spoRv

No, I could crop the BD to match the LD; but, as the LD image is smaller than the BD, I could not crop it... infact, poor results *may* be also due to the fact that the script tries to match two images that are basically quite differents between them... I don't think the 3D BD would be better...

But, did you see the last test clip? It's OK? Too much blurred? Too much sharpened?

Hey, I posted them to show you that infact the BD colors are so different from the LD, that neither ColourMatch could fix them... (^^,) the fact is probably due, apart the color differences, to different cropping - LD is 1.66:1 while BD is 1.78:1; plus, I've done it using the BD jpg's and not the actual video...

This are not excuses, just suppositions... infact, ColourMatch worked well in more than 95% of frames in The Matrix, that was the most difficult movie until now... but it seems that BATB is thougher!

Well, let's forget about those screenshot comparisons; what about the test clip? Anybody?

NEW TEST CLIP AVAILABLE!

Here you are the latest test clip; this time I changed scene, because I was tired to watch and rewatch always the same one...

This is made with the latest avisynth scripts, haloclean+magicup, plus a little bit of sharpening; a possible candidate to the final video quality.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/slq7le

please post your comment; your opinion is important!

***   ***   ***

I was wasting some time (when I was waiting for the clip to be processed and uploaded) making some comparisons between the BD and the LD, and I said myself "why don't you try to ColourMatch the BD, to see what will happen?"

So, here you are the results; top BD (from bluray.com), middle ColourMatch'ed BD, bottom enhanced LD (click for larger version):

results vary in quality; BD resolution is obviously better, but upscaled LD is quite good, and colors IMHO are always better than BD.

...but the boobs are better lit on the laserdisc... OK, ok, I'll continue the project with the THX as color reference... but a second version using the laserdisc as color reference could be interesting nevertheless!

OK, I pass you the duty... I use my S-VHS too as "simple" VHS player - I don't record tapes from a long time ago - and I think it's superior than a normal VHS recorder; well, post a link to the thread you are going to start, and I'll post something there ASAP.

Excuse me, I didn't read the word bootleg, my fault! Back to the topic now; when I was looking for the best S-VHS recorder, I (think to) remember the differences between the FS88 and FS200 were the TBC, and front input; but, as it was 20 years ago, I'm not that sure now... (^^,) anyway, both were very good recorders, and at those days only the FS1000 and FS700 were better.

We should start a S-VHS thread now, don't you think?

AntcuFaalb said:

Leonardo said:

My Panasonic NV-FS200 arrived today.

Off-topic (to this thread, at least): Do you plan to do a capture of that bootleg Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs VHS you have?

Leonardo, I think your NV-FS200 is the same of my NV-FS88, but yours has the TBC, IIRC... not a problem nowadays, if I need to capture VHS, I'll pass the output through a DVD recorder, and it will stabilizy the picture, right AntcuuFaalb?

I'm staying a bit off-topic too... why Snow White on VHS is so special? Is not the laserdisc - especially box set - better?

I agree; it should also be pointed out that the final bitrate of the release will be higher; for the test clip was set at 16mbps, while the final bitrate will be around 23 or 24mbps - too much to note macroblocking IMHO...

WARNING!!!

...we have a problem, folks! I've been working at laserdisc soundtrack sync, when I discovered something important...

...what am I supposed to do now? Pretend that I discovered nothing, and continue the project as it was intended lately (regrading the BD with the 1999 THX DVD colors)? Regrading the BD using the laserdisc colors, as I intended to do from the beginning? Look at all the shots in the movie, and decide that if two (or three) have the same colors, this is the one to use for the final result? And what if all three are different?!? Maybe I could release two versions, the first with 1999 THX DVD colors, and the other with Criterion Laserdisc colors...

I'm postponing my laserdisc soundtrack sync until a solution will be found - infact, if I have to use the laserdisc as color reference, I should recapture it at full resolution... I made low resolution captures because I needed only the audio, not video - or, at least, it was what I thought before discover this...

Should we make a referendum? (^^,)

bkev, any comment (if constructive and not destructive) is more than welcome! Thanks for spending some time to do it.

I used x264 @16mbps, and that should be enough to avoid macroblocking at all... I didn't notice it; could you please be more specific? Like, take a screenshot and make, let's say, a red circle around the worst offender, could be useful.

Well, it's a little bit sad to see almost no one comments here; but you know, people is lazy - me too! - and sometimes waits until the final release is ready to comment - or, to grab it and fly away! (^^,)

OK, here you the last test #5:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/44stux

this has some grain, but not too much; it is basically the modified analoclean plus deghosting; and the usual magiup as upscaler at the end.

First of all, thanks again to all; it's really appreciated that someone is interested in this project!

If the french DTS center channel is music-free - i.e. only dialog - it could be interesting to try it; let's experiment, OK? Send me the link, and I'll work it out to *overlay* it to the isolated score.

Any help about this procedure will be welcome, as I've never done it before...

drngr said:

Hmm. Andrea, did you notice that while most of the time the DVD framing matches the BD, sometimes it varies slightly, and there's a big shift in this split shot? I was just taking these to show the white speck but discovered the shift.

Yes of course I noticed... after all, I worked with them, side by side, for three months, so...

And don't ASK ME to regrading it (again) using the VHS colors this time!!! ...because you know that I'll do it certainly... (^^,) but there are so many projects to do... OK, right, let's wait for the laserdisc caps and then we'll talk about it!

Thanks Flexicon9!!!

Right now I've been listening to the isolated score, and I thought: "if I can't find other languages' mono soundtracks, maybe I could take the central channel and *overlay* it to the isolated score..." Am I mad? I mean, more than what actually I am...

Today I finished to capture all the laserdisc soundtracks; the PCM mono soundtrack and the commentary and isolated score on the analog soundtrack - note: when you capture analog sound from the laserdisc, REMEMBER to press the audio button for EACH side... I discovered that after I captured the first side right, and the other three wrong... (^^,)

Tomorrow I'll put them in sync with the video.

Still thinking where I could find the italian, german, french and spanish mono soundtracks, if they exist...

Doctor M said:

generic deghost script 1 + AnaloClean + MagicUp = analoclean+magicup(1)
generic deghost script 2 + AnaloClean + MagicUp = analoclean+magicup2

Or is the deghost a new addition to the previous scripts?

no, it's an addition to the previous script; I managed to clean up the grain, as you asked into your post; well, I could also manage to leave it as before, or reduce it a bit - as in the last scripts they are all cleaned up.

Now I'm waiting your opinions about the last three deghosted test clip; about grain, we'll think about it later, ok?

...sometimes is quite difficult to understand each other, if there are an ocean, a language and 7000km+ between us, right? (^^,)

... there's something that I can't understand... before, you wrote:

Doctor M said:

My thoughts on the sample clips.

Best is the Analoclean with magicup.  The Magiclean turns the noise into a frozen noise pattern that looks like your watching it through a screen door.

...

Seriously though, if the analoclean+magicup was your final release I'd be pretty damn happy with it.  It's really clean but looks like there is still some grain.

then now you wrote:

Doctor M said:

I just got to looking at the test4-analoclean+magicup2 version and don't like it as well as the first version.  The original preserved some grain and looks more natural with less digital artifacts.

Could you explain me, please?!?

How do those versions relate to the ones tagged as deghost?  Is that just the analoclean+magicup and analoclean+magicup2 again or something new?

analoclean+magicup and less grain = analoclean+magicup2

the first two attempts uses the same analoclean+magicup2 scripts, plus two different approaches at deghost; the last one - laserclean+magicup, is a slightly modified analoclean script, incorporating a third deghosting method, that seems to work better than the previous two. Note: I decided to change the name of the script from laserclean to haloclean, because when a laserdisc capture has no halos, it erase a lot of details, so the previously-called laserclean script actually cleans laser image a bit too much... (^^,)

My PC sound card is (still) the original integrated one; it's a SigmaTel with the CXD9872RD chipset - not too bad to be an integrated sound card; plus, it has the ability to capture bit-perfect audio via the digital input - and that's a VERY GOOD feature, when you must capture laserdisc PCM/AC3/DTS soundtracks.

However, the analog input/output, even if good, is not comparable with the best sound card around. The solution is simple: to buy a better sound card! Even if the solution is simple, I can't afford the brand new sound card I'm dreaming of now, so I thougth about an alternative solution. Which one?

It's possible to use an external device as ADC (Analog Digital Converter); just use an analog stereo cable to plug the output of your laserdisc player (or VHS, or another analog source) to the device analog input; then, use a digital cable to connect the device output to your PC sound card input (I used the TosLink optical connection, but a coaxial digital cable will do the same work; it depends from the device digital output and your PC sound card digital input).

The device's own ADC could be better than your PC sound card or not; how could you discover which one is better? Well, months ago I wrote into my hi-end audio capture card thread about this wonderful tool, the RightMark Audio Analyzer - now version 6.0.3 is available, but I stick with the old 5.5 version, as the new one continue to crash my PC...

This tool simply analyze the input/output quality of your sound card; I used it to test not only it, but also the various path between the PC sound card and the other devices; they are two DVD recorder, a Pioneer DVR-320S and the Yukai DVD-R100A, plus a MiniDisc recorder, the Sony MDS-520.

Here you are the results; sampling mode: 16-bit, 48 kHz (except for MiniDisc, that is 44.1 kHz):

and another batch of tests I've done; CD and DVD are made using the RightMark test WAV file, burned and played with the Pioneer DVD recorder via digital optical cable; the digital in->digital out via digital optical cable; the analog out->analog in via stereo RCA cable - all 16bit:

Conclusions: I think my old sound card is not that bad, at the contrary, it's slightly better than these external devices like DVD and MiniDisc recorders; even if the latter have sigma-delta converters, up to 24bit/96kHz, that, on the paper, are exceptional, actually the digital input of my old capture card support at best 16bit/48kHz, so this presumed superiority could not be taken in account.

So, at the end, I will continue to use the sound card that I have, until I could afford a brand new card. By the way, I just finished to do some test captures of the analog soundtracks of Halloween Criterion laserdisc; it has the commentary onto one analog track, and the isolated score onto the other; well, the channel separation is so good that is impossible to hear a channel "bleed" into another, and the overall sound quality is almost on par with the PCM soundtrack!

Hope this little test will help someone with a low quality sound card to find out how to use an external device to improve audio capture quality, or, at the contrary, to discover that this presumed low quality sound card has indeed a sound quality not so low... like I did! (^^,)

As I will capture PAL laserdisc as well, because they have soundtracks in other languages than english (french and german), I could always replace the eventual missing frame(s) from the NTSC LDs with the ones from PAL LDs.

Correct speed: of course, the PAL soundtracks will be converted from 25 to 23.976fps, eventually the pitch will be adjusted as well, when it's the case - some PAL LD and VHS have the right pitch, but were rare at the beginning, more common towards the end of the formats, in particular for important movies like Star Wars.

Thanks to everybody for supporting this project!

I'm still trying to find the missing soundtracks, but they are all multichannels, and I WANT only the mono... at this point, even a capture of the VHS soundtracks are moe than welcome...

Today I'll capture the laserdisc soundtrack; I know DoomBot worked on it, thank you! But, with a direct comparison between the laserdisc and BD video, I could sync with a frame precision, and, as I discovered there are TWO frames of difference between the BD and the DVD, probably the same is for the laserdisc, hence the sync problems noted by some users here. Plus, the isolated score and the commentary soundtracks will be captured as well.

I repeat my request: I'm looking for someone who's able to build Blu-ray menus, that want to make a BD menu for this project (and maybe others); it will be cool to have a simple menu at the beginning, that will let the viewer choose the soundtracks and/or subtitles... not mandatory, but an improvement over a "straight" release - but I must admit I love this laserdisc-like approach of my projects... you put the disc into the player, and the movie starts immediately... ah, how much I miss those good ol' days of laserdisc viewing...

Well, back to the present days; here you are some screenshots of the ColourMatch'ed BD - top DVD, middle CM, bottom BD:

Is the final result perfect? NO! But this is the best compromise, retaining all the BD resolution, and most (often almost all) DVD color grading.

Hope you like it!

Got it! I'm getting too old to note these small things...

At around 1:45:43 (23.976fps)

Completely OT: I'm desperately trying to let the phase-inversion trick to work; can you help me please?

So, are you only a Pokemon expert?!? (^^,)

Many... CLD-D925, DVL-919, CLD-600, CLD-2950, LD-V4300D, plus a Philips LDP600WS that should be aligned...

Yes, PAL average is fun, but also a lot of work! A funny work, indeed, I must admit, but quite hard to align 3+ copies, if the cropping varies wildly like the OT laserdiscs...

Without detracting from the excellent work althor has done, the Pioneer HLD-X9 is the second best laserdisc in the world; apart its excellent comb filter, it has the red laser that should resolve more details than a non-MUSE laserdisc player; plus, I have two copies of the NTSC US box set that could be used for average.

Althor's capture card, however, is better than mine, so the final result should be tested; a raw capture of, let's say, 1 minute, will be useful to make a direct comparison.

If you are talking about flickering, or halos around the "Village Roadshow" logo, they are also on DVD...