My $.02. To be fair, I've read pages 1-6 and 20-21.
There's some amazing work going on here, but I wanted to comment a bit (ok a lot).
Noise reduction: There is some serious degrain/denoise/fft3dfiltering going on. It seems like you are guilty of scrubbing all the film grain with the noise. Have you considered implementing an addgrain filter at the end?
I'm assuming you all are being careful not to lose too much detail with the noise. It can often be hard to tell from stills. The clips Dark Jedi posted don't seem to have lost too much image.
Interlace artifacts: When the GOUTs first came out and the first scripts for clean up were being discussed, filters for the interlace artifacts were heatedly debated. I don't see anything being used on them here. (Or did I miss it.)
Subtitles: I'm surprised no-one is talking forced softsubs. It gives you the ability to generate separate letterboxed and widescreen subs so positioning is optimum for either 16x9 or 4x3 TVs.
Burned in subs seem a bit dated is all.
Sharpening: Different sharpening algorithms can improve different features of an image. For any given filter you can only go so far before ringing or edge enhancement artifacts become an issue. I've found that MSharpen used mildly in conjunction with fft3dfilter's sharpen provides a nice balance. Here's some other sharpen filter ideas: http://www.aquilinestudios.org/avsfilters/sharpeners.html
Banding: Fft3dfilter use can result in color banding or posterization. I'm definitely seeing some of that in the stills and clips (look at the close up of Han's hand). The best answer is to either back off of fft3dfilter or use a deband filter. http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/External_filters#Debanding
Sample clip: In the still below, the silhouetted figure walking in the background leaves trails. Trippy and an artifact of agressive temporal noise filtering.
Other stuff: I don't know if it was answered, but DGIndex's iDCT algorithm decides how the mpeg video is decode for frame-serving. Simple MMX (XviD) is commonly recommended because it is relatively accurate and very fast.
In modern processors, I don't rally see any difference in decoding speed. For this project where quality is king, I would recommend using "IEEE-1180 Reference", because that's exactly what it is: the reference algorithm for decoding (at the expense of speed).
I really should read the rest of this thread so I can annoy you all more.
Dr. M
After watching the m2v's of both samples, I feel that sample 1 is better - sample 2 definitely has more edge enhancement, and generally feels to have been oversharpened.
I did notice, however, that on both samples, the red light to the left of Greedo has some "blocking" (best word I can think to describe it" going on. You can kinda see it on the pictures, but it's more apparent on the moving video.
OK here are some more screens,I took some of DrM's advice,I added the filter addgrain,and I lessened the sharpening,I used MSharpen instead of limitedsharpenfaster,and more.
1 more thing,I take it noone minds that I made the subs a little smaller and used a different color instead of white?
That looks much better! I'd like to see it in motion, but based on the stills, it kicks the pants off of the first two samples.
And I have no problem with the subtitles at all.
Here is Video sample 3
MD5: 2BB8F188C138CFA7656ECF39ED2C7B13
I am also doing another scene as well,so keep the suggestions coming.
Here is a different scene,Images first:
Uh, just my 2 cents - yellow subs are distracting. Size is fine, but stick to white. Edit: the shots above look good, however I think there's too much color - particularly shot #2.
A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em
well, it's late, but I thought I would add some thoughts. DJ, those shots look all wrong to me. I don't have anything to comapre with right now, but they seem overly bright, overly saturated, and there are too many sharpness artifacts.
Doctor M said:Noise reduction: There is some serious degrain/denoise/fft3dfiltering going on. It seems like you are guilty of scrubbing all the film grain with the noise.
Guilty. This was necessary in order to remove shake that was the result of poor telecine and then the DVD compression caused the shake to move different parts of the frames differently.
I'm assuming you all are being careful not to lose too much detail with the noise.
Yes, I actually worked on this for the better part of a year.
Interlace artifacts: When the GOUTs first came out and the first scripts for clean up were being discussed, filters for the interlace artifacts were heatedly debated. I don't see anything being used on them here. (Or did I miss it.)
You missed it (them). It actually takes the best of 2 different anti-aliasing methods.
Sharpening: Different sharpening algorithms can improve different features of an image. For any given filter you can only go so far before ringing or edge enhancement artifacts become an issue. I've found that MSharpen used mildly in conjunction with fft3dfilter's sharpen provides a nice balance. Here's some other sharpen filter ideas: http://www.aquilinestudios.org/avsfilters/sharpeners.html
I spent the year optomizing this as well.
Banding: Fft3dfilter use can result in color banding or posterization. I'm definitely seeing some of that in the stills and clips (look at the close up of Han's hand). The best answer is to either back off of fft3dfilter or use a deband filter. http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/External_filters#Debanding
I think the banding is coming from Dark Jedi's encoding. It does look bad on those stills.
Sample clip: In the still below, the silhouetted figure walking in the background leaves trails. Trippy and an artifact of agressive temporal noise filtering.
From good old DVNR smear on the GOUT.
-G
From good old DVNR smear on the GOUT.
OMG. Really? That smearing is on the original?
Edit: It's probably a question for the geniuses (genii?) at Doom9, but is there such a thing as a filter that removes artifacts from temporal smoothing? I wonder if unfilter(), LimitedSharpenFaster() or similar shapening software might work.
Dr. M
We touched on this a while ago, see posts 59 and 60.
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So you did. From what I've read in other places, temporal sharpening is generally a bad idea (and why there aren't actually any filters around that do it).
Dr. M
Ok, so my output file did come out 4:3.
Instead of waiting 4 days for another encode, is there another program I can use to convert it from 4:3 to 16:9?
Thanks!
Getting there!
Moth3r said:Look up "Restream" - I think it should be able to change the aspect ratio in the MPEG2 headers for you, so you will not have to re-encode.
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There's a tool in DVD Lab Pro that lets you change the AR as well.
Dr. M
OK everyone,the 30 GB lossless avi file of ANH is done,only took 20 hours,I will try and start ESB tonight.
I was going to start ESB tonight but damnit this one won't start up,getting this error:
damn this is really strange,ANH and ROTJ fire right up,but I get the above error on ESB,I am confused.
I finally got Empire finished.
It looks pretty good.
However, I see some pretty bad "ghosting" on scenes where something is moving really fast.
When Luke attacks Vader you can easily see it....almost like there is a trailing image, following the main image.
Happens all the time on fast moving scenes.
Shoot, I really wanted a good version of this....if anyone can help, please let me know what the problem is...I tried it on multiple video sources too.
dark_jedi said:damn this is really strange,ANH and ROTJ fire right up,but I get the above error on ESB,I am confused.
Hmm, I've observed that when there's a problem with just ESB, usually the solution is to completely remove the subtitles section as there are none for it. I know that's worked for myself and atleast a couple others.
DarthJardus said:I finally got Empire finished.
It looks pretty good.
However, I see some pretty bad "ghosting" on scenes where something is moving really fast.When Luke attacks Vader you can easily see it....almost like there is a trailing image, following the main image.
Happens all the time on fast moving scenes.
Shoot, I really wanted a good version of this....if anyone can help, please let me know what the problem is...I tried it on multiple video sources too.
That's the digital noise reduction that Lucasfilm did in the early 90s. It's inherent on the transfer, and is impossible to get rid of. The only way you're going to get rid of this is to find a good-quality capture of the pre-1993 laserdiscs. Or wait for the X0 project to be finished (uses the best of both transfers).
Tobar said:dark_jedi said:damn this is really strange,ANH and ROTJ fire right up,but I get the above error on ESB,I am confused.
Hmm, I've observed that when there's a problem with just ESB, usually the solution is to completely remove the subtitles section as there are none for it. I know that's worked for myself and atleast a couple others.
Thank you after I removed ALL lines related to the subs,now it works.
Well since ESB did not work I did ROTJ and the lossless 35.7 GB file is complete,and it took 24 hours,now to ESB but I want to see this "ghosting" that was mentioned above first.
Tobar said:dark_jedi said:damn this is really strange,ANH and ROTJ fire right up,but I get the above error on ESB,I am confused.
Hmm, I've observed that when there's a problem with just ESB, usually the solution is to completely remove the subtitles section as there are none for it. I know that's worked for myself and atleast a couple others.
In line 60, should the "Nop()" be replaced with a "last"?
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Moth3r said:Tobar said:dark_jedi said:damn this is really strange,ANH and ROTJ fire right up,but I get the above error on ESB,I am confused.
Hmm, I've observed that when there's a problem with just ESB, usually the solution is to completely remove the subtitles section as there are none for it. I know that's worked for myself and atleast a couple others.
In line 60, should the "Nop()" be replaced with a "last"?
Thanks M,That also worked.
Here is an ESB sample,I did not see this "ghosting" unless I need to use a different scene?
http://rapidshare.com/files/247382862/ESB_test.rar.html
There is some ghosting visible in chapter 45 of ESB, look at the left hand of the stormtrooper, Leia shoots down. There is also ghosting visible in the cantina scene in ANH. This is visible on the original DVD, too.
Btw, I compared the scene when Ben deactivates the tractor beam in ANH with the transfer of Dr. Gonzo. Although the image of Dr. Gonzo is much softer than the image of the GOUT you can see slightly more detail on Dr. Gonzo's set. I wonder if this is caused by encoding the NTSC master to PAL or if there is less detail on the NTSC DVD also.