also, maybe you'll know definitively: does PAL need IVTC? No, I know it doesn't need 3:2 pulldown reversal, but PAL is still interlaced on telecining, so I wonder if it would benefit from some Telecide() work -- without Decimate -- to get rid of 2:2 pulldown?
As I understand it, you should use telecide on the capture to combine the fields back into progressive frames before any processing. Don't know what effect this has on the filtering but it will help with the encoding if the source is progressive.

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