FFT3d plugin With DVD Rebuilder

[SuLyMaN]

Hi everybody. I've been reading about plugins that DVD Rebuilder accepts to enhance video quality. (I didnot know about it before)

Originally Posted by blutach
That FFT3D is magnificent output. I'd never play with the brightness though.

Regards

bluatch posted this and made me wonder....How does I use this plugin with DVD-Rebuilder?
What is its usage?
And how does it enhance my output?

A search to the FFT3D here only yielded results in the Avisynth forums...

Thnks for inputs :)

[Susana]

Options tab/Filter Editor

It allows you to use avisynth filters within dvd-rb that will be applied to video segments.

[steptoe]

You're better off reading about AviSynth, its not an easy product to master and the sheer number of plugins and options associated with plugins is mind blowing, basically to get the absolute best out of the plugins each projects needs to be treated on its own

Its not a case of load a plugin and you'll get great results, well it can be but its never that easy. AviSynth is incredibly powerful at what it does and the end results can be truly amazing when compared to the horrible sources I have seen improved on

There are entire forums that cater for nothing but AviSyth is such a complex piece of software

http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=33


Also, regardless how good the filter is they WILL reduce the quality of the final video.. That why the more complex filter functions give better end results. They use a combination of filters to work on specific parts or areas of the source video and then apply more filters or functions to try and replace what was lost when filtering. If you have a very noisy source then its upto the user to decide just how much quality they want to lose

If its just scratches or bad noise from very old films then you'll get impressive results, a lot of filters are written with anime in mind so work best with animation or cartoons

I've used RemoveNoiseMC with very good resulst with old B&W Laurel and Hardy DVDs to remove some noise and the damage from scratches and white spots without destroying the 'feel' of the film and making it much more watchable with definately improved quality and sharpness



Try these links, a couple are functions that I do use and give very good results with screenshots to sho what you get, but patience is needed. Time is not an issue with the guys that write these. Final quality is what counts

AviSynth Wiki - Very good starting point

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Main_Page

RemoveNoiseMC - Complex function that removes scratches, dirt, dust, 'noise', but look at the before and after screenshots to seewhat it can achieve

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=110078

MCSpuds - Another even more complex function that uses motion compensation to remove just the stuff you want

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/MC_Spuds

And this is what is possible with MC_Spuds, but this is an extreme example as what can be achieved

http://img138.imageshack.us/my.php?image=frames46aaq7.jpg



Filter functions take a lot of the hard work out of what needs doing, but these are complex and getting them to work 100% with DVD-RB can be a nightmare, so I have my own method of getting them to work

Basically once I have each function working as it should and all associated plugins work, they are then kept in their own directory with each plugin specific to each function contained in it as well, and backed up so I don't lose what I did to get it to work

Yes, it leads to a lot of duplicated plugins, but it keeps things neat and you know 100% that it will work, some functions and plugins will ONLY work with very specific versions of each other, my method avoid this problem

Also it means you don't have a huge directory full of filters and not having a clue what is what and what versions you have ... I learnt this the hard way

Then you 'simply' load the script that is also in the function directory and it will then work as all the hard work has already been done in getting it to work

Bear in mind most filter functions are very very slow as they call a lot of complex filters and functions, even on a dual core AMD 6000+ running at 3.1ghz with 4GB of memory, I get about 7-10FPS on a good day using both cores and HC encoder running on best quality and MT filter to squeeze as much as possible out of the CPU

Video encoding is when you need as much power as possible, which is why I'm looking at upgrading to an Intel Q6600 quad core at some point

With a full DVD encode with filtering you're looking at least 1-2 days per DVD, but again this is the extreme

[blutach]

Gee, I'm not sure I said that - I've not used FFT3D and I really don't like to second guess the people who made the source.

Regards

[steptoe]

If you want to try FFT3D then click these links, and it will download the required filters from the AviSynth filter site

http://avisynth.org/warpenterprises/files/fft3dfilter_20070220.zip
http://avisynth.org/warpenterprises/files/fftw3_20040130.zip

Copy the FFT3DFilter.dll from the fft3dfilter zip to your AviSynth plugins folder and you must copy the file fftw3.dll from the fftw3 zip to your windows/system32 folder or the filter WILL fail as it needs that 2nd .dll to run

You can usually find this in your C:\Windows\System32\

If using explorer you'll get a message saying its hidden, just click okay and it will magically appear

To call it from DVD-RB Pro, go to the options/filter editor and add the following lines

LoadPlugin("xxxxxxx\FFT3DFilter.dll")
fft3dfilter(sigma=1.5, bt=5, bw=32, bh=32, ow=16, oh=16, sharpen=0.4)


Where xxxxxxx is the location of your avisynth plugins folder

EG

Mine is :

E:\Video\AviSynth\Plugins\

So on mine it would be :

LoadPlugin("E:\Video\AviSynth\Plugins\FFT3DFilter.dll")

Yes, I am aware that the filters should autoload from the plugins directory, but thats what caused me major headaches when I first tried avisynth with DVD-RB Pro. Once I got avisynth to load the individual filters and scripts instead of assuming it was loading them I have had no problems since. Just another quirk of avisynth with other software



The filter settings are taken from the filter manual as suggested 'best' settings, which basically tries to get the best from the video overall. It may need changing to get the best from yours

If you get confused or the filter fails with some weird error, I'll try to help


You'll know if it works as the FPS in HC encoder or CCE will be really low, if somethings wrong the FPS will be very very fast, so if possible its better to test the filter with a very small video clip. I try about 10 seconds to start with until I know the filter or function I'm trying works, that way it doesn't take long to process in DVD-RB if its not working right or you need to change some filter settings


I did say it wasn't easy to get to grips with AviSynth ...... But once you get the hang of it, it can achieve amazing results, but time is not an issue with a lot of things it can do

[steptoe]

If you want to get really adventurous and try the very complex motion filters and functions I have them on my system already so I know they work perfectly, but just very very slowly

Let me know and I'll explain exactly how to install them, without all the grief I had trying to work out why they kept failing and my method to stop filter headaches clashing with incorrect versions

[zacoz]

Gee, I'm not sure I said that - I've not used FFT3D and I really don't like to second guess the people who made the source.

Regards

I recall the post Blu - I can't recall the forum/thread it was in though. You were simply commenting regarding some specific before and after screenshots that had been posted by someone. It seems to have been taken out of context here as general recommendation/support for the filter on a broad range of sources however.

[blutach]

Ah OK. Thanks ZacOZ.

Regards

[linx05]

A quick google search brings up this thread post: http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=320785#post320785

... back in 2005. Gee time flies!

[SuLyMaN]

Thanks for the replies guys....Yes DVD RB kept failing to find the "fftw3.dll". I will copy it in the windows system directory and report. I am seriously trying to correct seriously grainy DVDs made from VHS captures (about 130 of them) and it is really very noisy and 'mosquito like'. It has occasional slight flickers and the bottom part of all the videos have got like 5 pixels height of garbage data that needs to be trimmed. Ill post a screen shot of the picture tomorrow.

@steptoe: Thanks for your help mate. Ill probably need it :)

[SuLyMaN]

@steptoe/Any knowledgeable user:

Here is the kind of film quality that I want to filter.
http://dodownload.filefront.com/10606479//0c5ed16d53d91abc91323215f9aab6cc9a6a4414d11e7bc346e721742f2ccc83c7f2d9ee0f6bbff3

How to setup appropriate filters in DVD-RB to filter such noisy images? Thnks :)

[steptoe]

Try posting on here

http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=33


They are very very helpful and frequently write scripts for your problems or as a good starting point and ideas on where to go next