need help with noisy source, dot crawl, from a laser disc capture.

[cable_loco]

I capture my laser discs for star wars using the vivo conector of my video card ( evga nvidia 4800ti) I now is not the best hardware for the job but, I wanted to know if something can be done thru avisynth.

here are some links for screenshots.

http://img286.echo.cx/img286/3086/snapshot200505192300580cq.png (http://www.imageshack.us)

http://img276.echo.cx/img276/2403/snapshot200505192303441jo.png (http://www.imageshack.us)

Thanks in advance for looking at my post.

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Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting (http://www.imageshack.us)

[Wilbert]

To remove dot crawl

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/chroma_artefacts.html

Btw, maybe it's too early for me, but i don't seen any dot crawl in your screenshots?

[zilog jones]

I don't see any dot crawl either, but then again there's not a lot of strong colours in those screenshots. It's quite noisy though - maybe something like RemoveDirt will help with that?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by zilog jones
... It's quite noisy though - maybe something like RemoveDirt will help with that? Sadly, one of LaserDisc's big weaknesses was outputting its video signals via composite :eek:

As a matter of interest. Does anybody know of any LaserDisc players that were able to output video via s-video or component video?


Cheers

[zilog jones]

There seems to be a few which output s-video (I hear people talking about them), but you don't really get much benefit out of them as the video is stored on the discs as analogue composite video - they just use comb filters to separate the signal to s-video, and they often aren't as good as the comb filters found in capture cards.

[cable_loco]

here is my dot crawl problem

http://img284.echo.cx/img284/2251/image15cf.png (http://www.imageshack.us)

[Wilbert]

Ok, that's clear. You can try GuavaComb. It works only on statics scenes, so i'm not sure if it works for you.

[trevlac]

There is also an NTSC only vdub filter.

http://home.earthlink.net/~tacosalad/video/dotcrawl.html

I don't know how well it works, but it has interesting theory. The samples he shows are decent.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by trevlac
There is also an NTSC only vdub filter.

http://home.earthlink.net/~tacosalad/video/dotcrawl.html

I don't know how well it works, but it has interesting theory. The samples he shows are decent. Wow... those before and after images look very impressive!

Shame it's an NTSC only filter :(


Cheers

[zilog jones]

Is it me or does dot crawl tend to be worse with NTSC compared to PAL? I've never noticed big square dots like that with my stuff...

[Chainmax]

From comments I read around here, dotcrawl removal filters always seem to work best on NTSC material, so maybe you're right.

Anyway, I haven't tried DotCrawl or GuavaComb, but many people here prefer DeDot (http://nullinfo.s21.xrea.com/#DeDot_YV12). This particular version works only in YV12, but if you are converting to MPEG4/2/whatever you'll need to include ConvertToYV12() in the script anyway. The picture does look a bit noisy, so maybe some slight filtering with LRemoveDust_Planar(17,2) followed by LimitedSharpen() will help. Alternatively, you could give Didée's IIP script a try. For info on how to use these filters/functions, search around the forum.

[cable_loco]

here is the script that I use and came out very good considering my source

converttoyv12()
BlindPP(cpu=4)
Blockbuster(method="noise",detail_min=1,detail_max=3,variance=0.1,seed=1)
LRemoveDust_Planar(17,2)
Deen()
MSharpen(20,50,true,false,false)
# msharpen light : 20,50,true,false,false
# msharpen medium: 15,75,true,false,false
# msharpen heavy : 10,120,true,false,false
RemoveGrain(mode=1)

Thanks everybody for their help.

[Chainmax]

Sounds like you are overfiltering. Deen (at default settings, at least) is considered to be extremely strong and people around here use it mostly for animated material for crappy sources where there aren't that many details to worry about. Also, I'm pretty sure that BlockBuster line adds noise, plus it's unnecessary since you have BlindPP activated (why is it activated? there doesn't seem to be blocking in the screenshots and I read that deblockers are very destructive to detail, even more than Deen). The MSharpen line is ok, although I never used MSharpen and can't comment on the settings. There's also no mention in that script of any Deinterlacing/IVTC filters, which I assume are needed for a LaserDisc source, you didn't apply the dotcrawl remover and you didn't crop either which isn't a good idea. Here's the script I suggest:

ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)
Dedot()
Deinterlace/IVTC (TDeint/TIVTC)
Crop(whatever,align=true)
LRemoveDust_Planar(17,2)
Lanczos4Resize(720,whatever)
RemoveGrain(mode=1)
LimitedSharpen()
AddBorders(0,x,0,x)

Be sure to crop until you don't see the black bars anymore, including the ones at the left and right of the picture, then crop an extra line or two in order to remove border artifacts if there are. When resizing , whatever means that you should put there the resulting height after you cropped. The final AddBorders is meant to regain the 720x480 resolution. Try this script and compare it to yours by opening two VirtualDub instances and alt-tabbing between them, you'll find that there is more detail left with this script.


P.S: one more thing, if you IVTC, after encoding the MPEG2 file run it through DGPulldown (http://www.neuron2.net/dgpulldown/dgpulldown.html) in order to "restore" the fps to 29,97.

[dokworm]

Which laserdisc player are you using?
The X9 is about the only player that benefits form the S-Video output and has very little dot crawl. The X0 player has the lowest noise of any player, due to good design and a five stage output system that effectively samples each frame five times and compares them to rid them of noise. You could of course capture the movies 5 times and use TooT to get a similar effect.
If you want to see some screenshots from the pioneer X0 player, there are some over at www.x0project.com where they are using that player to capture the Star Wars trilogy from laserdisc, and it looks like they are getting some great results.

[dokworm]

On another note, a lot of laserdisc players split the composite into Y/C and then recombine it back into composite again at the outputs unfortunately, so the composite signal you get out of the player has been messed with considerably before you can get to it. It could be worth hacking the player and picking up the composite signal before it gets split, buffer it and use that as your output. (Before it gets split, run through the OSD chip and then recombined...ugh!)
It should be a lot cleaner.