My new UnFilter.dll (soften/sharpen) - Page 5

MaTTeR · 17th November 2002, 16:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Gaia
One sad thing is that you can't use iago's trick with YV12 I just tried Lumfilter() and it looked really really bad. Atleast short Matrix clip looked totally crap.

Do u have a screenshot? I've been using Lumfilter(-1) with Unfilter and the results don't look bad at all. Your seeing more blocks? Maybe slightly off topic and needs a new thread

trbarry · 17th November 2002, 17:53

Quote:

Do u have a screenshot? I've been using Lumfilter(-1) with Unfilter and the results don't look bad at all. Your seeing more blocks? Maybe slightly off topic and needs a new thread

The ability of UnFilter to remove certain dark macro blocks on TV's is one of the great unexplained mysteries of life, at least to me.

Nobody has yes explained why it works. And more importantly, does it work in YV12, or can it be made to? I was concerned about filtering chroma also (YUY2 doesn't) just because of the possibility it could maybe destroy this happy unintended consequence.

So I'm fairly interested in reports of this phenomena with YV12.

- Tom

MaTTeR · 17th November 2002, 18:16

Well I'm quite sure iago has been testing it and I've yet to hear complaints from him, that might be a good sign

For me it still seems to work the same against the DCT blocks as in YUY2 mode. However, I have noticed some "flickering" lately on walls but that might be due to me playing around with UnDot in the same script. I'll run some Quant2 tests later and see if I can pinpoint it.

BTW- Have I already mentioned that Unfilter and UnDot are wicked fast?

At 640 resolution I'm seeing peaks of around 64FPS.

iago · 17th November 2002, 19:03

Hello all,

First, I agree with MaTTeR that both UnDot and UnFilter are amazingly fast! I want to thank Tom one more time for these two great and most successful filters working in YV12.

Well, actually I can say that the effectiveness of UnFilter/LumaFilter(-2) combo (speaking in YV12 / Avs 2.5 Alpha terms

) depends on the black richness, sharpness, noise, etc. of the source. That is, while for some sources only LumaFilter(-2) would suffice, for others LumaFilter(-2) might have to be accompanied by UnFilter too.

Actually, it's easier to explain how UnFilter(+,+) helps eliminating dark and undark macroblocks or DCT blocks, since it increases the detail level and thus the codec cannot quantize these sharpened areas highly. In other words, codec "cannot" remove details (or maybe noise) to such a high degree that it begins to generate macroblocks/DCT blocks.

However, how UnFilter(-,-) assists reducing blockiness in "dark areas" still remains as a mystery!

The only explanation I can bring to this is that UnFilter with either (-,-) or (+,+) settings introduces some sort of subtle darkening effect too, which acts as an additional Luma Offset -x parameter, and hence decreasing the appearance of dark blocks just like the LumaFilter(-2) parameter in mpeg2dec3.dll does.

In short and imho, "UnFilter(+,+)" helps eliminating "macroblocks in all areas" (in both dark and undark parts of the movie) with its "sharpening effect", increasing the detail levels in critical/undetailed areas of the encode. And "UnFilter(-,-)" helps eliminating "dark macroblocks" with its "darkening effect", decreasing the luma offset slightly.

As for Tom's question, yes I think the YV12 implementation works as effectively too, just like the previous YUY2 version.

best regards to all,
iago

iago · 17th November 2002, 19:43

Well, I want to add a few more points to the above argument:

Actually, LumaFilter(-2) parameter as a separate line to be added to the script when using Marc's mpeg2dec3.dll for Avisynth 2.5, or lumoff=-2 parameter to be added at the end of the "mpeg2source(.....)" line when using Marc's mpeg2dec3.dll for Avisynth 2.0.6 are just simple tricks, playing with the brightness level of the encode, and the same effect can also be achieved via ffdshow or divx decoders during the decoding process by taking down the brightness level or luma offset a bit.

The important point (and the most significant result to be derived from all these discussions) to be noted is that sharpening (or keeping enough necessary noise of the source) "as a method" is really effective against blocking and it improves the overall quality of the whole encode.

I can mention the movie U-Turn as an example to this argument, which is really hard-to-compress but with its high detail level and fine source noise you can still get decent rips even with relatively high average quantizers!

Maybe we should revise or consider all our encoding/denoising habits again, attaching more importance to "noise" and "sharpness" especially in low-detail parts of the encodes; and refrain from ruining our encodes by unnecessary/extra filtering. Maybe only motion-adaptive denoising will be the better way to go soon for normal/real life encodes. Otherwise it's really possible to get crappy encodes with even an average quantizer of ~2 due to unnecessary, over-filtering.

best regards again,
iago

Marc FD · 17th November 2002, 20:15

hi iago, matter and tom ^^

>I'm seeing peaks of around 64FPS.
64 FPS ! whow ! i'm curious to know how fast would go simple 3d cleaner with YV12 SIMD code ^^
(for me 65-70 FPS is the speed of MPEG2Dec3 to memory decoding. but i've only 1.4 Ghz)

>motion-adaptive denoising

i personnaly prefer motion-compensated denoising ^_^

i've some cool stuff here, like YV12 high quality 3d denosing, and YV12 motion compensated denoising, but it's currently too experimental. i'll need beta-testers a day ^^

BTW, i'm currently investigating a bit the sharpening world.
my favourite sharpen filter is unsharp mask. i tried it on a very clean anime DVD source with a very high threshold (127). it was impressive. maybe too strong, because it was blocky ^^
on a average good source (1000 kbps CBR XviD) it looks really better, but all macroblocks are very very noticable...
i see that the real video postprocessing is using sharpening too, but never shows the macroblocs. It gived me an idea to do post-processing sharpening (who'll not enhance blocks edges. maybe a good candidate for ffdshow after). my second idea is a filter doing adaptive sharpening/denoising. it would remove noise and enhance edges in the same time. i could even merge the 2 ideas

but i need to take a look to unsharp mask sources before.

trbarry · 17th November 2002, 20:18

Okay, glad to hear all that still works for some reason.

I just made another mini-release of UnFilter, now properly labled v 0.0.3.0, at the same URL:

www.trbarry.com/UnFilter.zip

This one does not need any horizontal multiple greater than 2, though Avisynth and some codecs may.

I also added proper version info and removed the incorrect readme references to Avisynth 2.05 and MPEG2DEC_YV12.

- Tom

MaTTeR · 17th November 2002, 22:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Marc FD
64 FPS ! whow ! i'm curious to know how fast would go simple 3d cleaner with YV12 SIMD code ^^
(for me 65-70 FPS is the speed of MPEG2Dec3 to memory decoding. but i've only 1.4 Ghz)

Hi Marc,
Though I wouldn't consider Convolution3D a "simple" 3D cleaner, I can tell you that I'm averaging about 36FPS with it along with UnFilter, UnDot and of course slight PP. Those numbers are with Vlad's unreleased SMP/multi-threaded build of C3D which gave me another 2-4FPS

Dual AMD 1600s @ 139FSB along with a 512MB stick of PC2700/333Mhz CAS2 RAM. I'm not sure what my maximum decoding speed would be. How did you determine 65-70FPS? Make a simple script with an extremely low resolution I guess

Edit- Tom,
Thx for fixing the width restrictions!

iago · 17th November 2002, 22:58

@Tom,

Yeah, whatever the logic behind it, UnFilter really works!

Thanks again, this time for the new release!

regards,
iago

17th November 2002, 23:22

@trbarry

thanks for the "news",
i use Unfilter in all my encodes for a "long time".
for me is the first(best)filter from all!

Gaia · 18th November 2002, 08:00

My point is that somehow luomoff -2 made it too dark in my short matrix test. I couldn't see any "black blocks! but the picture was too dark for me. I didn't like it. Colours are really nice in YV12 but lumoff -2 seemed to screw that. Anyway have to do more testing.

Some update. I tried luomoff-1, it seems to look better but still...
I quess i have to do full 2-pass encode to fully confirm this but it still seems to be too dark. I use Matrix for testing so it might look better with not so dark movies.

Marc FD · 18th November 2002, 16:26

>Though I wouldn't consider Convolution3D a "simple" 3D cleaner

s3dc is one of my filters. it's about as fast than Convolution 3d (but it's very different from c3d) with C code. i think a SIMD version would be damn fast ^^

>How did you determine 65-70FPS?

with VDub. peaks to 80fps ^^

> Make a simple script with an extremely low resolution I guess

no, only MPEG2Dec3 alone. YV12. stream mode. (source : PAL, 6 mbps MPEG-2)

MaTTeR · 24th November 2002, 15:42

Hi Tom,

Just wanted to report a small problem I ran across with the YV12 build. I stumbled over what appears to be small bug when using [i]UnFilter(-1,-1)[/i}. Using -1 seems to cause a small pink vertical bar down the left edge about a 1/4" wide and a pink bar about 1/8" wide down the right side. The odd thing is that I can't reproduce the problem using any other integer values + or -. Here's my basic script-

Code:

crop(4,64,712,352)
Lumafilter(-1)
UnFilter(-1,-1)
BicubicResize(624,264,0,0.5)
Undot()
Limiter()

Of course I tried cropping and resizing with different values and using different AVS 2.5 builds but with no luck. I'm attaching a small JPEG(uf_pink.jpg) that displays the problem. Let me know if you need any other information. TIA

trbarry · 24th November 2002, 18:40

MaTTeR -

I see the problem and will look for it. Would it be possiible for you to post a short clip somewhere. Or email it? I'd probably only need 2-3 frames since UnFilter only looks at one frame at a time.

It is probably related to the fact that YV12 UnFilter also sharpens chroma, which is not done for YUY2. So likely I can find it anyway, just a clip would be easier.

Or if everybody prefers I could just turn off chroma softening & sharpening, keeping it like YUY2. It would run faster.

- Tom

MaTTeR · 24th November 2002, 19:10

Tom,

I'll PM you a URL where you can grab a short clip. If it's easier to get rid of the chroma code then I'd say it's safe to do so. After all, we were doing without it before

Thx

iago · 25th November 2002, 01:00

Or if everybody prefers I could just turn off chroma softening & sharpening, keeping it like YUY2. It would run faster. (trbarry)

@Tom

Not for the speed concern (since it is already lightning fast!) but I would actually prefer having UnFilter as it was before, just like MaTTeR!

regards,
iago

trbarry · 25th November 2002, 07:16

Okay, I'll make YV12 like YUY2 for now, filtering only luma. Maybe later I'll make chroma filtering optional, if anyone sees the need for it.

- Tom

Koepi · 25th November 2002, 08:55

Optional sounds fine for me

Thaks for your efforts, Tom!

Best regards
Koepi

Holomatrix · 25th November 2002, 13:31

Ok, so what version of UnFilter works with AVISynth 2.06 I don't have 2.5 and if I want to sharpen DVD conversions to CVD what is the best option to use ?? Resize then UnFilter (20,20) ?
Thanks

Marc FD · 25th November 2002, 14:20

there is no "best" filter. look at :

http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?pa...olorspaces#q28

setion sharpenning, the most common filters are listed.
asharp may be interressing (hq result), but it's only working in YV12.

17th November 2002, 18:16	#83 \| Link
MaTTeR AC3 5.1 Addict Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Big Blue Nation_USA Posts: 2,036	Well I'm quite sure iago has been testing it and I've yet to hear complaints from him, that might be a good sign For me it still seems to work the same against the DCT blocks as in YUY2 mode. However, I have noticed some "flickering" lately on walls but that might be due to me playing around with UnDot in the same script. I'll run some Quant2 tests later and see if I can pinpoint it. BTW- Have I already mentioned that Unfilter and UnDot are wicked fast? At 640 resolution I'm seeing peaks of around 64FPS. __________________ Need AC3 & SPDIF setup info?

17th November 2002, 19:03	#84 \| Link
iago retired Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: hollywood Posts: 1,013	Hello all, First, I agree with MaTTeR that both UnDot and UnFilter are amazingly fast! I want to thank Tom one more time for these two great and most successful filters working in YV12. Well, actually I can say that the effectiveness of UnFilter/LumaFilter(-2) combo (speaking in YV12 / Avs 2.5 Alpha terms ) depends on the black richness, sharpness, noise, etc. of the source. That is, while for some sources only LumaFilter(-2) would suffice, for others LumaFilter(-2) might have to be accompanied by UnFilter too. Actually, it's easier to explain how UnFilter(+,+) helps eliminating dark and undark macroblocks or DCT blocks, since it increases the detail level and thus the codec cannot quantize these sharpened areas highly. In other words, codec "cannot" remove details (or maybe noise) to such a high degree that it begins to generate macroblocks/DCT blocks. However, how UnFilter(-,-) assists reducing blockiness in "dark areas" still remains as a mystery! The only explanation I can bring to this is that UnFilter with either (-,-) or (+,+) settings introduces some sort of subtle darkening effect too, which acts as an additional Luma Offset -x parameter, and hence decreasing the appearance of dark blocks just like the LumaFilter(-2) parameter in mpeg2dec3.dll does. In short and imho, "UnFilter(+,+)" helps eliminating "macroblocks in all areas" (in both dark and undark parts of the movie) with its "sharpening effect", increasing the detail levels in critical/undetailed areas of the encode. And "UnFilter(-,-)" helps eliminating "dark macroblocks" with its "darkening effect", decreasing the luma offset slightly. As for Tom's question, yes I think the YV12 implementation works as effectively too, just like the previous YUY2 version. best regards to all, iago Last edited by iago; 17th November 2002 at 23:06.

17th November 2002, 19:43	#85 \| Link
iago retired Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: hollywood Posts: 1,013	Well, I want to add a few more points to the above argument: Actually, LumaFilter(-2) parameter as a separate line to be added to the script when using Marc's mpeg2dec3.dll for Avisynth 2.5, or lumoff=-2 parameter to be added at the end of the "mpeg2source(.....)" line when using Marc's mpeg2dec3.dll for Avisynth 2.0.6 are just simple tricks, playing with the brightness level of the encode, and the same effect can also be achieved via ffdshow or divx decoders during the decoding process by taking down the brightness level or luma offset a bit. The important point (and the most significant result to be derived from all these discussions) to be noted is that sharpening (or keeping enough necessary noise of the source) "as a method" is really effective against blocking and it improves the overall quality of the whole encode. I can mention the movie U-Turn as an example to this argument, which is really hard-to-compress but with its high detail level and fine source noise you can still get decent rips even with relatively high average quantizers! Maybe we should revise or consider all our encoding/denoising habits again, attaching more importance to "noise" and "sharpness" especially in low-detail parts of the encodes; and refrain from ruining our encodes by unnecessary/extra filtering. Maybe only motion-adaptive denoising will be the better way to go soon for normal/real life encodes. Otherwise it's really possible to get crappy encodes with even an average quantizer of ~2 due to unnecessary, over-filtering. best regards again, iago Last edited by iago; 17th November 2002 at 22:55.

18th November 2002, 08:00	#91 \| Link
Gaia Registered User Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 267	My point is that somehow luomoff -2 made it too dark in my short matrix test. I couldn't see any "black blocks! but the picture was too dark for me. I didn't like it. Colours are really nice in YV12 but lumoff -2 seemed to screw that. Anyway have to do more testing. Some update. I tried luomoff-1, it seems to look better but still... I quess i have to do full 2-pass encode to fully confirm this but it still seems to be too dark. I use Matrix for testing so it might look better with not so dark movies. Last edited by Gaia; 18th November 2002 at 10:56.

24th November 2002, 15:42	#93 \| Link
MaTTeR AC3 5.1 Addict Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Big Blue Nation_USA Posts: 2,036	Hi Tom, Just wanted to report a small problem I ran across with the YV12 build. I stumbled over what appears to be small bug when using [i]UnFilter(-1,-1)[/i}. Using -1 seems to cause a small pink vertical bar down the left edge about a 1/4" wide and a pink bar about 1/8" wide down the right side. The odd thing is that I can't reproduce the problem using any other integer values + or -. Here's my basic script- Code: crop(4,64,712,352) Lumafilter(-1) UnFilter(-1,-1) BicubicResize(624,264,0,0.5) Undot() Limiter() Of course I tried cropping and resizing with different values and using different AVS 2.5 builds but with no luck. I'm attaching a small JPEG(uf_pink.jpg) that displays the problem. Let me know if you need any other information. TIA __________________ Need AC3 & SPDIF setup info?

17th November 2002, 20:15	#86 \| Link
Marc FD XviD fan Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: France Posts: 907	hi iago, matter and tom ^^ >I'm seeing peaks of around 64FPS. 64 FPS ! whow ! i'm curious to know how fast would go simple 3d cleaner with YV12 SIMD code ^^ (for me 65-70 FPS is the speed of MPEG2Dec3 to memory decoding. but i've only 1.4 Ghz) >motion-adaptive denoising i personnaly prefer motion-compensated denoising ^_^ i've some cool stuff here, like YV12 high quality 3d denosing, and YV12 motion compensated denoising, but it's currently too experimental. i'll need beta-testers a day ^^ BTW, i'm currently investigating a bit the sharpening world. my favourite sharpen filter is unsharp mask. i tried it on a very clean anime DVD source with a very high threshold (127). it was impressive. maybe too strong, because it was blocky ^^ on a average good source (1000 kbps CBR XviD) it looks really better, but all macroblocks are very very noticable... i see that the real video postprocessing is using sharpening too, but never shows the macroblocs. It gived me an idea to do post-processing sharpening (who'll not enhance blocks edges. maybe a good candidate for ffdshow after). my second idea is a filter doing adaptive sharpening/denoising. it would remove noise and enhance edges in the same time. i could even merge the 2 ideas but i need to take a look to unsharp mask sources before.

17th November 2002, 20:18	#87 \| Link
trbarry Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Gainesville FL USA Posts: 2,092	Okay, glad to hear all that still works for some reason. I just made another mini-release of UnFilter, now properly labled v 0.0.3.0, at the same URL: www.trbarry.com/UnFilter.zip This one does not need any horizontal multiple greater than 2, though Avisynth and some codecs may. I also added proper version info and removed the incorrect readme references to Avisynth 2.05 and MPEG2DEC_YV12. - Tom

17th November 2002, 22:58	#89 \| Link
iago retired Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: hollywood Posts: 1,013	@Tom, Yeah, whatever the logic behind it, UnFilter really works! Thanks again, this time for the new release! regards, iago

17th November 2002, 23:22	#90 \| Link
jorel Guest Posts: n/a	@trbarry thanks for the "news", i use Unfilter in all my encodes for a "long time". for me is the first(best)filter from all!

18th November 2002, 16:26	#92 \| Link
Marc FD XviD fan Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: France Posts: 907	>Though I wouldn't consider Convolution3D a "simple" 3D cleaner s3dc is one of my filters. it's about as fast than Convolution 3d (but it's very different from c3d) with C code. i think a SIMD version would be damn fast ^^ >How did you determine 65-70FPS? with VDub. peaks to 80fps ^^ > Make a simple script with an extremely low resolution I guess no, only MPEG2Dec3 alone. YV12. stream mode. (source : PAL, 6 mbps MPEG-2)

24th November 2002, 18:40	#94 \| Link
trbarry Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Gainesville FL USA Posts: 2,092	MaTTeR - I see the problem and will look for it. Would it be possiible for you to post a short clip somewhere. Or email it? I'd probably only need 2-3 frames since UnFilter only looks at one frame at a time. It is probably related to the fact that YV12 UnFilter also sharpens chroma, which is not done for YUY2. So likely I can find it anyway, just a clip would be easier. Or if everybody prefers I could just turn off chroma softening & sharpening, keeping it like YUY2. It would run faster. - Tom

24th November 2002, 19:10	#95 \| Link
MaTTeR AC3 5.1 Addict Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Big Blue Nation_USA Posts: 2,036	Tom, I'll PM you a URL where you can grab a short clip. If it's easier to get rid of the chroma code then I'd say it's safe to do so. After all, we were doing without it before Thx __________________ Need AC3 & SPDIF setup info?

25th November 2002, 01:00	#96 \| Link
iago retired Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: hollywood Posts: 1,013	Or if everybody prefers I could just turn off chroma softening & sharpening, keeping it like YUY2. It would run faster. (trbarry) @Tom Not for the speed concern (since it is already lightning fast!) but I would actually prefer having UnFilter as it was before, just like MaTTeR! regards, iago

25th November 2002, 07:16	#97 \| Link
trbarry Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Gainesville FL USA Posts: 2,092	Okay, I'll make YV12 like YUY2 for now, filtering only luma. Maybe later I'll make chroma filtering optional, if anyone sees the need for it. - Tom

25th November 2002, 08:55	#98 \| Link
Koepi Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 4,454	Optional sounds fine for me Thaks for your efforts, Tom! Best regards Koepi __________________ Koepi's new media development site

25th November 2002, 13:31	#99 \| Link
Holomatrix Still Kick'n Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 677	Ok, so what version of UnFilter works with AVISynth 2.06 I don't have 2.5 and if I want to sharpen DVD conversions to CVD what is the best option to use ?? Resize then UnFilter (20,20) ? Thanks

25th November 2002, 14:20	#100 \| Link
Marc FD XviD fan Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: France Posts: 907	there is no "best" filter. look at : http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?pa...olorspaces#q28 setion sharpenning, the most common filters are listed. asharp may be interressing (hq result), but it's only working in YV12.