cleaning up a grainy, non-anamorphic video (samples included)

[zee944]

Please give me a few suggestions for cleaning up this video. I have to resize it and I'd like to add some sharpness to it, but when I do that it becomes extremly noisy, so I guess I can't get away without some noisefiltering before it.

What I see so far:
1. some signs of interlacing even after doing IVTC;
3. macro blocks;
4. rainbow / random color noise;
5. grain.

What would be a good approach to handle these problems without making the image plastic?

On the frame samples there's some sharpness added to make the faults more obvious. Here are two unprocessed samples:
http://www.mediafire.com/?9esdgjmxxmm (24 Mbytes, .m2v + .d2v + .avs file)
http://www.mediafire.com/?yyid1jzqz2w (12 Mbytes, .m2v + .d2v + .avs file)

Thank you for any help in advance :)


http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w286/zee944/TD_Universe_sample_01_sharpened-1.jpg
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w286/zee944/TD_Universe_sample_02_sharpened-1.jpg
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w286/zee944/TD_Universe_sample_03_sharpened-1.jpg
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w286/zee944/TD_Universe_sample_04_sharpened-1.jpg

[Inspector.Gadget]

All DVD content is anamorphic, if you're feeling pedantic :D

[shoopdabloop]

If the movie was anamorphic, the final width would be something like 852, no?

[Keiyakusha]

No. Final size is up to you. Your TD_Univerce_sample_2 is anamorphic with 4x3 aspect ratio. So if you want to keep width 704 (cropped 720), after cropping black borders final height should be resized to something like 310 to keep right aspect ratio

310 - is just an example and its not a good number to use

[manono]

If the movie was anamorphic, the final width would be something like 852, no?
He was being pedantic and just meant it wasn't 1:1 - just meant it's distorted in this 720x480 resolution. Yes, it's widescreen 4:3 and not 16:9.

Most people use the term 'anamorphic' when referring to DVDs to mean a 16:9 DAR, but that's not its 'real' meaning.

[Undead Sega]

wait a sec, havent i seen this kind of thread before?

i must admit though, being a Jackie Chan fan, that is a bad DVD source of Twin Dragons u have there, why didnt u go for the Fortune Star version of the film?

[zee944]

wait a sec, havent i seen this kind of thread before?

i must admit though, being a Jackie Chan fan, that is a bad DVD source of Twin Dragons u have there, why didnt u go for the Fortune Star version of the film?

There were other threads with the same movie, but with different problems. I have all the DVD releases. The Fortune Star version is worse. Fieldblended, cleaned up to plastic look, and edge enhanced to death.

[Ghitulescu]

I'm not sure if it's 16:9 seems more 2.35:1 ;)
You removed the mating and stretched the image to a PAR of 1:1 (computer screen). It's difficult to guess what frame was used ....

[zee944]

No suggestions at all, guyz? :( What did I wrong?

[*.mp4 guy]

No suggestions at all, guyz? :( What did I wrong?

You didn't do anything wrong, your source just ins't fixable.

it was captured from film, probably slightly out of focus, it was analog at some point, recovered well, but with more added blur, then it was denoised temporally (could also be few other things, but whatever caused it the result is the same) so detail level is inconsistent and there are smearing artifacts, then it is compressed aggressively, leaving compression artifacts, and making detail levels more inconsistent, and removing more information. There just isn't anything left from your source. If it was a cartoon, you could just denoiser blast it, then nnedi2 it, then sharpen it and get something reasonable, but its live action, so doing that would turn it to into a horrible platic impression of CGl.

Whatever you do will only destroy more detail.

[zee944]

Thank you for your respone, *.mp4 guy.

I can see your point - the footage severly lacks details, so no point to trying to call forth something isn't there. Could you still recommend a good grain denoising method for it? Perhaps an MPEG2 artifact remover? At least I want to a try a little sharpening. I have to resize it anyway to match with other footage in the same encode.