The power of Avisynth: restoring old 8mm films.

[cobo]

Okay - while "LOTS of money" is made behind the scenes via PM:p;), I'll continue publicly ...


Oh, that probably means you didn't use SRestore like it should in this case here. Above all, to use SRestore you don't start with TFM a/o TDecimate, but with a simple bob filter.

The following script:
mpeg2source("sample_(fpp).d2v")
o=last

o.bob(-.2,.6)
SRestore(frate=20.0)
requestlinear()
rest=last

calm = rest.temporalsoften(1,255,255,32,2).merge(rest,0.25)#.repair(rest,1).removegrain(11)
calm = calm.temporalsoften(1,255,255,16,2).merge(calm,0.25)

LOP = calm.bicubicresize(180,144).bicubicresize(720,576,1,0)
HIP = rest.bicubicresize(180,144).bicubicresize(720,576,1,0)
HIP = mt_makediff(rest,HIP)
mix = LOP.mt_adddiff(HIP,U=2,V=2)

sup1=rest.msuper(levels=1)
sup2=mix.removegrain(11).msuper()

bv2=sup2.manalyse(isb=true, delta=2,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)
bv1=sup2.manalyse(isb=true, delta=1,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)
fv1=sup2.manalyse(isb=false,delta=1,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)
fv2=sup2.manalyse(isb=false,delta=2,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)

rest.mdegrain2(sup1,bv1,fv1,bv2,fv2,thSAD=640)

produced the following result: <KLICK> (http://www.mediafire.com/?7hm4cn80y2k82ra) (MediaFire, ~10MB)


Script made up in five minutes (between mowing the lawn and watering the hedgerow). Surely not perfect, but seems like a good start.

BTW, I didn't use DCT=1 because I didn't have the time for that (DCT=1 is very slow with blocksize=8, and pretty much unusably-slow with other blocksizes). Hence, I did a manual flicker-removal for MVTools' search clip. Runs much faster.

Which part of the script is the manual flicker-removal? Is it the lines I've marked in red? I'd like to try it in a different situation where I've needed to use DCT=1 to get satisfactory results.

[fpp]

Hi all, everyone asleep ? :-)

Here is a question for recent contributors (John, Dirée, Gavino...) and especially for Fred (this is "his" topic after all :-)...

You have all been wonderfully helpful and patient with my barging into this topic in total ignorance, and helping me out with a problem that is related to Fred's original subject , but quite different in practice.

Now I would like to give back to this great community, and sum up all I've had explained to me or found using those clues, into something like a (hopefully) comprehensive "Howto"... just in case another newbie comes along some day, with exactly the same goal that I had : salvaging a botched transfer with only a DVD to work from :-)

The question is simply this : do I write this up right here, which would mean keeping everything "8mm related" in one place, but also more highjacking of Fred's topic, taking it further from its real intent ? Or would it be better to create a separate topic, linking back to this one in the introduction ?

I subscribed to Doom9 specifically to participate in this one topic, so I don't know how these things are done here -- or even *if* there is an agreed-upon way to do them :-)

Thanks for your opinions,
fp

Edit : PS - something fun and on-topic that came through my RSS feeds :
http://www.peaceman.de/blog/index.php/lego-technic-super-8-movie-projector
:-)

[videoFred]

The question is simply this : do I write this up right here, which would mean keeping everything "8mm related" in one place

I suggest to start a new thread because this one becomes pretty heavy. Then I will place a link in the first post of this thread. You can do the same in your thread. This way, people with 8mm transfers on VHS will not have to search this entire thread. And people with frame-to frame transfers will find their way to my thread. :)

Fred.

[fpp]

Sounds good, will do !
Thanks,
Fred

[amendegw]

All,

I'm a real newbie with AviSynth, so this might be a stupid question (on the other hand, that might make the answer easy).

In another forum, Johnmeyer referred me to the following script (authored by Didee, I believe). I made minor mods to fit my directory structure.

Loadplugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\MVTools\mvtools2.dll")
import("c:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\srestore.avs")

avisource("C:\Users\Jerry\Documents\Vegas Projects\Testing\WhiteSands\WhiteSands.avi").ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)

o=last

o.bob(-.2,.6)
SRestore(frate=17.36)
requestlinear()
rest=last

calm = rest.temporalsoften(1,255,255,32,2).merge(rest,0.25)#.repair(rest,1).removegrain(11)
calm = calm.temporalsoften(1,255,255,16,2).merge(calm,0.25)

LOP = calm.bicubicresize(180,144).bicubicresize(720,480,1,0)
HIP = rest.bicubicresize(180,144).bicubicresize(720,480,1,0)
HIP = mt_makediff(rest,HIP)
mix = LOP.mt_adddiff(HIP,U=2,V=2)

sup1=rest.msuper(levels=1)
sup2=mix.removegrain(11).msuper()

bv2=sup2.manalyse(isb=true, delta=2,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)
bv1=sup2.manalyse(isb=true, delta=1,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)
fv1=sup2.manalyse(isb=false,delta=1,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)
fv2=sup2.manalyse(isb=false,delta=2,blksize=16,overlap=8,DCT=5)

rest.mdegrain2(sup1,bv1,fv1,bv2,fv2,thSAD=640)

Since I'm starting from nearly ground zero with AviSynth, I've found that I've had to install numerous additional plugins & windows\system32 dll's to get the script to execute.

Now, I'm stuck now with the following error:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20447760/AviSynth-FFTW3-Error.png
I've found, downloaded & placed fftw3.dll in my windows/system32 folder, but there still seems to be a problem.

Here's my AviSynth plugin folder:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20447760/AviSynth-Plugins.png
I've spent about a hour with Google to no avail. Can anyone here help me out?

...Jerry

[Didée]

If you're on a 64-bit version of Win-7 (or Vista), you have to put fftw3.dll in the "windows/SysWow64" folder.

And you should *not* have *both* versions of mt_masktools in your Avisynth folder. Only the ..-25.dll if you're using Avisynth 2.5.x, or only ..-26.dll if you're using Avisynth 2.6.

[amendegw]

If you're on a 64-bit version of Win-7 (or Vista), you have to put fftw3.dll in the "windows/SysWow64" folder.

And you should *not* have *both* versions of mt_masktools in your Avisynth folder. Only the ..-25.dll if you're using Avisynth 2.5.x, or only ..-26.dll if you're using Avisynth 2.6.

Wunderbar! That fixed it. I'm now down to the last line of the script and get "Script error: there is no function named "mdegrain2" C:\Users\Jerry\Documents\Vegas
Projects\Testing\WhiteSands\deflicker.avs, line 29﴿"

...Jerry

[Didée]

That's strange. Mdegrain2 is part of MVTools2.dll, and your script is correctly importing that dll. Are you using a recent version of the dll, from avisynth.org.ru (http://avisynth.org.ru/mvtools/mvtools2.html)?

Uh, that server doesn't answer right now. What's the file date of your mvtools2.dll?


Edit: Here's a mirror of Fizick's latest MVTools2: v2.5.11.2 (http://www.mediafire.com/?35o8i667h62xdnt) - (unalterd original ZIP package)

[amendegw]

Yeah, when I couldn't connect to avisynth.org.ru I got downloaded mvtools2 elsewhere. Unfortunately, in the throws of gathering all the plugins I needed, I forget the source site. Here's some screen prints that might help:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20447760/mvtools2-details.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20447760/mvtools2-details2.png
If the solution isn't immediately apparent, I'll wait 'til avisynth.org.ru gets back online and download from there.

Thanks so much for your help. Once I get your script working, I'll report back with the results.

...Jerry

[fpp]

Hi folks,

I am *really* pleased -- and relieved -- to announce that I have just finished burning the first DVD of my "salvaging the botched transfer of Dad's Super 8 reels" project :-)

It has been just a bit over three weeks since my initial plea for help in this forum (5/5), which is a good deal less than I feared !

Actually, the relevant part (getting the AVIsynth script right, and re-encoding the source) was over on May 19th : the authoring took me a lot longer than I expected, because my previous experience was mostly with DV tape source, and did not serve me well with this new material. I had to find and learn new tools, like for encoding sound from external sources.

But all's well that ends well, and this is of course 100% thanks to the knowledgeable (and patient !) people in this thread, who put up with my silly questions and kept me busy with hints, code, explanations and support for all that time.

To John, Didée, Fred, Gavino & all the others, again, a thousand thanks !

Now that I've met this milestone, and have at least the first disk in stock for my father's birthday, I'm going to take a little break, hoping the second one will go much smoother... and meanwhile, work on keeping my promise : documenting the entire adventure in a specific thread, before it all slips out of my mind :-)

Here's to AVIsynth, Doom9 and its resident wizards,
Fred

[fpp]

In preparation for the new topic I needed some "before/after" video examples. To avoid readers having to download them I put them online on Vimeo, so you can look at them in the meantime :

http://vimeo.com/24361245 is the original clip from the DVD. It's the same scene I posted in my first message, only about 50% longer.

http://vimeo.com/24361560 is the result of my bespoke Avisynth script, that went on the new DVD I made for my father.

http://vimeo.com/24690815 is a side-by-side, before/after comparison -- added as suggested by John in the post below.
The clip on the left side is not *exactly* the same as the original above (in fact it is a bit better), but it still gets the message across :-)

[johnmeyer]

Great before/after comparison. If your editing software permits it, it is sometimes useful to do a split screen, either like VideoFred did in the Vimeo post in the first post in this thread, or else by showing the scene only once, but with the left side showing the "before" and the right side showing "after." This makes it much easier to get across the amazing difference between the original and the improved versions.

I look forward to reading which things you ended up doing. It looks like you did the excellent Didée flicker reduction, but may also have done a little color correction as well.

I am not at my main computer right now, and that computer has a properly calibrated monitor. On my laptop, however, your "after" shot still looks like it has too much contrast. If this is because of my uncalibrated monitor, then ignore the following suggestion. However, if others also think it is too contrasty, you might want to consider using one of several plugins and/or AVISynth functions to remedy that. These remedies have been discussed in earlier posts in this thread, and some are incorporated into VideoFred's script.

So, great job. I'm sure your dad must be thrilled!! I did this for my dad many years ago. He is gone now, but long before he died, he watched them all and I set up a microphone and recorded what he had to say about each scene. I then re-burned the DVDs, but with his audio track added. This may or may not be important for you, but I thought I'd mention it just in case you hadn't thought of it. I learned an amazing amount about each scene in each movie that neither I nor the rest of my family would have otherwise have known.

[amendegw]

Okay, I've got this script working thanks to Didée's reference to an MVtools2 mirror site.

Publicly, I'd like to say "thanks" to Didée and johnmeyer. This script is quite amazing!

Click here (http://www.jazzythedog.com/testing/whitesands.html) for my test. (I also did some color correction in Sony Vegas).

...Jerry

PS: I also learned I'm going to have to do a re-capture - some focus problems, etc. This was amateur 16mm color video captured in 1949!!!
PPS: I'm the kid with my Mom. Dad rolls down the sand dune - 62 years ago!

[johnmeyer]

This was amateur 16mm color video captured in 1949!!!Probably color film, not video.

[amendegw]

Probably color film, not video.Correct! I just had senior moment. Now a color "video" in 1949 would really be something.

...Jerry

[fpp]

Great before/after comparison. If your editing software permits it, it is sometimes useful to do a split screen, either like VideoFred did in the Vimeo post in the first post in this thread, or else by showing the scene only once, but with the left side showing the "before" and the right side showing "after." This makes it much easier to get across the amazing difference between the original and the improved versions.

Thanks for the compliment. Of course you know you played no small part in the achievement :-)

And you know what ? The split scene idea occurred to me just as I finished uploading the two separate clips... but it was a bit late at night to act upon it. I gave it a try this morning, thinking it would be child's play with Avisynth, but I hit a snag: the original is standard 25fps interlaced mpeg from DVD, while the processed clip is progressive, 19.75fps with pulldown. When I encode them side-to-side I get good synchronisation between the two, but whatever I try, the right one (processed) is much degraded with combed frames that are not supposed to be there... I'm a bit stumped about that.


I look forward to reading which things you ended up doing. It looks like you did the excellent Didée flicker reduction, but may also have done a little color correction as well.

Oh yes, I invented nothing, it's just a patchwork of various recipes from you guys, with due credit... The main issues were finding out what worked on such a bad source and what didn't, keeping the encoding time to something reasonable (about 10 for 1)... and knowing when to stop :-)
There are so many possibilities that one can spend ages trying them all out, tweaking this and that... and I didn't have forever. Besides, all this will probably have to be redone at some point, so it wasn't worthwhile.

I am not at my main computer right now, and that computer has a properly calibrated monitor. On my laptop, however, your "after" shot still looks like it has too much contrast. If this is because of my uncalibrated monitor, then ignore the following suggestion. However, if others also think it is too contrasty, you might want to consider using one of several plugins and/or AVISynth functions to remedy that. These remedies have been discussed in earlier posts in this thread, and some are incorporated into VideoFred's script.

Do tell me what you think when you get a chance to see it on the right monitor. This sounds like something I could add easily to the next batch, without increasing encoding time, but I don't have the trained eye and experience to evaluate it myself...

So, great job. I'm sure your dad must be thrilled!!

Thanks again. Well, he is thrilled... in anticipation, as his bday is later in June :-)
Actually they dropped by a fortnight ago on the return leg of a trip, and I showed him a few of the individual clips I'd just encoded. He was amazed at the difference, and much comforted. What he'll get with the full DVD is the authoring : menus, clips cut & reordered for a better narrative, title screens and relevant sound tracks...
(I forgot to say that the original transfer, adding insult to injury, had unbearable elevator music muxed in :-).

I did this for my dad many years ago. He is gone now, but long before he died, he watched them all and I set up a microphone and recorded what he had to say about each scene. I then re-burned the DVDs, but with his audio track added. This may or may not be important for you, but I thought I'd mention it just in case you hadn't thought of it. I learned an amazing amount about each scene in each movie that neither I nor the rest of my family would have otherwise have known.

What an amazing notion, it would never have occurred to me, thanks ! I will ask him if he'd like to do that, although sadly his memory is not what it used to be : when I questioned him about certain scenes while authoring, his answers were sometimes uncertain. But the value lies elsewhere, I guess...

[johnmeyer]

.. What an amazing notion, it would never have occurred to me, thanks ! I will ask him if he'd like to do that,I have posted many short clips of my film transfers. In most cases I stripped out my dad's narration, but FWIW, here is a short clip that includes him talking. You can decide if this sort of thing would be appropriate.

Oak Park and Chicago 1930 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2dcV7hUOJA&feature=channel_video_title)

[fpp]

I have posted many short clips of my film transfers. In most cases I stripped out my dad's narration, but FWIW, here is a short clip that includes him talking. You can decide if this sort of thing would be appropriate.
Oak Park and Chicago 1930 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2dcV7hUOJA&feature=channel_video_title)

Thanks John, I'll listen to that tonight.

I'm also "upping" my current question in the post above, which maybe got lost in the noise :

Anyone knows how I could create a side-by-side display of two clips, one a standard 25fps interlaced mpeg from DVD, and the other a progressive .m2v with 19.75/25 pulldown, without degrading the latter ?...

[fpp]

Well, that was enlightening. Beforehand I had trouble envisioning an off-voice monologue along the reel, but it turns out it's more like a conversation, with you and another person commenting and prompting him when he falters, and it's actually quite lively and authentic. Thanks for the idea !

And of course, I don't know how good the film was to begin with, but the quality of the picture you got out of it is unbelievable for something that ancient. "Chapeau" ! :-)

[johnmeyer]

De rien.

[fpp]

I suggest to start a new thread because this one becomes pretty heavy. Then I will place a link in the first post of this thread. You can do the same in your thread. This way, people with 8mm transfers on VHS will not have to search this entire thread. And people with frame-to frame transfers will find their way to my thread. :)
Fred.

As promised, the new topic is online :
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=161493

I tried to cram a lot of stuff inside, and may have gone a bit overboard.

Comments & suggestions welcome :-)

[fpp]

Hello !

Those scripts are really amazing !

What can I expect from a capture I made with a DV camera (shutter speed 1/50 s, the movie being played around 16,6 fps) ?

What should be added to the script ? (deinterlace, duplicate frame remover or something )

Aymeric,

Maybe this is a little bit late, but probably some of the notions explained in my new topic (see previous post) could be adapted to your case...

[fpp]

I finally gathered back some common sense and succeeded in making a side-by-side, before/after comparison, as suggested earlier by John:

http://vimeo.com/24690815

[clive18]

Hi.
I have been making nice progress with the script, thanks very much for this magical software.

My difficulty has come from the fact that some of my captures were done in 16:9 (wide screen) and some in "regular" 4:3 aspect ratio. After the script has run , I cannot get the wide screen captures to play in a wide format, so everyone looks thinner than they should be :)

The settings I am wondering about are on this line:
"W=720 H=576 #final size from the returned clip"

I was thinking maybe I need to change these setting for wide screen, but I am not sure.

Also what would one change these settings to if one were to capture in HD? 1920 X 1080 ? (planning for the future..:)

Any comments are welcome, and I appologise if this is a video newbie question.

regards
Clive

[videoFred]

The settings I am wondering about are on this line:
"W=720 H=576 #final size from the returned clip"

I was thinking maybe I need to change these setting for wide screen, but I am not sure.

Why do you not try it?

Fred.

[Pieter8mm]

Originally Posted by clive18
My difficulty has come from the fact that some of my captures were done in 16:9 (wide screen) and some in "regular" 4:3 aspect ratio. After the script has run , I cannot get the wide screen captures to play in a wide format, so everyone looks thinner than they should be

I got very nice footage to 16x9 with this script from Robert Martens. See his tutorial on;
http://www.gyroshot.com/simpleslug.htm

[2Bdecided]

The settings I am wondering about are on this line:
"W=720 H=576 #final size from the returned clip"For "PAL" DVD, all content is 720x576 (704x576, or, rarely, some lower resolution version). Whether it's displayed as 16x9 or 4x3 depends on a flag in the encoding, not the number of pixels - you must set the flag in your MPEG encoder (or hack it after encoding) - AVIsynth cannot set the flag in the AVI file because there is none to set.

For web use, it's usual to render square pixels - e.g. 768x576 for 4x3, 1024x576 for 16x9. The "NTSC" frame sizes are more usual on the web - e.g. 640x480 for 4x3 and 640x360 or something like 856x480 for 16x9. It's quite common to upscale to 1280x720 for YouTube to make it deliver higher quality, even if the original isn't HD.

Cheers,
David.

[mathmax]

I always have a problem with this script. Some frames are badly processed... colors are suddenly very dark. Please look:

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/5847/0000pfj.jpg
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/8166/0001ng.jpg

What is that problem?

[johnmeyer]

Make sure you crop the black borders before you feed the video to the script.

[mathmax]

indeed, I added the black borders before I applied the script. Does that cause the problem?

[johnmeyer]

indeed, I added the black borders before I applied the script. Does that cause the problem?
VideoFred may have to reply to this. It has been over a year since I posted all my suggestions and updates to his script, and I am now forgetting some of the things I found back then.

You will find that he temporarily adds a border before doing the Autolevels in order to "soften" (his words) the effect. I seem to remember that I played around with that quite a bit and ended up with something similar to what you posted, namely that a frame would suddenly go very dark, and then, a few frames later, the levels would "pop" back up to normal again.

I was initially using the script on 8mm film which is almost exactly square. Because of this, you end up with pillar borders when you capture and edit using a 4:3 aspect ratio. These pillars resulted in very bad things happening with the Depan motion stabilization, so I modified his script to permit you to remove them before submitting the video to the script, and then adding them back in as the last step. That solved the Depan problems, and seemed to make everything else in the script "happier."

If you look at my version of the script, posted in one of my first responses in this thread, and you'll see how I did that.

[mathmax]

VideoFred may have to reply to this. It has been over a year since I posted all my suggestions and updates to his script, and I am now forgetting some of the things I found back then.

You will find that he temporarily adds a border before doing the Autolevels in order to "soften" (his words) the effect. I seem to remember that I played around with that quite a bit and ended up with something similar to what you posted, namely that a frame would suddenly go very dark, and then, a few frames later, the levels would "pop" back up to normal again.

I was initially using the script on 8mm film which is almost exactly square. Because of this, you end up with pillar borders when you capture and edit using a 4:3 aspect ratio. These pillars resulted in very bad things happening with the Depan motion stabilization, so I modified his script to permit you to remove them before submitting the video to the script, and then adding them back in as the last step. That solved the Depan problems, and seemed to make everything else in the script "happier."

If you look at my version of the script, posted in one of my first responses in this thread, and you'll see how I did that.
In fact, I have the same problem with MDegrain2() or MVDegrainMulti() isolated in a script.. the error seem to come from these functions...

[videoFred]

You will find that he temporarily adds a border before doing the Autolevels in order to "soften" (his words) the effect.

Yes, I did this because the original Autolevels was far from perfect. Frustum has tracked a colorspace bug in this filter and he has fixed this. His modified version of Autolevels is working pretty good now. He has added lots of new parameters also. The autolevels effect can now be limited with output_high and output_low. So there is no reason anymore now to add borders before processing.

I have my new scripts ready, the are all using the modified autolevels filter. I have also improved the stabilizing and the sharpening. And I have made a new helpfile.

Upload is coming soon :)

Fred.

[mathmax]

Yes, I did this because the original Autolevels was far from perfect. Frustum has tracked a colorspace bug in this filter and he has fixed this. His modified version of Autolevels is working pretty good now. He has added lots of new parameters also. The autolevels effect can now be limited with output_high and output_low. So there is no reason anymore now to add borders before processing.

I have my new scripts ready, the are all using the modified autolevels filter. I have also improved the stabilizing and the sharpening. And I have made a new helpfile.

Upload is coming soon :)

Fred.
videoFred, your script is very nice.. but unfortunatly I always have the error I mentioned before on some frames when I use it.. Any idea of the problem?

[videoFred]

videoFred, your script is very nice.. but unfortunatly I always have the error I mentioned before on some frames when I use it.. Any idea of the problem?

No, I have no idea. Never have seen this kind of error before. You are using my script on video, right? It's not made for this... There are other solutions for video.

Fred.

[mathmax]

No, I have no idea. Never have seen this kind of error before. You are using my script on video, right? It's not made for this... There are other solutions for video.

Fred.
well.. no matter the source. I always get this error when I perform the script. I'm pretty sure it comes from MVAnalyseMulti() cause I got the same kind of error on scripts containing that function
Maybe it's a problem with the DLL.. is that function part of mvtools 2?

[videoFred]

Maybe it's a problem with the DLL.. is that function part of mvtools 2?

No, MVTools2 is from Fizick and it's used in the script for the interpolation only.

MVAnalyseMulti() is part of -guess what- :) MVToolsMulti. MVToolsMulti is a modified version of the original MVTools. The dll is named MVTools.dll. Perhaps it would be better to rename it to MVToolsMulti.dll.


But there are several MVToolsMulti dll files, optimised for different computer systems. I just took the one that was working on all my computers. XP and Vista, I have not checked the script on Win7 yet.

Anyhow, you will find all these versions in the 'Source' directory of the package. Perhaps another dll will solve your problem. Be careful because they all have the same name: MVTools.dll.

Fred.

[mathmax]

No, MVTools2 is from Fizick and it's used in the script for the interpolation only.

MVAnalyseMulti() is part of -guess what- :) MVToolsMulti. MVToolsMulti is a modified version of the original MVTools. The dll is named MVTools.dll. Perhaps it would be better to rename it to MVToolsMulti.dll.


But there are several MVToolsMulti dll files, optimised for different computer systems. I just took the one that was working on all my computers. XP and Vista, I have not checked the script on Win7 yet.

Anyhow, you will find all these versions in the 'Source' directory of the package. Perhaps another dll will solve your problem. Be careful because they all have the same name: MVTools.dll.

Fred.
Indeed I didn't have this problem when working in XP. I'm on win 7 now. My processor is a core i5 but I removed the call to SetMTMode() to process the script on a single thread.. maybe that causes a problem.

The dll are all from 2008.. aren't there new version? Which one do you think I should use?

[videoFred]

The dll are all from 2008.. aren't there new version? Which one do you think I should use?

I do not know. Try them all :p

MVToolsMulti() is from Josey_Wells and you will find it in the MVTools thread around page 50. As far as I know there are no newer versions.

Fred.

[clive18]

Thanks Pieter8mm and 2Bdecided for your feedback regarding my widescreen capture. Its a bit strange that wide screen SD is the same resolution as 4:3 in SD. The pixels are actually rectangular, giving it the extra width.

I have decided to recapture in normal 4:3 aspect ratio as I now realise that by capturing in widescreen I have effectively reduced the number of vertical pixel resolution by 30%.

Thanks again
regards
Clive

[stoffal]

I am playing around with the 8mm script for some months now. It is AMAZING how many details and image quality it provides on my 50 years old material (I have never seen my grandpa that sharp! ;-)

I am wondering what codec you all use to output the processed video? Uncompressed? A special Photo-JPG? Xvid H264?

Like many of you, I am first processing the script and then edit the videos into one final movie in Premiere or FinalCut. So: What is your prefered codec to output 8mm from Fred's script?

[fpp]

All I know is that VideoFred's homemade machine outputs 1024 x 768 AVI, using the huffyuv codec :
http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/huffyuv.html

I am guessing his Avisynth scripts output to the same format to avoid losing quality in the editing step.
After that the result can be encoded according to whichever media you want : DVD, AVCHD, etc.

[videoFred]

Hello all,

I have done many tests, lately.

But let's begin with the codec issue. The output from my machine vision camera is 1024x768 BY8. This is an uncompressed, not debayered format. The debayering is done on the fly by the capturing software. Then, I can select a codec for saving the files. On my old 34bits XP machine, I was using Huffyuv for this. But now I have a new 8-core 64 bits machine and Huffyuv is not working on this machine. But I have plenty of HD space, so I capture in uncompressed RGB for now.

Now, about Avisynth:
---------------------------
The output of an Avisynth script is always uncompressed, no matter the input. The color space is the one we have specified in the script. The output of my filmscript is uncompressed YV12. This is what VDub will save in direct stream modus.

About resolution and aspect ratio:
----------------------------------------
I just got myself a new Sony Bravia TV. Full HD, 40".
Guess what: there's no need for software upscaling, the TV takes care of that.
It looks like the internal hardware upscaling is very good on these new flatscreens.
I can play standard 720x576 PAL files on my TV in full 1080p, with very good quality.
Those files are relative small in size and they can be streamed straight from my PC to my TV.
The TV is connected to the home network.(wifi). Great for testing purposes, no more DVD burning.
I had to install PS3 Media Server on my PC, this tool makes the files suitable for streaming.

Of cource everything is 16:9 these days. Film was 4:3. 720x576 is not exactly 4:3 so 768x576 is better.
We can do two things: adding borders left and right (pillarbox), or cropping to 16:9.
768x576 cropped to 16:9 is 768x432.

Those 768x432 files are playing fine in full 1080p HD on the Sony flatscreen.
I have done some tests with true 720p (1280x720) files and the difference is minor.

About frame rates:
----------------------
Regular-8 was captured in 16fps, Super-8 in 18fps.
Standard frame rates for HD are 25, 50 and 60fps.
Scenes with fast moving objects can be converted to 25fps with frame blending.
But if you like smooth panning and zooming, frame interpolation is the way to go.
Super-smooth playing can be archieved by frame interpolation from 16 or 18 to 50fps.

Many greetings from a sunny Belgium, :cool:
Fred.

[fpp]

Thanks for the (many) corrections Fred, I was way off-base :-)

Good news about the new TV ! I also have a 40" Sony, I must also try the upscaling on it.

Greetings from sunny (for once) Paris :-)

[johnmeyer]

I agree with all of VideoFred's comments and suggestions posted above, but I would like to propose an alternative to the frame blending or frame interpolation.

The first alternative is to do nothing. Save the file at 16, 18, or (for sound film) 24 fps. Then, play this file back directly on the big screen TV. My TV lets me plug in a thumb drive and play most video files directly from that.

The second alternative is to add hard pulldown by duplicating fields using a simple script something like this (if you are making an NTSC DVD):
assumefps(18)
changefps(59.94)
separatefields()
selectevery(4,0,3)
weave()
I do like the smoother playback you can get from frame blending or frame interpolation that VideoFred recommends, but I do not like the fact that you introduce some level of distortion. Blended frames are fuzzy, and interpolated frames (using MVTools2) can be distorted. Yes, I understand that the old-fashioned pulldown fields mean that the film will exhibit judder during camera pans, and these pans are unfortunately much more prevalent on amateur film than professionally shot "Hollywood" films. However, that is what film looks like.

This is strictly an "artistic" decision, and each person needs to decide which "look" they prefer. I am posting just so everyone understands what alternatives are available.

[edit]Added "Weave()" at the end of the above script.

[Baxich]

Then, I can select a codec for saving the files. On my old 34bits XP machine, I was using Huffyuv for this. But now I have a new 8-core 64 bits machine and Huffyuv is not working on this machine. But I have plenty of HD space, so I capture in uncompressed RGB for now.
There are several lossless options on 64-bit OS's - for example Lagarith (comes in 32 and 64-bit versions in the same package - http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html) and ffdshow's FFV1 (http://www.free-codecs.com/ffdshow_download.htm - different installation package for 32 or 64-bit versions - you can actually install both).

FFV1 has somewhat better compression than Lagarith (both of these codecs have better compression than Huffyuv), but doesn't work with some apps (and I think is slower), so I combine them - whenever I can I use FFV1, but if incompatibility arrises, I use Lagarith.

[videoFred]

The second alternative is to add hard pulldown by duplicating fields using a simple script something like this (if you are making an NTSC DVD):
assumefps(18)
changefps(59.94)
separatefields()
selectevery(4,0,3)


As usual, thank you for your input, John! :)
You have forgotten weave() at the end of your script :p

You are creating interlacing with this script. It might be a good alternative for frame blending. I will test it for sure.

Can you explain some more please? I do not have any experience with separatefields() and selectevery().
And how do I change this to go from 18fps to 25fps PAL?

Fred.

[Gargamel]

Hi everybody,

Thank you for all these infos.

About codecs...
Capturing in SD mode, my original clips come out from the cam with the old DVSD codec.
Then, as long as I works using VirtualDub and AviSynth, I remain strictly in uncompressed RGB, till the point where the video is given to my NLE software for editing and burning.
But each capture clip (or some important intermediate video) is archived using the last Lagarith codec, which saves a lot of Gb... and many Gb usually make some Tb in the end...

Try it out a bit, Fred: Lagarith likes 64bit and multicore ;-)

Have a nice day !

[videoFred]

Try it out a bit, Fred: Lagarith likes 64bit and multicore ;-)


Ok, I will try it out. Thank you both for the hint, Gargamel and Baxich!

Fred.

[videoFred]

Good news about the new TV ! I also have a 40" Sony, I must also try the upscaling on it.

A Bravia, a smart TV? Then you can connect it to your home network, right? Then you realy must try PS3 media server. The Sony can not read to many codecs, only mpeg2 and h264. PS3 media server is transcoding everything (in real time) so the Sony can read it. I can even stream uncompressed RGB and YV12 this way. :)


Fred.