Star Wars 97SE in HD using super resolution & more — Page 5

I’m just curious how your script combines the two sources. I have similar problems with my 2004 Saga project. Is it an average of the two, or some sort of weighted average. Are you processing before you merge them?

schorman13 said:

I’m just curious how your script combines the two sources. I have similar problems with my 2004 Saga project. Is it an average of the two, or some sort of weighted average. Are you processing before you merge them?

Just a simple merge with very minimal processing and color matching the two sources to have comparable colors; just that helps to reduce macroblocks and noise; then, the most of processing are done after the merge.

Found a test clip made few weeks ago, and simply forgotten… luckily, my head is still connected with my neck, or I will lose it, sooner or later! (^^,)

https://mega.nz/#!ttkFgA4L!N3vUz2YXhNAlC-CbFAkUa6NfxfJ47bX0a1FcKHkPhxU

This looks fantastic.

Same test clip now available on Vimeo (if someone would like just to watch the video without download it): https://vimeo.com/199760634 - do not forget to watch it in 1080p!

That clip is nothing short of incredible! Fantastic work 😃

Thanks guys, happy to know you like it!

I’d like to do the entire upscale, but the sad thing is that it will take WEEKS (literally!) to encode it lossless, plus a day or two for the lossy version, plus a week or so to upload/seed the final BD-25 version… I need a new, faster, more powerful PC, at least to limit the encoding time to a day (or around it); for the line speed, I should check if finally the fiber has reached my home…

Looks great!

Just wondering if 1080p is really an improvement over 720p, with regard to detail. It might save encoding time to stick with 720p.

schorman13 said:

Looks great!

Thanks!

Just wondering if 1080p is really an improvement over 720p, with regard to detail. It might save encoding time to stick with 720p.

Agree, will save encoding time, but at what price? I tried to answer to that question in this brief article, written few weeks ago: https://forum.fanres.com/thread-1205.html

For the lazy ones, long story short: proper (read: well done, not a simple bilinear or bicubic) upscale to 1080p is ALWAYS better than using the same upscale technique to upscale to 720p, and leave the rest to software/hardware player, or display (at least today, January 2017); how much the improvement is significant is up to the technique involved, the player/display quality, the subjective quality perceived by any given individual due to his/her visual and color acuity, distance from screen, ambient light etc.

About grain: if you add a grain plate to 720p, it will be of course upscaled to 1080p as well, enlarging each grain 1.5x1.5=2.25 times… so, if you set up a fine grain, you will end up with a coarse grain, while a coarse grain will be… a lot more coarser! 😄

This is not theory; just take any SD source, upscale it (again, using only the best methods) to 720p, add your preferred 35mm grain plate, encode it lossy with decent bitrate, open the encoded file in your player fullscreen (that should be 1920x1080), pause, capture the screen, copy it in your image editor and save it as “720p”.

Now take the same SD source, upscale it with the same method used for 720p, but this time to 1080p, add the same 35mm grain plate, encode it lossy using the same code and a 2.25 times the bitrate used for 720p, open the encoded file in your player fullscreen (that will be the same as previous, 1920x1080), pause at the same frame, capture the screen, copy it in your image editor and save it as “1080p”.

At the end, just compare the two frames “720p” and “1080p”; are they the same? Are they REALLY similar? If you can answer no to both questions (as I did) I think it’s better to encode at 1080p… I would do a live example for you right now, but I’m in the middle of an encoding, so I can’t risk to block everything - again 😄

Cool, look forward to seeing a comparison! 😃

Quick’n’dirt comparison; both upscaled (one at 720p, the other at 1080p), copied in MSPaint, saved as JPG (to simulate a sort of compression), opened with IrfanView, copied again in MSPaint and saved again in JPG:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/197757

I chose an animated feature, with few colors, because it’s easy to spot the grain structure; using a real compressed material, difference, in particular in details could be even more evident, when zoomed in; at normal (or higher) distance from the display, difference could be not that easy to spot.

Conclusion? To upscale to 720p instead 1080p to save bandwidth or disk space, and time to compress, and to upload, and to download etc. is a wise decision; result will be not that far from 1080p. But it will be, nevertheless…

Again, it all depends from many factors; but if it’s true that 720p upscaled = 1080p, then why we have 4K (actually 2160p) displays? It’s so easy to upscale 1080p to 2160p (2x) or even 720p (3x)…

Update: I got a powerful PC, I should set it up soon - you know, install the right programs, codecs etc. and transfer data from the old one… so, instead of days, maybe it will take “just” hours to finish EP4. Maybe.

There is still interest in this? Take in account that, for the moment, just EP4 is “almost ready”; I still should work on both EP5 and EP6 but, thanks to the experience gained in working on the EP4, I think a shorter time would be needed to set up the scripts for these two episodes - but do not expect few days, though…

Can’t remember if I wrote this before, but EP4 is now based almost entirely on Flunk (due to its higher resolution and bigger frame size); however, TB and G’Kar are used to replace missing/bad frames, and now the final video will be '04 frame accurate. Still, I don’t like the pink tint, and can’t get rid of this properly…

Due to the fact EP4 uses Flunk, it will have (almost) proper 2.35:1 aspect ratio, while EP5 and EP6 will be around 2.25:1.

Definitely interested. Do you need the audio? I’ve got you covered.

I think I got the needed audio - have to check DTS Cinema if it’s in sync, though.

Should I release EP4 ASAP, and then EP5 and 6 with calm, or would you like to wait and get them all together?

Also, color grading: is there somewhere a LUT that could be used with Avisynth or Virtualdub, to get rid of the pink tint? I’d like to correct this aspect, as I’m pretty happy with the upscale - yes, not perfect, but really nice.

Last thing: would you prefer a “pure” release, or a combined version, where the main parts would be from BD(and/or HTDV) and then just the 1997 SE parts will be upscales? In this case, I need someone who would help me, providing the exact frames of each shot from one or another version…