[vmToon's shimmer?] Freakazoid Capture

[joshbm]

Hey all,

I have a Freakazoid capture here and I was wondering what you would suggest to output a clean video? I was thinking of using mfToon. Is this a good idea?

Pic 1 (http://www.joshbarker.net/temp/01.png)
Pic 2 (http://www.joshbarker.net/temp/02.png)
Pic 3 (http://www.joshbarker.net/temp/03.png)

[edit]

I tried using vmToon followed by LimitedSharpenFaster, here are my results... what do you guys think?

http://www.joshbarker.net/temp/b4_01.png
Before

http://www.joshbarker.net/temp/af_01.png
After

[foxyshadis]

It looks pretty decent, though two sharpeners add a lot of aliasing; it'd be better to tweak the sharpening in vmtoon than adding a second. Also, ssw/ssh control the edge aliasing/speed ratio, higher is smoother and slower, 1.0 is no antialiasing.

Once you do that you might need to tweak the chroma a little more, perhaps using a dumb rainbow remover like ssiq; it looks a little mottled in the last pair, but the others look okay so maybe it was just a bit of bleed on that frame.

[joshbm]

I was wondering if I the file was captured at 480x360 would it be best to upscale it to 720x480 for an NTSC DVD or downsize it to another compliant resolution?

[joshbm]

480x360 = 172,800 pixels
352x480 = 168,960 pixels
------------------------
3,840 pixels lost

OR

480x360 = 172,800 pixels
704x480 = 337,920 pixels
------------------------
165,120 pixels wasted


I would imagine that resizing to 352x480 pixels would be the best DVD compliant way to go-- my source being 480x360? It's too bad that show isn't on any more... otherwise I'd re-record it :-P. But a question... I have NEVER authored a DVD using 352x480... will the DVD player "squish" it back to the right ratio?

[Boulder]

Yes, just like an SVCD.

You might want to test which one looks better when played on the standalone, downsizing or upsizing.

[joshbm]

I just tried to burn a DVD with half-D1 (352x480) resolution. Actually the final product looks good. I actually prefer the 352x480 over the original 480x360 because of the filtering chain (especially vmToon). I can fit 1 season/DVD now! BUT there are a couple of things I'd like to fix...

1 is 'shimmering' (Dont know if that is what you call it)... When using vmToon it adds little white speckles all over the place to some areas (mostly black). Why is this and how can I fix it? Also is there a color conversion I need to worry about with my source being MPEG-4 and my destination format being MPEG-2?

Also could you guys tell me what you think about my script?


AVISource("Freakazoid.avi")
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.601->Rec.709")

BiFrost(interlaced=false).SmartSSIQ() #Remove Rainbows

UnDot().LRemoveDust_YV12(7,1) #Remove Noise

LimitedSharpenFaster(dest_x=352,dest_y=480,strength=255).LRemoveDust_YV12(7,1)
vmToon(ssw=3,ssh=3,strength=48,xstren=128)

Convolution3d(preset="animeBQ")

Dup(threshold=5)


http://www.joshbarker.net/temp/vmtoon.png

Take a look around the lips and eyelashes. Those white "specks" were not there in the original and were added by vmToon.

[foxyshadis]

It may be the combination of filters, I try to keep it to 2 general cleaners and a sharpener these days unless it's really terrible. Odd that you undo the limitedsharpener's effect with an lremovedust, though, that sticks out as suspicious.

If you could upload a short clip, I'll try to get some time to check it and play with it out tomorrow (bedtime now).

[joshbm]

Thanks... you were right! Actually it was a combination of LimitedSharpenFaster and vmToon. The small white "dots" were a result of oversharpening. I set LimitedSharpenFaster's "blur" variable at -1 (automatic).

PS- I removed the second LRemoveDust after LimitedSharpen.


AVISource("Freakazoid.avi")
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.601->Rec.709")

BiFrost(interlaced=false).SmartSSIQ() #Remove Rainbows

UnDot().LRemoveDust_YV12(7,1) #Remove Noise

LimitedSharpenFaster(dest_x=352,dest_y=480,radius=5,strength=255,undershoot=0,soft=-1)
vmToon(ssw=3,ssh=3,strength=48,xstren=128)

Dup(threshold=2)

Convolution3d(preset="animeBQ")


After I encoded I burned a test DVD. The image looked great, except haha, I made 2 mistakes. One was I just took the original audio which was encoded at 44.1k and placed it on a DVD, it played but unusually (higher-pitched voices). Also the Dup command had worked a little too well, I had exact duplicates and it combined them with near-duplicates causing stutter (:-P).

Thanks again,
-joshbm

[joshbm]

That got rid of most of the dots... but I see that not all of them have disappeared! :(