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Old 7th October 2007, 06:44   #1  |  Link
Dark Shikari
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New Filter: GrainOptimizer (2.02 -- Bug fixed with certain temporal denoisers)

>>>GrainOptimizer 2.02<<<

The only temporal-only grain reducer!

Simple summary:

This filter "slows down" the progression of grain over time to vastly decrease the bits required to encode that grain. On a per-frame basis, the filtered clip will look almost exactly the same as the original.

Pros: Huge bitrate drop over unfiltered clip (up to 40-50%+), and often higher image quality due to better bit distribution in encoding. Keeps the grainy look of the original source.

Cons: Temporal grain pattern isn't exactly the same as the original. Not as effective at lowering bitrate as a real, strong denoiser, if used alone. Less effective in very high-motion scenes; doesn't usually have negative effects but doesn't reduce the grain as effectively as in stationary scenes. Requires a powerful denoiser to input the denoised clip, so while fast alone, it isn't as fast in practice.


Full information:

One of the main problems with film grain is it is completely uncorrelated with the grain from the previous frame. This means that in low-detail blocks, such as the background of a frame (usually most of the blocks), the encoder is forced to use intra blocks instead of inter blocks, since the current frame's block is almost completely unrelated to the previous frame's block.

This filter resolves that by removing grain temporally but not spatially, in a manner in which the visual difference between the result and the original is minimal, and not even necessarily a negative difference. Using a combination of heuristics, it decides which areas of the frame should be acted on, and then which blocks should be retained between frames. As far as I have found in my testing, no visual artifacts are created by this technique as long as the proper heuristics are used.

This filter is somewhat motion-adaptive but not motion-compensated, and as a result it is quite fast (real-time on SD footage easily, even though it has no assembly code and is completely unoptimized). However, this also means it is not very effective in moving areas. This isn't really what the filter was meant to do to begin with though: its goal is to deal with background grain eating up bits, and that's what it does.

The end result is a basically "free" bitrate reduction of up to 50% at the same CRF/QP for high-grain sources, assuming that your bitrate is high enough that the encoder actually does attempt to preserve the grain--this is particularly important in x264, known for decimating grain at all but the lowest CRFs. Note that theoretically this filter will work for all encoders, not just x264--the benefits aren't as large in non-H.264 codecs, but both VC-1 and Xvid have shown bitrate drops of nearly 25% in my tests.

Note that you should have at least a few bframes and p4x4 blocks enabled to take full advantage of this filter. If it isn't clear at this point, the GrainOptimizer is intended as a preprocessing algorithm for a video encoder.

Syntax: GrainOptimizer(clip,denoisedclip,blocksize,strength,tdist,minrep)
Colorspaces supported: YV12 only (YUY2 and YV24 are possible in the future, RGB24/32 are not possible without drastically changing the algorithm.)

denoisedclip is the clip used for most of the internal heuristics and as such is very important. The better the denoiser you use, the better results you will get. A strong denoiser is recommended--losing details doesn't matter in this case, what matters is temporal stability. Inspect your denoised output if the filter doesn't seem to be working as well as it should; the denoised clip should have no noticable grain at all for maximum effectiveness. FFT3DGPU with a very high sigma (10+ for strong grain) + TTempSmooth works quite well, though I assume others like RemoveGrain(19) will work well also. Note this clip must be YV12.

blocksize is the size of the block (width/height) used for the block retention algorithm. 4 and 8 are the values currently supported, and 4 is the recommended default.

strength is by default 1 and is a decimal value. Note that as of version 2.0 the strength is automatically determined on a frame-by-frame basis--this number is simply a multiplier for the value determined internally. Don't change it unless the default has problems.

tdist is the maximum temporal distance, in frames, over which a block can remain static for due to the retention algorithm. It is by default 6: higher values will make the grain seem to move "slower", and lower values will make it seem to move "faster". A value as low as 2 will reduce the effectiveness of the filter somewhat but keep the grain's appearance almost exactly the same as the original. Higher values result in slower and slower grain, making it appear more like a static dither.

minrep sets the minimum number of grain replacements per macroblock. This is by default 8--higher values result in fewer blocks acted upon but more efficient action on those that are acted upon. Values cannot be above (256 / Blocksize^2) or below 0. The old behavior of the program, before this option existed, was equivalent to minrep=0.

Recommended: keep it at 8. Perhaps different values might be better with other codecs? Lowering the value will decrease efficiency but might make the result look more grainy.

This filter is experimental--report bugs and cases where it creates problems here, but don't complain about it doing so!

New version 2.02
New version 2.01
Old version 1.2

Version History:

2.02 -- Some temporal denoisers have very overly strong effects at scene changes, which tend to confuse the GrainOptimizer. This has been compensated for in most cases.
2.01 -- Bugs fixed with 2.0.
2.0 -- Rewrote over half the code. It now automatically determines the strength necessary on a frame-by-frame basis, to deal with changing grain patterns. The biggest change is that it requires a denoised clip as a second input, for much more accurate motion detection. Chroma option was removed for code simplicity.
1.2 -- Major improvements. Randomized starting array, resulting in slightly nondeterministic behavior but no "solid" appearance for the first few frames of an encode. A lot of improvements were made to considerably lower the bitrate by optimizing specifically for MPEG-4 ASP/AVC encoding styles and dealing with the residual costs of macroblocks. Additionally quality should be slightly improved, and some quality bugs fixed. New option added. Blocksize can now be 8, but is not recommended (though it should work).
Functional changes: the new version now should decrease bitrate on almost all input sources, including some reduction on already-denoised sources.
1.11 - Minor algorithm updates
1.1 - Major bugfix: GrainOptimizer now works correctly on longer sequences. Chroma heuristic added.
1.02 - Feature improvement: non-mod16 resolutions now supported.
1.01 - Minor bugfix: non-mod16 resolutions now correctly result in an error instead of a crash.
1.0 - Initial Release

Last edited by Dark Shikari; 19th November 2007 at 18:43.
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Old 7th October 2007, 06:48   #2  |  Link
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What color spaces are supported?
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Old 7th October 2007, 06:52   #3  |  Link
Dark Shikari
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neuron2 View Post
What color spaces are supported?
Added that info.
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Old 7th October 2007, 07:40   #4  |  Link
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This certainly looks interesting. Do you mind if I ask were you go the 30% reduction numbers from? Just curious.

Unfortunately, I don't have any sources right now that would benefit from this filter, but as soon as I do, I will give it a try.

Unless you recommend using it on every single clip I might ever use?
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Old 7th October 2007, 07:52   #5  |  Link
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mpc window crashes for me straight away script is ok without grainopt in it.

i see firsy frame and then mpc just closes itself with no error message.
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Old 7th October 2007, 08:00   #6  |  Link
check
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I confirm it works.

@woah, are you running `GrainOptimizer()`?
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Old 7th October 2007, 08:09   #7  |  Link
Dark Shikari
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Merlin7777 View Post
This certainly looks interesting. Do you mind if I ask were you go the 30% reduction numbers from? Just curious.

Unfortunately, I don't have any sources right now that would benefit from this filter, but as soon as I do, I will give it a try.

Unless you recommend using it on every single clip I might ever use?
The 30% reduction is the max I got on some very very grainy sources given to me by Didee and Cruncher. The highest-motion, highest-detail sources with the least areas of flat background gave almost no improvement or none at all.

Last edited by Dark Shikari; 7th October 2007 at 08:24.
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Old 7th October 2007, 09:23   #8  |  Link
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Huh. Good to know.

Theoretically, this might be a good filter for anime, no? They tend to have flat backgrounds and very little motion. I may have to try that out. I could also create some synthetic tests using addgrain() or something.
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Old 7th October 2007, 09:28   #9  |  Link
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@Dark Shikari
Thanks for the new filter.
With your filter in the AviSynth plug-in folder both VDub and avsFilmCutter crash without as much as a blink, wink or the famous request to phone home and tell mommy.

Both programs use
AVSValue = env->GetVar("$PluginFunctions$");
to load an AVSValue object full of the function names like "GrainOptimizer" and "GrainOpt_GrainOptimizer".

I am not much of a plug-in driver but as I remember it the trouble maybe in one of the following code examples.

Code:
// This is the function that created the filter, when the filter has been called.
// This can be used for simple parameter checking, so it is possible to create different filters,
// based on the arguments recieved.

AVSValue __cdecl Create_SimpleSample(AVSValue args, void* user_data, IScriptEnvironment* env) {
    return new SimpleSample(args[0].AsClip(),env);  
    // Calls the constructor with the arguments provied.
}


// The following function is the function that actually registers the filter in AviSynth
// It is called automatically, when the plugin is loaded to see which functions this filter contains.

extern "C" __declspec(dllexport) const char* __stdcall AvisynthPluginInit2(IScriptEnvironment* env) {
    env->AddFunction("SimpleSample", "c", Create_SimpleSample, 0);
    // The AddFunction has the following paramters:
    // AddFunction(Filtername , Arguments, Function to call,0);
    
    // Arguments is a string that defines the types and optional names of the arguments for you filter.
    // c - Video Clip
    // i - Integer number
    // f - Float number
    // s - String
    // b - boolean

    return "`SimpleSample' SimpleSample plugin";
    // A freeform name of the plugin.
}

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Old 7th October 2007, 11:00   #10  |  Link
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I can't get the dll to load at all.. I'm running WinXP SP2. Autoloading or LoadPlugin doesn't do the trick, with LoadPlugin I just get the error message "Cannot load grainopt.dll". When autoloading, the function GrainOptimizer is not available.
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Old 7th October 2007, 11:23   #11  |  Link
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Not working here either. The script loads in vdm, but when I try to scroll it crashes.
Been following the other thread about this filter and the examples seemed to be pretty good, especially considering x264 kinda detemporalizes the grain by itself at medium bitrates, so maybe this can do same thing while preventing other side effects x264 makes at medium quants (~21 and up).
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Old 7th October 2007, 11:24   #12  |  Link
Ebobtron
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Shikari
This filter is experimental--report bugs and cases where it creates problems here, but don't complain about it doing so!
Sorry didn't see that or more like notice before. Ok, I promise.

I thought I should note that in addition to my above remarks, that the filter seems to work fine for me when using "loadplugin". And yes it is very fast.

Last edited by Ebobtron; 7th October 2007 at 11:30.
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Old 7th October 2007, 11:32   #13  |  Link
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I forgot something: BOTH WIDTH AND HEIGHT HAVE TO BE MOD16, and I forgot to check for this

New version uploaded.

Last edited by Dark Shikari; 7th October 2007 at 11:41.
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Old 7th October 2007, 11:51   #14  |  Link
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The manifest seems to be missing from the .dll.

EDIT: or is it compressed? If so I'd suggest ditching the compression.

Last edited by squid_80; 7th October 2007 at 11:55.
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Old 7th October 2007, 11:57   #15  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by squid_80 View Post
The manifest seems to be missing from the .dll.

EDIT: or is it compressed? If so I'd suggest ditching the compression.
Its compressed using PECompact--whats the problem with it not having a manifest? It seems to load correctly.
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Old 7th October 2007, 12:03   #16  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Shikari View Post
It seems to load correctly.
Apparently not for the four people who have already reported having problems. What's it compiled with?
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Old 7th October 2007, 13:25   #17  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Shikari View Post
I forgot something: BOTH WIDTH AND HEIGHT HAVE TO BE MOD16
That's a severe limitation. It doesn't have to be that way.
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Old 7th October 2007, 19:35   #18  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neuron2 View Post
That's a severe limitation. It doesn't have to be that way.
No, it doesn't, but the algorithm requires it. The only way to get around it is basically to pad the sides or similar. I could have my filter simply pad the sides, do the algorithm, and then unpad the sides, of course.

Wait... quick question. In x264, when a video isn't mod16, does it pad all sides of the video or just one? The problem is that if the macroblocks in the video are off from what my filter thinks are the macroblocks, the filter will be drastically less effective.
Quote:
Originally Posted by squid_80 View Post
Apparently not for the four people who have already reported having problems. What's it compiled with?
VC++ 2005 Express.

I replaced it with a non-compacted version--try it out now.

Last edited by Dark Shikari; 7th October 2007 at 19:39.
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Old 7th October 2007, 20:04   #19  |  Link
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Thanks for the new filter. It seems promising.
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Old 7th October 2007, 20:37   #20  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Shikari View Post
I replaced it with a non-compacted version--try it out now.
Nope, still won't load
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