Anyone got any advice or special filters for Laserdisc captures?

[Mug Funky]

this isn't a format i have to deal with often (in fact this'll be the first), so i was wondering if anyone had any advice concerning LD capture.

i've already figured a few things out myself:

- you need a really good comb filter, especially if the source is very sharp.

- you need to remove a fair bit of ghosting around edges (sorted - mt_convolution is really quite handy).

now, there's some motion smearing that i'm not sure how to deal with. i've already got an encode going where everything is sorted but the motion smearing, so i'll use that if there's no good solution.

what i mean by motion smearing is it appears each frame will have an image of the previous and next frame on it (particularly the edges... perhaps there's some high-passing going on?). static scenes look superb - as good as DVD really, which is a hell of a surprise from a digital elitist like me. but motion scenes go quite blurry in comparison, and it can be quite ugly.

is this just something i'll have to put up with? sort of a consequence of having a cheaper player (still pretty good) and a disc with quite a lot packed on it? i know vinyl has a sort of print-through between grooves, especially if the playing time is long. is laserdisc the same?

okay, that's probably enough for now :) i can post a script and probably a sample of the NTSC capture later on.

btw, disc is "Street Fighter II", the anime, japanese edition. it's brand new (got it in 2 weeks ago). disc is CLV, if that makes a difference.

[Chainmax]

You're one of the Pros around here so there's not much I can tell you, but you might want to consider checking out the OriginalTrilogy forums (http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/index.cfm), as there are many people doing LaserDisc backups in there.

[Didée]

A thought on that "motion smearing": if it's mostly the edges of neighbor frames that shine through, perhaps try the following:

apply a "temporal sharpener", i.e. just the inverse of a temporal smoother. Then highpass both the original and the processed, and check the following to decide if and what to keep of that temporal sharpening:
(po = original pixel, highpassed / pp = processed pixel, highpassed)

(po-128)*(pp-128) >= 0 ? abs(pp-128) > abs(po-128) ? po : pp : 128

... and apply back to the related lowpass. Generally this should work, but it'll definetly need some more tweaking and fiddling. ;)

[kai0n7]

this isn't a format i have to deal with often (in fact this'll be the first), so i was wondering if anyone had any advice concerning LD capture.

i've already figured a few things out myself:

- you need a really good comb filter, especially if the source is very sharp.

- you need to remove a fair bit of ghosting around edges (sorted - mt_convolution is really quite handy).

now, there's some motion smearing that i'm not sure how to deal with. i've already got an encode going where everything is sorted but the motion smearing, so i'll use that if there's no good solution.

what i mean by motion smearing is it appears each frame will have an image of the previous and next frame on it (particularly the edges... perhaps there's some high-passing going on?). static scenes look superb - as good as DVD really, which is a hell of a surprise from a digital elitist like me. but motion scenes go quite blurry in comparison, and it can be quite ugly.

is this just something i'll have to put up with? sort of a consequence of having a cheaper player (still pretty good) and a disc with quite a lot packed on it? i know vinyl has a sort of print-through between grooves, especially if the playing time is long. is laserdisc the same?

okay, that's probably enough for now :) i can post a script and probably a sample of the NTSC capture later on.

btw, disc is "Street Fighter II", the anime, japanese edition. it's brand new (got it in 2 weeks ago). disc is CLV, if that makes a difference.

I've done a fair amount of LD capture, almost exclusively anime, over the past few years, and the one thing I know for sure is that it almost completely dependant upon your player as to the amount of smearing/noise will be in the picture. Good luck getting rid of it once its there...

Cross talk between tracks is probably the main thing that's causing smearing, though if your player has noise reduction capabilities then that could be a factor as well.

A little information about your capture setup, like the player make and model, would be helpful.

Kai

[Mug Funky]

ah yeah, i'm a n00b and forgot to post the vital stats on my equipment... whoops...

LD player: Sony MDP-V1

there's also another available, but it's output is nearly useless- waaay too much noise, so much so that it looks like a lossy gif animation. colours are bad in it too.

the MDP-V1 is fairly recent - it plays VCDs too :). it has "picture enhance" on it, but i didn't see any difference with it on or off, even on a broadcast monitor in "blue only" mode (noise and composite artefacts show up very clearly in blue mode). it could well have caused some of the smears though. output was composite, fed into a DVD recorder (Pioneer, i forget the model, but it's quite new and has an incredible comb filter in it).

re-capturing is pretty much out of the question - it was enough hassle borrowing the DVD recorder from my parents (we've got a Brighteye 2 analog to SDI converter, but it badly sucks at composite. i'm putting the case for getting a brighteye 3...).

@ Didée: once i understand what you mean i'll give it a shot :) however, i've already done an encode and it looks okay. could be better, but it's still better than the US, UK and Japanese DVD releases, so i've done my bit :)

[scharfis_brain]

I do analogue captures with a SAA7134 Philips-Chip based TV-Card.
Its inbuilt combfilter is damngood.

Sowhy aren't you trying the PC-solution using such a card?

[Didée]

@ Didée: once i understand what you mean i'll give it a shot :)
Hmh, the verbose version got tooo long, so here's the short version:

(Taking TemporalSoften() as an example for a generic temporal smoother)

- a weak TemporalSoften() only smears "flat" areas, and won't touch "edges"
- stronger TemporalSoften() might weaken existing edges, and produce "ghost edges" in formerly flat areas

Assumption: when applying a strong TemporalSoften() on the ghosty source, the ghost edges should become even stronger.
If so, then the inverse of TemporalSoften() should *weaken* the ghost edges.

So, the inverse of TemporalSoften basically is what is needed ... but not everywhere. It should be applied only in those places where:

[current frame's pixel is not on an edge / is on a very weak edge]
AND [neighbor frame's pixel is on a stronger edge]
AND [TemporalSharpen made the edge-value of current frame's pixel smaller]

I would have cooked something instead of just babbling 'bout the recipe ... cooker and pot I have, but alas, nothing to put into the pot ... :p

[kai0n7]

ah yeah, i'm a n00b and forgot to post the vital stats on my equipment... whoops...

LD player: Sony MDP-V1

there's also another available, but it's output is nearly useless- waaay too much noise, so much so that it looks like a lossy gif animation. colours are bad in it too.

the MDP-V1 is fairly recent - it plays VCDs too :). it has "picture enhance" on it, but i didn't see any difference with it on or off, even on a broadcast monitor in "blue only" mode (noise and composite artefacts show up very clearly in blue mode). it could well have caused some of the smears though. output was composite, fed into a DVD recorder (Pioneer, i forget the model, but it's quite new and has an incredible comb filter in it).

re-capturing is pretty much out of the question - it was enough hassle borrowing the DVD recorder from my parents (we've got a Brighteye 2 analog to SDI converter, but it badly sucks at composite. i'm putting the case for getting a brighteye 3...).


Well, you probably won't like what I have to say, but I have to say it anyway. There simply is no such thing as a good Sony LD player, aside from their C1 and C2EX MUSE decks. So right there, you're facing an uphill battle with higher amounts of luma and chroma noise. You definitely did the right thing by using the composite out to capture so you could take advantage of what is probably a much better comb/noise reduction filter on your capture hardware.

If its a Pioneer DVD recorder you are outputting to, it probably uses a 3D Y/C filter. Normally, this is a big plus... unless you can't adjust it's settings. Even the best 3D filters will smear if they're set too aggressively, and lower quality filters will smear at even low to normal levels. This is most likely where the artifacts you see were introduced... aside from any that may have made it into the disc when the video was originally mastered.

From a low-cost standpoint, you can pick up a PC capture card with a competant 3D filter in it... I personally use an ATI 550 based card. The quality of the filter it uses is excellent, and even though it is an MPEG-2 card, the compression is bypassed if you capture in Vdub. It will still make use of its 16meg frame buffer though, which completely eliminates the potential for frame drops.

From there you can Deinterlace or IVTC it, and then deal with noise reduction/cropping/resizing/whatever.

If you're actually looking to make an investment, or feel the need to collect cool and obscure champaign colored AV equipment, buy a new player that either features exceptionally low noise without DVNR, a 3D comb filter, or both.

Kai

[Mug Funky]

hmm.. a lot of those things aren't options unfortunately.

the comb filter is 3d and adjustable (the video setup menus on that pioneer are actually more comprehensive than a lot of pro equipment - i'm quite impressed by it :)). i may have adjusted it too high, however - i set it so i couldn't see any crawls in "blue only" mode - it was 1 "notch" above half way, if you get what i mean. i didn't set any of the other NR features in the DVD recorder because i can do a much better job in avisynth...

as far as capping uncompressed, it doesn't really worry me - the noise from the disc/player (i read that CLV discs have more issues with this than CAV discs) exceeds the MPEG-2 noise by a fair margin, and doing the capture twice helps cancel a lot of the remaining noise of both flavours. the DVD recorder was on it's highest setting - LPCM audio, and video that varies between 7mbps and 9mbps (average 7.8 or so). that's plenty :)

an ATI 550 sounds like a good idea, though i doubt i'll have time for it on this particular project. i might try out Didée's temporal sharpening idea though. as it is now, the script i'm running on this material is already very slow indeed. in fact to get an encode out of it in reasonable time, i had to split it into 5 chunks and run it on 5 computers (then leave for the weekend).

i'll see if i can get it together to post a sample :)

[VWRacer]

I'm going to resurect my Pioneer LD players this weekend to do transfers of some of my library to DVD. I'm planning on doing some transfer testing, and your input will give me something to look for Meg. I was only going to use the SVHS outputs on the players, but now, will probably run some test with the RCA output as well.

After fine tuning my capture on the computer, I am also planning on running tests with my Panasonic standalone recorder. I may wind up with a whole can of worms, but that's how we learn.

I agree, Sony never made a decent LD player, which is why I went with the Pioneer.

Racer :cool:

[Chainmax]

Mug Funky, have you considered trying to find a Pioneer LD-V8000 on eBay or at Kurtis Bahr's website? Those players are supposed to be some of the best ones short of the HLD-X# series.

[Ollie W. Holmes]

Mug Funky, have you considered trying to find a Pioneer LD-V8000 on eBay or at Kurtis Bahr's website? Those players are supposed to be some of the best ones short of the HLD-X# series.

I concur very strongly. When I was backing up the Star Wars Trilogy onto dvd-r, this was the player I used. My dvd recorder was the Panasonic DMR-HS2, which has excellent 3D Y/C circuitry. (Of course, this is a moot point since SW IV-VI are on dvd). Ideally, I would have liked to experiment with component video recording, using a Sony MPU-F100 and one of the Phillips dvd+rw recorders. This might give the best picture possible, for a standalone recording setup.

Has anyone tried capturing to a dvcam tape and inputting this in the traditional way into a NLE?

[chipzoller]

I recently purchased (but have not received) an ATI 550 Theatre Pro and wondered what y'all heard or experienced?
Is there some software (vdub, virtualvcr) that won't allow the mpeg2 compression to work?

[EDIT] I see from above that when used in vDub the mpeg2 compression is bypassed.
In this case, is it fine to just use huffyuv or something to capture full frame size the card allows losslessly?

Scharfis_brain, if you know of this, how do you think it compares to your card as far as the comb filter?

Anything you guys know or have heard about it is appreciated.

I also bought a used desktop editor S-VHS with full-field TBC (Panasonic AG-1980) and am going to start a small capturing business and so am interested in anything capturing right now.

[Mounir]

I recently purchased (but have not received) an ATI 550 Theatre Pro and wondered what y'all heard or experienced?
Is there some software (vdub, virtualvcr) that won't allow the mpeg2 compression to work?

[EDIT] I see from above that when used in vDub the mpeg2 compression is bypassed.
In this case, is it fine to just use huffyuv or something to capture full frame size the card allows losslessly?

Scharfis_brain, if you know of this, how do you think it compares to your card as far as the comb filter?

Anything you guys know or have heard about it is appreciated.

I also bought a used desktop editor S-VHS with full-field TBC (Panasonic AG-1980) and am going to start a small capturing business and so am interested in anything capturing right now.

what you mean "bypassed"?

mpg2 color distribution standard is "YV12"

Captures cards can encode in any well known color distribution YUY2,RGB(16,24),YV12,YVU9

virtualdub for editing matters, i guess,use the RGB format since every computer screen work in this format that's understandable.

EXCEPT for the FAST RECOMPRESS MODE

so i guess if you use an avisynth script without vdub filters,everything is good :)