Moth3r

Survey Results Here

Thanks for that. I'm liking the results; the horrible blue tint is gone but the better detail is retained (for example, look at the tuft of Taun-taun hair in the centre of the first frame, compare the GOUT with the corrected 2004 DVD.)

The corrected version of the second frame has a slight hint of yellow at the base entrance which probably shouldn't be there, but this is only a minor quibble.

Agree with you on the levels adjustment; the GOUT video is generally washed-out and desaturated.

I wonder how an application of this method to a HD source would compare with the manual correction that Ady did for his AVCHD version?

And it's a shame there's no batch mode that could be applied to an image sequence.

The PureImage screenshots and clip look pretty good to me  (although clip is too fast at 29.97fps!) It would be useful to have the original from the GOUT disc to compare.

I know that MeBeJedi used Combustion for some of the X0 Project cleanup work; it sounds like it might be worth taking a look at it's colour matching capabilities.

INv8r_ZIM said:

Why...yes I do, as matter of fact (have both dll's you mentioned, Moth3R).  I know I've picked up a couple of packs specifically for the GOUT re-encode along the way.  I do remember seeing that a couple of variations on the plugins required were causing trouble for other people, were these the offending DLL's, those need to go?  It just seems weird that the encode made it halfway through before quitting.

At one point there was a bug in the Removegrain SSE3 module that caused crashes, although I believe it has now been fixed. Make sure you have the fixed version. (I assume of course you have a CPU with SSE3?)

I agree it's strange that it encoded for several hours before crashing. You could try encoding again, starting at the problematic scene, to see if it's something in that part of the video that caused the crash.

It could also be a stability or overheating problem. Have you carried out any stress-testing of you system using, for example, Prime95?

Hi and welcome to the forum.

To add menus, etc. to your VHS transfer you will need DVD authoring software; for the Mac popular choices are DVD Studio Pro, DVD Creator or Apple iDVD.

1. Unlce Owen.

2. Imperial Cruisers.

3. Yoda.

4. Shield.

5. Jabba the Hutt.

6. Don't know without looking it up.

Hey! I posted first! I blame it on a forum timeout error...

heh

INv8r_ZIM said:

Argh...'Tis exactly what happened.  :)  I was just coming on to edit my post.  I was following the directions in the Gout to Anamorphic thread, which doesn't seem to mention the "Force Film" option in the indexing stage.  Looks fine after I re-indexed it. 

Thought so. If you look back through this thread I think there were a couple of other posters who had the same problem.

@Oldschooljedi: it would be a good idea to add the "Force Film" field operation step into your guide.

Only problem now is that VirtualDub can't seem to make it all the way through outputting as lossless.  The script ran for about 10 hours, and got as far as looking for R2, and came up with an AVISYnth error, which seems to be a memory problem ("could not reference...").  I'm trying a couple of tests now straight out of HC, checking video and also to see if subs appear, which they didn't seem to in Vdub, hang the extra time it'll take.  Thank, Moth3R!

Do you have any "SSE3" DLLs (RemoveGrainSSE3.dll, RepairSSE3.dll) in your AviSynth plugins folder?

The DVL-700 via S-Video is clearly superior. The rainbowing on the V4400 indicate a low-quality comb filter in the capture card.

As for the first image, can't see what you mean on the left hand side of the video (would help not to obscure it with a huge red line!).

The horizontal lines you see are not interlacing artefacts (trying to be careful with definitions so as not to confuse). Nor do I think they are caused by imperfect y/c separation in a low quality comb filter. I'm not sure what causes this effect, but I have seen it before. In that particular case it was related to the sharpness setting.

There should be no interlaced (or combed) frames when previewing the script with VirtualDub, or in any intermediate lossless AVI you create. The framerate should be 23.976fps, and every frame should be progressive. I suspect you didn't use the "Force film" option in DGIndex when creating the d2v file.

To be sure it's your source and not the script, try a script with just the line:

Mpeg2Source("\path\filename.d2v")

and check for combed frames.

The final MPEG-2 encode for DVD will end up being 29.97fps with 3:2 pulldown. Depending on how you view/open this video, you may see some combed frames in this file.

Arnie.d said:

When I encode it for dvd with CCE SP I convert it to RGB and 0-255 colorspace. The resulting mpeg file has a greater range. The space will be black, the whites will be white and the color is a bit more distinct.

Something not quite right there. If you are capturing in YUY2, then you should not change the colourspace (unless, for example, you need to use a YV12-only filter in AviSynth). CCE will accept YUY2 input; you only need to convert to RGB if encoding with TMPGEnc.

If the luma range ends up wrong in the final encode, then you may have a wrong setting in CCE.

Rob said:

Debating mp3 sound quality is futile. If you want sound quality, buy vinyl, if you want portability, buy an mp3 player.

The test is designed to find out which MP3 encoder can produce the highest quality at a certain bitrate. Why is it "futile" to help the people - who want portability - to choose software that gives the best quality results for that format? 

If you're talking about digital formats (CD vs mp3), it all depends on the sample rate.

The only articles that were ever finished are the ones you can find on the X0 Project site.

A lot of the other stuff has actually been covered in responses to queries in the technical help section, it's just a bit difficult to wade through all the posts to find the relevant information.

Are you talking about splicing glue on the film itself, or some digital capture artefact?

I would say probably yes, but I don't know for certain.

Apparently there were PAL test patterns included as an extra on the Encore Jason and the Argonauts LD. I haven't managed to track down a copy, yet.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth...

I had a go at one session. I easily ABXed one sample (correctly identified the compressed sample 8 out of 8 times) even with PC integrated audio and cheap headphones. This was presumably the low anchor. I could not hear any difference in the other 5 samples.

Apologies for using an thread title that may be considered inflammatory, just a light-hearted dig at certain members - you know who you are!

Hydrogenaudio.org is currently running a public listening test for 128kbps MP3. Samples from the latest versions of various popular encoders are tested against a reference uncompressed sample, and a "low anchor" sample encoded with the first ever public MP3 encoder (released back in 1994).

Link to the thread is here. By all accounts setting up the samples and test software sounds a bit fiddly, so if you fancy having a crack at this, make sure you read the included readme carefully.

I find this kind of test very interesting, so I'll probably have a go myself - although I expect with my ears I'll probably find it very difficult to reliably ABX any of the tested encoders.

Arnie.d said:

A comb filter removes the rainbowing.

No, a comb filter separates the luminance (y) and chrominance (c) elements of a composite video signal.

Since video is stored on laserdisc in analogue composite form, there must be a comb filter somewhere in the chain.

A poor comb filter will lead to dot crawl and "rainbows" (aka cross-colour effects). A good quality comb filter will reduce the appearance of these effects.

Since the player the OP used does not (I think) have an s-video output, he would have hooked it up with a composite video cable, therefore the (cheap?) comb filter in the capture card will be used.

If the card has an s-video input, then a potential improvement could be obtained by connecting the LD player to the DVD recorder with a composite cable, then the DVD recorder to the capture card with an s-video cable. This uses the comb filter inside the DVD recorder, which is likely to give higher quality results.

inurenegade said:

i was also curious about what you guys use for IVTCing and how to fix the strange halos?

The most reliable method of IVTC is using:

doubleweave
pulldown(x,y)

as described here.

Automatic methods may not correctly detect the pattern in some cases - the initial starfield pan down being a good example, as there is very little for the detection algorithm to lock on to.

However, as Arnie correctly pointed out, if there are numerous cadence changes then it does become rather time consuming to go through manually and identify each change point.

Halos - if you can't eliminate them with the sharpness setting, you should try and look for an alternative driver for your card, or maybe the 2388x reference driver if you can find it.

Also, this thread at doom9 may help.

Just to add to this thread: I found I could get better results (sharper image with less haloing) by using the luma peaking adjustment in the BT8x8 Tweaker from within VirtualDub.

This is only useful if your card uses the old BT8x8 chipset.

Moved.

The 4-colour bitmaps are the "highlights" that go with the menu - so you can see which option is selected. As it's a 16:9 menu, two subpic streams are required, for P&S and letterbox modes.

I think I used this guide when modifying the GOUT menus.

Menu elements:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/19/1966926/background.zip

I think I may still have that BMP (and the subpic streams as well), if you wanted to recreate that menu.

Octorox said:

I DID try it out and I waited days for a screwed up video.

Didn't you preview it before encoding?

And yes, -1 is correct, discussion of uploading the "finished product" is not allowed on this board.