Animaxx

Talos said:

Animaxx said:

Talos said:

Thanks, I will look into that, MeGui does sound interesting. In the end, after a few trials and experiments, I did end up preserving the 5.1 audio and it worked out well. I just didn’t realize at first that you had to go into Audacity settings and change a setting to allow you to use a custom mix output. Before that, it downmixed everything into 2-channel audio. After changing that setting, it preserved everything, even the oddball four-channel mixes some of the SG-1 discs used.

Oh yeah, I remember that strange sound setup on stargate, I think it was the first couple of episodes (DVD 1 and possibly two) of season 2 of SG-1.

Yeah, the start of season 2 is weird. None of the early seasons are consistent in audio languages, channels, commentary, subs, chapters, etc.

I didn’t mean to sidetrack your thread though, I just saw you discussing shifting to a PAL source so I thought I might be able to help by showing what I did on a similar project. You got it under control though!

No reason to apologize, I always like hearing from people who enjoy good scifi/fantasy/mystery.

Also, every single person I got in contact with around here added some experience that has proven useful or got me thinking in a different direction.
In my mind: That’s what collaboration looks like - not just getting people together that have worked on the same thing, but getting people together that worked on their own projects with their own experiences, 'cause what may not have worked on one’s own attempts might benefit someone else.

So there really is no side-tracking here, just valuable advice. Thanks.

Also: The ever-shifting production techniques are quite common for tv-series in their sophomore year(s). We can notice such things in shifting sets, production design and also (as you have pointed out) different technical specifications. One really bad example for that is the 90’s scifi “Earth:Final Conflict”.
The cast/sets/everything changed. As for the technical stuff: They switched from 4:3 to 16:9 format midway, sometimes widescreen happened depending on the countries there were released in, most have dolby, some only stereo, I even encountered one with mono. It’s insane.

Talos said:

Thanks, I will look into that, MeGui does sound interesting. In the end, after a few trials and experiments, I did end up preserving the 5.1 audio and it worked out well. I just didn’t realize at first that you had to go into Audacity settings and change a setting to allow you to use a custom mix output. Before that, it downmixed everything into 2-channel audio. After changing that setting, it preserved everything, even the oddball four-channel mixes some of the SG-1 discs used.

Oh yeah, I remember that strange sound setup on stargate, I think it was the first couple of episodes (DVD 1 and possibly two) of season 2 of SG-1.

Talos said:

Animaxx said:

I guess I will try the PAL-discs now, since they have a professionally done 25 FPS, which is present uniform and throughout. Perhaps that will work.

I did this earlier this year with the PAL DVD releases of Stargate SG-1 seasons 1-7 and Dark Angel seasons 1 and 2 (the NTSC Dark Angel discs are 4:3, only PAL got a widescreen release). I wanted to have higher resolution copies of both, but I couldn’t put up with PAL speedup. It took a few months of poking and prodding at it before I settled down into a workflow and I got it all done early in the pandemic, as it proved to be a good quarantine project. This is what I did:

1. Ripped disc with MakeMKV
2. Disassembled MKVs into components with MKVCleaver and MKVToolNix. The latter program is used to take apart the audio and chapter files, and can export the video file itself at 24000/1001p. MKVCleaver is for the subtitles, as it can export them as idx/subs.
3. Using MKVToolNix, took the chapter files and convert timing by applying a conversion factor to the start and end times. This is also when I go in and add the chapter titles if available.
4. Loaded each file in Audacity, changing the speed under effects -> change speed. I used a .959 value for it. You then save in the highest quality you want and take care to preserve the channels, since it won’t save 5.1 properly by default.
5. Using VobSub Sub File Cutter, loaded the .sub subtitles and used it to modify the timing.
6. Opened up MKVToolNix and used it to -re-assemble all of the components.
7. Used Handbrake to reencode the whole thing into whatever format desired. I used x265 at high bitrate for the video and audio and got good results.

This worked for me. There are probably easier ways to do it, but I had decent success with the two programs. I still have all of the seasons I did at their step 6 pre-encoding stage (usually a couple gigs an episode), if someone wants to do something similar to this with them as I lack the processing power to upscale more than short clips.

You could try using meGui for the audio. It offers options to change fps of the audio (although calling it fps is not quite true, but makes it easier to work) with or without pitch correction.
Standard changes that are possible are speed ups (anything from 23,976 / 24 / 25) and speed downs.
And the program actually offers several encoding format options and it preserves the 5.1 channels nicely.

When you use the option “without pitch correction” it will adapt the audio to the new length while correcting the pitch to sound right; if you choose “with pitch correction”, the program will adapt the audio to the new length and the audio will remain as it was with the source.

You can adapt to some NTSC sources or PAL by simply pretending 23,976 is 29,970 - sometimes it works, depending on the scene changes (I have tried with Star Trek DS9 and Voyager, on some episodes it worked, on others it didn’t). If you still have to cut the audio to fit, I recommend “Shotcut”: It allows you to cut and alter the audio while keeping the channels intact, it also offers lossless output, so you can later use meGui to change it back into a smaller AC3 that has a similar size to what you had before.

I really suggest you look into it, those are (so far) the only two free software solutions that preserve channels up to 5.1 configuration, which is nice.

FrankB said:

Animaxx said:
Nothing ever really produced the desired effect.

Because of the pulldowned sequences that will ALWAYS stutter if not properly decimated. That’s a fact.

I guess I will try the PAL-discs now, since they have a professionally done 25 FPS, which is present uniform and throughout. Perhaps that will work.

I guess I took my mouth a bit too full (can you say this in English?). Yesterday I watched two episodes, and I have to admit there are a few doubles per episode. But only two or three (plus a few always by the end the openig credits), but despite that it really still seems a much better starting point.

But what bugs me most are the release policies by all those multimedia-corporations: I mean when we take a long hard look at how many times certain series were released, re-released, new editions done and then re-re-released again and so on, there was really no time or option to work on them so they could be presented in a standard up-to-date form (like constant framerate)?

Not 100% necessary in the NTSC-world, but costs money. That’s all.

Of course, I am no expert on the subject, but I would reckon’ this could be done automatically these days?

Not in this case. Doing it perfect is really work - and for the c)-scenes still impossible, if you don’t mix (overlay) film and cgis again from the beginning. This would mean HIGH cost. - And THEN they could also scan the film parts again in HD, adapt or improve the cgi-parts and release proper BluRays…

After all, we fans have bought so many releases and special editions, paid for so many streaming options and downloads, there was no money left to do this? Seriously???

They did it with TNG, looked at the results, and decided so. Their reasons must be clear, otherwise they would have produced HD also for DSN and Voyager. Why shouldn’t they?

Nothing to add. Very true.

Interesting suggestions, but I must admit it would probably not work work on my project (or on DS9 and Voyager taken from NTSC in general), mainly because of the problematic hybrid nature of the source material.

You have progressive and interlaced footage, both with different framerates, spliced together.

I even looked into many options so far: Telecine, then decimate; deinterlace, decomb, qtgmc, field blending, field bobbing, field doubling, discarded fields, swapped orders, even filters that were modified to either blend 24p with 30p or reversed by manually defining a framerate.

Nothing ever really produced the desired effect.

I guess I will try the PAL-discs now, since they have a professionally done 25 FPS, which is present uniform and throughout. Perhaps that will work.

But what bugs me most are the release policies by all those multimedia-corporations: I mean when we take a long hard look at how many times certain series were released, re-released, new editions done and then re-re-released again and so on, there was really no time or option to work on them so they could be presented in a standard up-to-date form (like constant framerate)?
Of course, I am no expert on the subject, but I would reckon’ this could be done automatically these days?

After all, we fans have bought so many releases and special editions, paid for so many streaming options and downloads, there was no money left to do this? Seriously???

FrankB said:

Good luck! And it still seems plenty, plenty of work…

Probably, but it’s all the chance we have until CBS could actually be bothered to do something about DS9 and VOY. And we all know how likely that is …

FrankB said:

Forgive me, but…
I read this thread from nearly the beginning and all of the discussion on doom9 ( https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=181209 ). 95% of your and all the others efforts seem to have been spent with trying to IVTC the NTSC-sources.
With the NTSC-masters - as you of course know, just to specify again - the problems were:

a) film, pulldowned to 29,97 with changing patterns, as usual
b) a lot of scenes, mostly CGI, originally produced in 29,97i
c) worst of all a lot of scenes with overlays of the two above(!), whch had been mentioned only sporadically, but is an eminent problem, because of being absolutely irreversible.
No matter how you handle this kind of content, you will never achieve results free from stutter, at least not the c)-scenes - also not by using VFR.

But there are also PAL-DVDs of the series, and as I just read, you own them. And concerning IVTC they did a really good job with these! I am currently watching it, one to three episodes every evening, and stutter-isues are very, very rare, about one or two each three or four episodes! (And I am trained to recognise these.)
So the question for me all the time was: Why don’t you just use the PAL-DVDs, deinterlace properly (QTGMC) if necessary, slow down and scale up, which was the real goal of this lovely project?

Looks like I have to, for I can’t get rid of the NTSC-problems. Thanks for the advice.

Guys, just kill me.

Had a watch of the 4K-pilot I put out previously and while most of it looked good, there were several scenes that suffered from motion stuttering, and it actually kept getting worse as the episode went on up to the point during the final battle between the station and the cardassians that some frames actually doubled.

Since that is not the kind of “quality” I wanna give you I spend most of yesterday and today trying to figure out what happened and of course it came back to … VFR of the source (big surprise there, I know).

Turns out the approach with Virtual Dub and the Donald Graft filters (Telecide and Decimate) didn’t translate well.

I managed to at least “compensate” for the problem by skipping the pulldown removal and doing a straight forward encoding via Handbrake to a constant framerate of 23,976 FPS whilst performing Deinterlacing on all images (Decombing with EEDI2 Bob) and the results are better (still slight motion stutter, but not as bad as before). The Smart Deinterlacing from Handbrake I employed before unfortunately made things worse, since only the “effected” images were deinterlaced, causing more intense stutter there for some reason. With all images deinterlaced/decombed, things are looking up.

Unfortunately that means to re-encode all over. Sorry guys, I guess one can only judge once having seen the complete episode.

But I will keep at it and won’t let you down.

Now excuse me. I will have a little break treating myself to a personal re-run of VOY’s Macrocosm and watch Janeway get her Lara Croft on and kick some arse … I need to see someone venting some anger issues, otherwise I would probably beat up something for having to do things over.

I’ll keep you informed.

Also I will invite all of you guys some time around this weekend to a release topic, where i will present the finished and final version of the pilot and will then try to release one additional episode per week in season-order.

So check your invites everyone.

pahuffman said:

Have y’all beeen in contact with this guy?

https://captrobau.blogspot.com/2020/06/upscaled-to-4k-using-ai-powered-video.html

He has been able to achieve some good results. Not sure what his method is.

Actually he is one of the reasons I started my project. I also drew some inspiration from his approaches in the past. I go a little different about my project, but I am using similar software.

pahuffman said:

I just wanted to chime in and say how very thankful I am for Animaxx for taking this project on! I will be happy to help in any way I can, but my restoration skills are non-existent.

Thanks. New version of the pilot is up. For a link please PM me.

JadedSkywalker said:

How good is the quality of the Official DVD’s? I watched the marathon on BBC America which was just standard def video in an HD container. And the first 3 or so seasons looked worse than my old tapes which i no longer have. When i watch TOS or TNG i only ever watch the version restored from film which was scanned in 2K and is in 1080P on home video.

I want to watch DS9 and Voyager in real HD. CBS has no intention of doing so. I’ve seen some nice upscale samples but they always look digital and don’t look like film. It is sad most of Star Trek is barely even DVD quality. Voyager and DS9 are well below even DVD standards. I doubt there is even 480P in those old broadcast tapes. Probably at best 240 lines of resolution. Fit for VHS only.

Right now I am (or perhaps I should better say “we” around here) working on a restoration version that will be enhanced and upscaled to both 1080p and 4K; since the first attempt didn’t really hold up to expectations I am currently doing a work-over for a second edition.
If you’d like, you can pm me so I can provide you with a full version of the DS9 pilot episode as soon as it’s done.

Unfortunately, depending on what the broadcaster does, the upscaling can actually look worse (or in this case less detailed due to extensive softening). The DVDs (as long as they are the originals, not the bootlegs floating around) are ok in terms of quality (at least for standards from back then), but I must admit, I adjust my tv to only upscale to 1080p, not full 4K, since most devices give their best, but the lower the original quality the worse it looks the higher the resolution gets.

Anyway, let me know if you are interested in the combined efforts of the group as well as mine via pm.

Hello again guys! Little update:

Unfortunately I won’t be done with the Edition 2.0 of the 4K-pilot by sunday, since I have been experimenting with new programs, settings and even changed the workflow around a little bit, but I think the results will certainly improve.

Thanks to some feedback and input I have been working on retaining more detail and creating a less “artificial” look on the final result and for now it looks quite promising.

Of course I will let you know as soon as it is ready. Since I am working again next week, I don’t know how fast it can be done, but I will of course keep you in the loop.

4throck said:

Early 1990s NTSC video was generally mastered to different monitors than we have today. So you need to adjust gamma, saturation and hue. In fact the colorspace might even be slightly different, but I don’t think there’s any software to handle that.

So your best bet is to adjust “by hand”. You can use the TNG remasters are reference, since uniforms and some sets will be similar.
Or you can take a look here: http://blog.trekcore.com/2019/05/exclusive-star-trek-deep-space-nine-hd-what-we-left-behind-footage/

On my tests I used something like gamma 1.4; saturation 130% and a -4% hue shift. Also clipped black a bit on levels.

Thanks for the tips, will see how I can apply them. Could you imagine what could be done with the original film? For DS9 it could perhaps be done in widescreen … Oh man, we can only dream.

Hello again. Just wanted to tell you a bit about Edition 2.0 of the 4K-Version of the pilot.

Since I got some valuable tips from members around here and the Edition 1.0 was ready to watch, I decided to get some additional feedback from my harshest test viewer: She is one of my best friends and known for always telling me the truth without mincing her words.

After she watched the pilot Edition 1.0 she was happy with the overall quality, but pointed out a few things she thought could be improved (her exact words were “Well, it looks nice, but if you’re going for it, then please don’t be half ass about it” - as I said, she has a direct way of talking but doesn’t mean it in a bad way, it’s just how she is and I happen to agree with her observations):

1. She said I really need to increase contrast, lighting and colors (reminded me of member 4throck’s suggestions); her thoughts on that were "I know DS9 originally was a show with a lot of dark scenes, but I would like to actually see what’s going on without having to draw the blinds im my living room and turning it into a movie theatre)
2. She also got a little “upset” about things looking a bit too artificial (her comment “You know I like watching old movies as well, and I can’t stand companies/broadcasters to “drain the grain”, so that people and things look like they just had plastic surgery or something; please keep a little grain, it looks more realistic”)

So, I experimented with introducing VirtualDub into my worfklow and adjusting the things mentioned above. As such, Edition 2.0 of the pilot is in the works and currently being upscaled to 4K-Resolution. Next is the final filter-work. I will post the “new version” as soon as it is done.

On that note, I would like to ask a favor of you guys, if I may: Once you have both Editions, please watch and compare and tell me which one is better (in your opinion), for example what elements (saturation etc.) should be kept/added and what you would like to see in the final version.

Afterwards, I would go on with the rest of the season/series.

Of course, I would still like to hear about Edition 1.0 before 2.0 is out, since I’m really excited about hearing back from you guys.

I’ll keep you updated.

Hey guys, the 4K-Pilot is up!!! Google is still processing, but download is ready.
Link will be posted in private.

Ok guys, it’s almost done. I’m uploading the pilot now, it will take about 2 hours.

Filesize will be 5,7 GB (a bit larger than I thought, my goal was 5 GB), but I think on 4K that should be ok.
Exact display size is 2920x2160 (4:3 format) at 23,976 FPS. Audio will be available in english and german as AC3 5.1 with the german audio being pitch adjusted to sound the way it should; the english track is set to play as standard (primary) language, but you can switch to german in case you like it or have someone who needs it.
Unfortunately there are no subs and chapters, but I think that isn’t as important as having the actual episode ready to go.

As far as the work itself progresses, let’s call this 4K-Version of the pilot Edition 1.0.

Thanks to some pointers I’m working on improving things with VirtualDub, perhaps there will be an Edition 2.0 soon, who knows?

In about two hours I will post the link in the private topic. Anyone I might have forgotten please PM me, ok?

I would appreciate your opinions once you had a chance to watch the episode; a fresh pair of eyes might spot things I overlooked, since I have worked with it so much already I get the feeling I don’t notice as much anymore, know what I mean?

Once it’s up, I’ll make another little post here to inform you and post the link private.

Until then, can’t wait to hear your opinions!

4throck said:

Animaxx said:
They look a little on the soft side (probably due to noise and grain reduction). Let’s wait and see.

The general softness can mean that they are free from edge enhancement.
But I agree that on gradients and low contrast areas there’s almost no detail. Compression is really hard here.
On the other hand DVDs usually have macroblocks on such areas…

Yeah, it’s always something, isn’t it? With the original first 90 seconds of the pilot I provided I had similar issues. When doing the filterwork (with sharpening especially) i stumbled across the same damned thing.
When avoiding edge enhancement, it looked soft and lacked detail, when sharpening to much blocks appeared (really bad when pausing the cube destroying the excelsior class vessel, the saucer being ripped apart showed heavy blocks in the red explosive areas, almost like a mosaic).

It’s too bad that in the old days they basically had the means and the equipment, but technology in the consumer segment didn’t support what was there, so they had to squeeze and reduce until it made it onto the old screens. A shame, really.
Many of the old shows suffer from it.

Anyone seen an episode of Earth: Final Conflict lately? Same thing. Details are so hard to spot. The DVDs improved things a little, but still - with the effects they did back then it’s a disgrace there is no HD for it, just like DS9 and Voyager.

Artan42 said:

Animaxx said:

the 4K-Version will be ready to upload some time tomorrow,

Excellent, I can’t wait. I’m excited about the potential this project has.

Frankly, I’m excited as well, considerung what the software/AI can do. In fact, right now I’m working on a little “treat” for all of us here.
Remember the battle scenes in the season 6 episode “Sacrifice of Angels”? I cut out a little segment (about 14 seconds long) to see what the AI and the filters can do on that. It’s just to compare the quality between the first and later seasons and to see what the space battles could look like.

My machine should be able to handle that small clip without disrupting the work on the pilot. I will upload the segment as soon as it is done. I can’t wait to see myself.

😃

4throck said:

Baobab Archiver said:
I’m not sure if these will be a better source or not, but worth a look.

Looking at the JPGs these upscales might have less compression artifacts than the DVDs. In terms of visual detail, it’s in line with a good 640x480 master tape. Again, might be slightly better than the DVDs.

I too would like a sample of the unaltered capture. I just want to run some filters on VirtualDub. We have a tricky situation here with 60i » 24p / 30p content…
This will not interfere with Animaxx’s work, just experimenting other possible solutions.

I like some good interference 😃

As I said before, I would be willing to adjust my work when something “better” comes along.

I would of course also continue my own work, so things will be “out there”.

As for the tricky situation with 60i to 24p/30p I would paraphrase Kirk: All I want is a studio master 😃

Baobab Archiver said:

OK, here are some sample images from my DS9 capture:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1W9A_exZvWXeF6OjYvUyQLBnSIINBcbgQ?usp=sharing

All I have done is run a field correction pass (using tfm in Avisynth).
The images are then saved at max quality jpg, to reduce the chance of the image further degrading.

I’m not sure if these will be a better source or not, but worth a look.

@Animaxx - I’ll upload the full unaltered capture file overnight and share with you via PM tomorrow.

Just had a look at the pictures. They seem to be comparable to the shots I know from the Stargate and Voyager upscale SyFy did. It’s difficult to judge, I will wait for the actual capture.

They look a little on the soft side (probably due to noise and grain reduction). Let’s wait and see.
Thanks again for your work.

Baobab Archiver said:

Glad to help 😃
It’s one of those projects that interests me, but I have so many others on the go I’m glad someone else is taking the helm (no pun intended) and working on it!

As far as sharing goes, you would need to share via PM only. There are hosting sites you can use, but I believe sharing links in public messages would be against site rules.

No problem. I also have multiple projects on the go and a day job as well. Since my R&R will be over by the end of this week and my day job will kick in again next week, I will probably have to slow down a bit, but there are the weekends, so that should work out still.

Also, I will invite you guys by pm into a group and share the 4K-Link for the complete episode there.
I already thought it would probably be a bad idea, so thanks again, wouldn’t want to be blocked for a stupid oversight like that.

Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you guys something: Since the 4K-Version will be ready to upload some time tomorrow, do you think it would be ok to post the link for the pilot episode (only the pilot) at the beginning of the topic so people know what to expect or would that be breaking the rules around here?

On that note: All further releases would be by pm and I would just invite you guys into a group, so you can always get the latest for I think that would be easier than opening a separate topic for each member.

Good idea?

Also, I would like to give a special shout out and thanks to the following members around here:
RwAoNrDdOsM, 4throck, Baobab Archiver and Artan42.
You guys rock - you have given me some interesting ideas and pointers; some of you even participate with your own work to help improve the project. I really, really, really appreciate it!!!

Baobab Archiver said:

OK, here are some sample images from my DS9 capture:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1W9A_exZvWXeF6OjYvUyQLBnSIINBcbgQ?usp=sharing

All I have done is run a field correction pass (using tfm in Avisynth).
The images are then saved at max quality jpg, to reduce the chance of the image further degrading.

I’m not sure if these will be a better source or not, but worth a look.

@Animaxx - I’ll upload the full unaltered capture file overnight and share with you via PM tomorrow.

Thanks a lot, looking forward to it. By the way, 24 more hours and my 4K-Version is ready to upload.

4throck said:

Yes, just mentioning this for the best 😃 Not a critique of your work.
PM me a raw sample of the DVD intro if you can 😉

I’m always open for ideas on how to improve. I will try to upload a sample of the first 90 seconds and provide you with a link. But it might take a while, since I can’t get it done right away. I will message you as soon as I will get to it.