YATTA! (Yet Another Telecide Tool for Anime)

[gizmotech]

Good Day,

Once again I will appologize in advance for any typos/spelling mistakes I will make during this post.

As most anime encoders are currently aware, performing IVTC on source and returning a perfect result is currently impossible. Anime just has too little movement in various situations to return correct matching, resulting in random combs on mouths. As well we also know that scene changes and certain animes suffer from massive color bleeding which could be easily fixed through previous matching, however previous matching often causes other problems the user isn't interested in correcting. This is where YATTA comes in, it's your 1 spot for anime IVTC recovery.

YATTA, from a technical standpoint, is essentially a very complex AVS script which calls telecide to provide a visual interface to the patern matching process while creating a total encode override file. It enables the user to manually adjust the Telecide IVTC decisions through patern/match switching, post processing overrides, and forced decimation. On top of these core Decomb related features it also has a series of assists relating to applyrange, freezeframe, and VFR technologies (mentioned in this thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64314 ).

YATTA's Key Features:
Telecide configuration Preview section
Quick Key Frame Match Switching
Patern Assistance Tools
Configurable Vthresh navigation settings
FreezeFrame/ApplyRange assistance
VFR Assistance

Telecide Configuration Preview Section:
Using the Telecide configuration preview window prior to starting a yatta project allows a user to see the effects of the various telecide settings prior to starting a project, including the effect nt has on the matching metrics, the effects back 1-3 will incur, as well as adjusting the order correctly. The key benefits come from correct adjustment of the nt threshold to increase overall matching in dirty source, and reducing mouth combs in low/small movement areas.

Quick Key Frame matching:
Using the assigned keys located in the left hand region of the keyboard, and using the navigation keys located in the right side allows a user to quickly perform navigation through the source, identify problem areas, and using quick key strokes (usually 1-3 key presses) can correct most IVTC errors, for a Freeze, or even apply a range.

Patern Assistance Tools:
Using the various patern assistance tools, Force Patern, Auto Switch, and Blind Switch, it is possible to perform patern correction on large chunks of content, either by determing a patern in practice and using the audo switch tools, or by setting paterns through the try patern. Try patern also allows the ability to compare a tried patern to the current patern which Telecide has decided on.

Configurable Vthresh Navigation:
Using the V Search options, it allows a user a user to navigate the source based on VMetric results which decomb has provided to YATTA. Very useful in quickly fixing color bleeds, poor scene changes, and various other minor annoyances.

FreezeFrame/ApplyRange Assistance:
There are a number of times within anime where color bleeding it too severe to be corrected with IVTC alone, and this is where FreezeFrame comes into play. It allows the user to replace a current frame with a frame the user selects. The beauty of YATTA is it shows you the results of these replacements in realtime, and generates the AVS commands for it for you automatically. FreezeFrame, using this system is also benefitial for fixing awful scene changes, for instance on DVD's authored with the VHS style burn marks on the top and bottom of frames before and after scene changes, or to fix poor scene changes which perform massive ammounts of movement just before and after the scene change (IE Noir, which has full frame movement prior to scene change w/ massive frame jump just after scene change). Correcting issues like this via FF can save a user MB's of bitrate. Apply range is another assistance which YATTA provides, by setting up applyrange overrides for such filters as Blindpp, or any other such specified filter.

VFR Assistance:
Full Details can be found here http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64314

I really don't think there is much more overviewing which can be done. So now I will go into the benefits and drawbacks of the application.

Benefits:
Correction of IVTC errors prior to encoding
Overall reduction in bitrate usage (Complete correct IVTC drastically reduces bitrate used)
FreezeFrame and Applyrange assistance to remove user error and clean source (FF especially can save massive amounts of bitrate if used correctly)
VFR Assistance for MKV

Drawbacks:
Timeconsuming

As with all tools which require manual input, and based on what this tool is designed to do there is obviously alot of time required to correct an episode. However if an individual is truly into making high quality encodes this tool DRASTICALLY improves quality on some sources, after user intervention to correct problems. To perform most of the tasks here using manual entry into OVR files, time calculations, freezeframe entries would take a user almost 5 times longer then it would to do the same work with YATTA. Through personal experience I've found it has reduced total time for correcting IVTC errors by more then half. A 30 minute episode can be YATTA'd in anywhere from 50 minutes to 2 hours and provide FAR superior results then just throwing telecide at it w/o this fine tunning.

The application can be found here: http://yatta.mellbin.org
Please download the decodefix100.zip, decomb510.zip and the yatta rar and place all these files in the same directory. Also note this application uses the DG versions of mpeg2dec3 and dvd2avi exclusively.

The current version as of 11/03 is 4_54, which contains all the features mentioned above. The manual on the site contains an overview of the GUI and all related buttons.

Basic Proceedure:
Load d2v in Telecide Configuration area, and configure telecide.
Hit ok, return to main window
Select the same d2v and hit new project.
After 10-15 minutes a matching window will appear.
Do your business
Save OVR files, freezeframe/applyrange/vfr avs.
Create AVS which uses the OVR functions of telecide/decimate.
Encode

If you have any questions concerning the development of this tool, feel free to pm me and I will relay the messages to the developer. As for usage questions, most of it is relatively straight forward, and there are some easter eggs in the program. Feel free to explore and learn. Post your experiences.

Gizmo

[Zarxrax]

Nice tool! Thank you

[mf]

VERY interesting. Will try it on Maburaho 5. Till then I'll stick to VDM and notepad for overriding Decomb .

[DarkNite]

This beats the #$%& out of the old notepad method! Thank you for reducing my likelyhood of developing carpal tunnel or thoracic outlet syndrome ever so slightly.

I wish I would've had this when I was doing Patlabor 3. YATTA would've saved me hours of my (now) valuable time.

More beer for the developer!

[Nicholi]

HOLY SMOKERAGE COOOL!!!!

Even with leet anime girl splash screen!!

kudos to the coders!

Greatest timesaver in the world.
Goodbye horrid anime sources!!

[bilu]

Best of luck for your tool, greeting for you and the coder

Seems to me as the best alternative out there.


Bilu

[Vassago]

The link is not working to get this program. Anyone have a working link?

[gizmotech]

Geez.

You make it sound like the link went away for ever. It is back. System just had a bit of down time is all.

Gizmo

[HomiE FR]

I just would like to thank all the people involved in the development of this tool! This is just so great, I can't understand why there aren't more posts on this thread!? I tried YATTA on a typical anime source (no true 30 fps parts on that one, so I didn't tried the VFR functions of YATTA), and it's more than useful.

The interface is really neat, you can understand it at first sight, and all the useful functions are there (I love "try pattern", "switch" and "freezeframe"). It really seems the devs are also people that had experiences with "hand" Telecide tweaking.

Just thanks a lot, I won't ever do an anime IVTC without it I think.

HomiE FR

[Vassago]

I still can't seem to get a connection. I tried for a few days without any luck, that's when I posted a message.

I guess I'll just keep trying.

Thanks.

[Chainmax]

I have a couple of questions, one related to YATTA and other related to decodefix100:

1) What are the advantages of using Telecide's post processing over KernelDeint or similar standalone deinterlacers?

2) Is DG's version of DVD2AVI better than plain vanilla DVD2AVI v1.76? Also, is DG's version of mpeg2dec3 better than MarcFD's v1.00?

[Myrsloik]

The shocking answers:
1. It's different, the hinting also allows you to easily select which frames should be processed.
2. You can find the major changes here: http://neuron2.net/fixd2v/decodefix.html
Basically it decodes more things properly but requires that both dvd2avi and mpeg2dec3 are the dg versions. It also has considerably slower seeking.

[ssjkakaroto]

thx a lot for a great tool gizmotech and dev

[Chainmax]

Originally posted by Myrsloik :
The shocking answers:
1. It's different, the hinting also allows you to easily select which frames should be processed.
2. You can find the major changes here: http://neuron2.net/fixd2v/decodefix.html
Basically it decodes more things properly but requires that both dvd2avi and mpeg2dec3 are the dg versions. It also has considerably slower seeking.

Cool. Thanks for the answer .

[Chainmax]

Come to think about it, the "hinting also allows you to easily select which frames should be processed" point should only be valid for deiterlacers not made by neuron2. KernelDeint is from neuron2 and also takes hints from telecide, as its readme states:

To use this filter as a post-processor for Telecide(), use the following script:

Telecide(...,post=1,hints=true)
KernelDeint(...)

So, it could also be used on YATTA, right? I'm just curious, and i's not my intention to make anyone angry or annoyed.

[Myrsloik]

You're right about the deinterlacers and hinting.
When you use telecide with an override file that includes information about every frame that should be postprocessed (like the ones from yatta) you should use post=0 or telecide will most likely end up postprocessing more frames than you want it to.
Simple rule: everything works as usual with decomb since all yatta does is generate override files.

[Mentar]

HomiE: I guess the main reason why there are relatively few postings about YATTA here is that the tool has already reached a tremendous complexity ... I'll try to write a "Learning YATTA step by step" guide sometime over this week, to start with the basics, and to make the tool a bit more easier to approach

From the view of a quality-hogging anime encoder, YATTA allowed for the biggest quality gain of any new tool or filter I can think of since the times of Avisynth or DivX3.11 ... no, I'm not kidding.

[K-Dash]

Here is a few stupid questions:
How do you input the settings from YATTA to an avs script?
Can YATTA output avs somehow?
And what Am I suppose to do with the *.yap file?
Ive been reading ur faq @ http://yatta.mellbin.org/yatta_manual/yatta.htm but it doesnt seem to mention anything about exporting to AVS. Im confused please help. Thx.

[Mentar]

Yatta generates several different files.

First and foremost, the telecide and decimate override files for decomb. They contain the "corrected" field matches for every single frame, the information which frames are to be force-decimated, and the information which frames are to be force-postprocessed.

Those files don't have standard filename endings, you can choose them freely. Let's assume this convention:

Telecide-Override file is "telecide.ovr"
Decimate-Override file is "decimate.ovr".

Then you would have to add them to the Telecide/Decimate calls in the avs like this: (example)

Telecide(order=1,post=0,ovr="telecide.ovr")
Decimate(cycle=5,ovr="decimate.ovr")

Make sure that the filenames are spelled correctly, because Telecide/Decimate do NOT throw any errors if the given filename doesn't exist, it simply ignores it then.

Also, YATTA can save AVS code containing FreezeFrame and ApplyRange informations. If you use the "Save to .avs" function in YATTA and choose "yatta.avs" as your filename, you should add this line to your .avs script:

Import ("yatta.avs")

Finally, the .yap file is a "YATTA Project" file. It contains all informations to resume a prior YATTA project (for example the metrics extracted by decomb earlier, all field matches, all extra information, used settings, which frame was worked on the last time, etc etc). You should link the .yap ending to the YATTA binary, then you can immediately resume operation simply by double-clicking on the .yap file.

Hope this helped a bit.

[K-Dash]

Thx for answering, and how do I save the settings from telecide and decimate in YATTA? There only a save as .YAP button in the main window. I think the tool is great, but I cant find a way to export the telecide/decimate settings. Well the telecide one is most important.