what the heck are these lines from??

[DaveQB]

gonna throw in my Winfast 2000 and see what i get with that.

if its all fixed then i am selling my Prolink (although i know the Winfast wont be as sharp)

its not interlacing, as someone mentioned here, i think a case of a cheap card coupled with a utlra clear chip, brings this out (i think)

i'll post a small snippet in DivX

[DaveQB]

its hard to show the lines coz:

only plainly visable in Huffy as when its compressed to DivX the funny lines look like compression artifacts


i have my Winfast back in now and if you look closely you can see the same lines but alot less noticable to plain eye.

I think we have a case here of the Prolink is so much clearer that analog to digital conversion that produces these lines becomes more apparent

in other words, the lines are always there, but with this Prolnk (10-bit CX23881) they are more of a stand out
running the VD deinterlace filter blurs everyhting enough to get rid of the lines and a video quality the same as a BT878 based card, so i guess with the Prolink i can have both

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

>and avisynth just rocks for editing

?????????????????????????????????????
try editing more than 2 (like 10 or 15)
cuts with trimm.......
get it?
but it's fine for processing

(and cuting made with VD)

on to the "problem"
there are no "lines" in your video,only you see "staircase" effect
because of lores capture and/or poor resizing.....
your picture is ok for such lores...(actually looks pretty fine!)

also i DON'T recommend huff for lo-res capture....and you should try picvideo (or another) mjpeg: with huff lores pixelization sttays all the way to divx.....with mjpeg it doesn't,as mjpeg decoder itself smooths that in the way human eyes like it.......

use huff for hires (if you have space) that's where it comes to light....(bright light!)

also what are you doing with deinterlacing lo-res capturings?
don't deint. something that's progressive in the first place....

do it like this,or do it your way:
capture hi-res with yout bt device (either one...bt is now conexant)
7xx x 576 for pal or 7xx x 480 for ntsc
(you guys on secam shouldn't capture at all----LOL!)
1-deinterlace (or telecide if film source)
2-noise filtering (cnr,temp.smoothers/spattial smoothers,etc.)
3-resize (i wouldn't go bellow 512x384 for pal...VHS included)
4-crop (null transform-crop junk)
5-resize (input the cropped size,expand frame and letterbox to desired
dimension ie. the one you inputted on "3"...precise bicubic all the way)
6-compress
(u can use avs for speed improvement too.....)

i'll cut both of my hands if you see staircase pixelization again .......->if you do it like this (zooming the video excluded,offcourse!)

cheers

Ivo
[ps. you should change this thread's name:it's not "lines"
but pixelization on diagonal lines aka "staircase"...it's misleading.....even i forgot about it just reading the subjects...LOL!]
[ps2. but i see you have nice 3dmark,so don't worry about the video too much..hehehe]

[dar1us]

If any of you want some fun deinterlacing, grab samples 7 and 8 (MSI) from

http://www.ab296581.force9.co.uk - thats the damage you can do with it. After deinterlacing (proper ways) - you get some mighty scruffy artifacts left over. It's kinda crappy.

I wish my card could Telecide by itself, then compress it. Hardware telecide

- addition - if you can say that you have EVER EVER EVER seen an analogue capture better than MSI 6 (enterprise) - then you ARE a liar. Swivel - It rules

Please DONT point out the white compression bar thingy, my card straps one of those on to all captures, easily removed, I crop always (4:3) 8,6,704,544): 8 off each horizontal and 6 of each vertical. it leaves less fiddling on AVS scripts.

btw, that capture is totally RAW, the only one thing I did is re-encode the XVID with 2Pass (wasteful really) and thats it, oh and 128kbps MP3 (and no, I dont do that usually, just looks a little bland with out audio

The only ONE problem is a little contrast noise, and also, I soldered the cable that I am capping on myself, out of an old SCART lead and then a Composite cable - it is PRETTY crude, I will have to take some snaps!


If you have poor eyes, the contrast noise thingy is a lot more evident on the 7th sample (naughty girl thingy (hey - it was random) - if you still cant see it, look at the Non-Stop new year red thingy-ma-jig

[DaveQB]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
>and avisynth just rocks for editing

?????????????????????????????????????
try editing more than 2 (like 10 or 15)
cuts with trimm.......
get it?
but it's fine for processing

(and cuting made with VD)

on to the "problem"
there are no "lines" in your video,only you see "staircase" effect
because of lores capture and/or poor resizing.....
your picture is ok for such lores...(actually looks pretty fine!)

also i DON'T recommend huff for lo-res capture....and you should try picvideo (or another) mjpeg: with huff lores pixelization sttays all the way to divx.....with mjpeg it doesn't,as mjpeg decoder itself smooths that in the way human eyes like it.......

use huff for hires (if you have space) that's where it comes to light....(bright light!)

also what are you doing with deinterlacing lo-res capturings?
don't deint. something that's progressive in the first place....

do it like this,or do it your way:
capture hi-res with yout bt device (either one...bt is now conexant)
7xx x 576 for pal or 7xx x 480 for ntsc
(you guys on secam shouldn't capture at all----LOL!)
1-deinterlace (or telecide if film source)
2-noise filtering (cnr,temp.smoothers/spattial smoothers,etc.)
3-resize (i wouldn't go bellow 512x384 for pal...VHS included)
4-crop (null transform-crop junk)
5-resize (input the cropped size,expand frame and letterbox to desired
dimension ie. the one you inputted on "3"...precise bicubic all the way)
6-compress
(u can use avs for speed improvement too.....)

i'll cut both of my hands if you see staircase pixelization again .......->if you do it like this (zooming the video excluded,offcourse!)

cheers

Ivo
[ps. you should change this thread's name:it's not "lines"
but pixelization on diagonal lines aka "staircase"...it's misleading.....even i forgot about it just reading the subjects...LOL!]
[ps2. but i see you have nice 3dmark,so don't worry about the video too much..hehehe]

thanx for that, been working hard @ my 3DMark

anyway, i am trying to follow your ideas there,
i downloaded PicVideo codecs, just installed and i see the PicVideo and www.jpg.com on the screen
i see its $399 for the lossless codec, so that idea is out the window, huffy it is!

in the tests i did once showed that capturing @ a low res or capturing @ a high res and deinterlacing was the same result, cept the low res was less processing and less space on HDD

and yeah ok, stair casing could be a better way to explain it

gotta run right now, but i will return......

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

Originally posted by DaveQB
thanx for that, been working hard @ my 3DMark

anyway, i am trying to follow your ideas there,
i downloaded PicVideo codecs, just installed and i see the PicVideo and www.jpg.com on the screen
i see its $399 for the lossless codec, so that idea is out the window, huffy it is!

in the tests i did once showed that capturing @ a low res or capturing @ a high res and deinterlacing was the same result, cept the low res was less processing and less space on HDD

and yeah ok, stair casing could be a better way to explain it

gotta run right now, but i will return......

not lossless mjpeg,but mjpeg WITH compression.......
(paying for mjpeg?don't get me wrong,but.....hehe..... got it?)
i still say huff is sh*t for lores and it will only give divx or xvid great troubles.......my huff->divx stuff proves that....


capture at hires,but DON'T downsize all the way to lores ( don't do 384x288 or so )
downsize to 512x384 at worse........don't go lower than that.....
576x432 or 640x480 are better!

and when you compare (in full screen for example) resulting 512x384
to your lores stuff,you'll see the difference all right....
(higher the res,sharper the image gets....)

and if you wan't quality:stop saving on those cdr's..will you.......

[DaveQB]

ok heres the best i could do to demostrate these "lines" or "Staircase" effect

i made a real short snippet and compressed with a high bitrate in DivX (5,000)

you can especialy see it on the paint white line on the field, this staircase effect is not as noticable on out door fields

Example

is this indeed staircase effect or something completely different or new ??

thanx for reading

[DaveQB]

PS i dont get this effect with my BT878 based card

but the picture is more blurry, so maybe that covers it up
thats me theory

[DaveQB]

i cant capture above 640x480 in iuVCR

so i cant follow those suggestions ^^-+I4004+-^^


so basicly, i shoukld be chasing a way to remove staircasing ??

i think it will be ok, because DivX compression hepls to rid it

dunno, but it does, blends in with the compress artifacts i guess
havent tried mpg or mpg2 yet though, hopefully same result.

its really only prevalent with graphics on the screen or straight lines like on the field in many of my examples, games shot on out door fields hardly show any "staircasing"

any further suggestions anyone ?
thanx all for reading

[wotef]

what exactly is the source you are capturing from? a digicam?

seems to me your problem is your primary source has staircasing

unless you solve that, messing with filters and codecs on your capture file is a waste of time

[DaveQB]

hmmm, yeah its an 8mm tape based camera

but the staircasing isthere with cable TV etc
and its not htere with a BT878 based card

its still a better quality cap then the BT878 cards, but would be even better without staircasing.

i guess the reason its bothering me is i have had a BT878 card for so long and never had this staircasing, now moving to sharper, clearer card, its there!

[^^-+I4004+-^^]

and perhaps it's the simple answer:
if new card gives sharper image (and it should)
perhaps it's just that staircasing becomes more apparent on
lower res than with blurier image if old card?

make test,use same codec (for capturing) and capture same sequence
with both devices....that should tell you enough...

i've seen few of your screenshots,and i know for sure that bt8x8
can't give such sharpness on res. that low.......

[DaveQB]

Originally posted by ^^-+I4004+-^^
and perhaps it's the simple answer:
if new card gives sharper image (and it should)
perhaps it's just that staircasing becomes more apparent on
lower res than with blurier image if old card?

thats exactly what i have been thinking, i think i made a post in this thread discussing that theory, but no one picked it up

thanx guys for all the info

[DaveQB]

LMAO!!

it appears i have found a way to ge rid of the wavey effect on straight lines, looking like heat

if i view @ 352x288, but then set capture format to 384x288 i am left with only some staircasing

i dunno!

i checked the captured video and it is in 384x288 (movieidw)


i have attached a screen shot thats been cropped to save space, the fuzzy line can be seen on the far side line
this is @ 288x384 WITH preview set to 384x288



edit: attachment didnt attach

[DaveQB]

and heres with the preview set to 352

still capturing @ 288x384 i'll have you know,

pic is croped to save space, a jpg lost the effect of what i am trying to show

[DaveQB]

i suggest enlarging to see what i mean

no rational explaination for this ??

[wotef]

yep, your card has got a nice image but the resize algo of the drivers is screwed

[DaveQB]

Originally posted by wotef
yep, your card has got a nice image but the resize algo of the drivers is screwed

algo ??

but you see the the difference ??
yet captured in the same format, codec, segemnt of film etc etc

just the preview res was changed

doesnt make sense to me !

[Xesdeeni]

It sounds like there are two artifacts being discussed in this thread:

1. The "stairstepping" appears to be just a natural result of throwing out one field when you capture the video. Consider:

-----
     -----
          -----

What happens if you throw away one field:

-----
          -----

You can see that there is a gap in the line now.

With the large amount of motion in the video, it might not help, but you might get better results if you capture both fields and then run the image thorough a deinterlacer and then scale it down instead of throwing out one field. There are several deinterlacers available for VirtualDub and AVISynth, and even a decent one in TMPGEnc if you are going to MPEG.

2. The "checkerboard" pattern looks to me to be "chroma crawl" (I don't know what the technical term for this is ) but I didn't think this showed up very often in PAL videos. This is normally caused by an interference to the luminance (Y) signal caused by the chrominance (U and V for PAL; I and Q for NTSC) modulation added to a composite TV signal (this is one of the reasons why S-Video's separation of luminance and chrominance is a Good Thing). The interaction can occur at the point where the color information is added to the luminance and/or at the point where it is separated. The effect is also exacerbated by any physical connections between the source and destination that carry the composite signal.

I had a discussion a while back about detecting the pattern and eliminating it. It should be possible to mathematically determine where this pattern will occur, based on the color information and the sampling rate. But I'm afraid I don't know enough to create such a filter.

Xesdeeni

[DaveQB]

WOW!

really ??
is that what u think it is ??

i'll search for it

but why though does it go away when i have the preview on and set to 352x288 ??

to me the preview shouldnt make a diff to the capture settings

oh and point one cant be down,

max caputre is 640x480 and it comes out clear but blocky, like blocks across the screen bout 10 in the whole screen

looks weird

trying to find a cap proggy that will allow me a high res (if cards supports it; chipset does)