Video Cleanup with Avisynth. Professional help needed!!!

[Zaaacharias]

Hi guys. I'm a total avisynth noob and would really appreciate your help with following problem:

I recently bought a Japanese Jackie Chan DVD and the quality is... let's call it "not worthy to be pressed on a DVD".
Main problem is the heavy dot crawl and that it's 4:3 letter box.
I wanna do some cleanup and make a 24p NTSC 16:9 DVD to make this movie watchable.

Source:
DVD NTSC 29.976 4:3 Letter Box (image is cropped from 2.35 to 1.85).

Destination:
DVD NTSC 24p 16:9

TASKS:
- remove/reduce dot crawl (checkmate() seems to work best on this footage)
- inverse telecine
- crop black borders left and right
- scale image to 872px width (retaining AR)
- squeeze image to 720px width (not retaining AR)
- crop black borders top and bottom till image height is 486
- sharpen
- ??? anything else ???

Now I need your help to put this plan into action.
Could somebody be so kind and help me?
I uploaded two short sample clips:
http://rapidshare.com/files/344023018/RITB_dotcrawl01.zip
http://rapidshare.com/files/344033378/RITB_dotcrawl02.zip

Thanx in advance!

[zilog jones]

This looks like analog NTSC dot crawl, i.e. the DVD is sourced from analog videotape (lazy mastering).

[Zaaacharias]

thanx, zilog jones.
do you know why only red colors are affected?
Is there any chance to fix this? Any plugin suggestions?

[zilog jones]

It happens with all colours really, it's just more apparent on the edges of large solid coloured objects like in your examples.

I don't deal with dot crawl much so couldn't really recommend how to deal with it. I have found FFT3DFilter great for dealing with other chroma noise, maybe it will help with this too?

I'm sure there's hundreds of other threads here about dot crawl. :search:

[Blue_MiSfit]

Use checkmate before IVTC.

So..


checkmate
tfm.vinverse.tdecimate

#toss in mdegrain if you want

#crop away the black

#resize to 720x464 - which is very close to 1.85 stored in 16x9 anamorphic, minus 16 pixels for a border on top and bottom
#you can be clever here with NNEDI or something if you want.

#add some low powered sharpening if you want. LSFMod is a good place to start.

#addborders to make it 720x480

Then, encode... booyah

~MiSfit

[Zaaacharias]

thanx a lot Blue_MiSfit!
Although I'm not sure if I understand everything ;) (like I've said, I'm a total avisynth noob)
I'll play around a little and will post what I came up with.

[Nightshiver]

Also, your links do not work.

[Zaaacharias]

Also, you links do not work.

sorry. copy paste problem!
links fixed.

[Zaaacharias]

wow ... avisynth is a real tough one if you've never worked with it before...

maybe someone could have a look at the footage I've posted and write the avisynth script for me?
That would really help me out! Thank you.

[Nightshiver]

Why is your sample an .avi? Please post an original .vob sample.

[Zaaacharias]

Hey Nightshiver.
Pretty cool that you want to help me. I appreciate that!
Here a few vob splits :
http://rapidshare.com/files/345446970/RITB_5.vob
http://rapidshare.com/files/345447745/RITB_16.vob
http://rapidshare.com/files/345448482/RITB_41.vob
http://rapidshare.com/files/345448740/RITB_47.vob
http://rapidshare.com/files/345448585/RITB_48.vob

[Nightshiver]

Could you please upload to mediafire? Rapidshare is slow for me and right now, all slots are filled. Mediafire is much faster, and free.

[setarip_old]

@Zaaacharias

Hi!I recently bought a Japanese Jackie Chan DVD and the quality is... let's call it "not worthy to be pressed on a DVD".By referring to "Japan" and the poor production quality of the DVD, Are you implying that this is other than a commercial DVD?

If so, it's certainly not unusual to see the results you've posted - and speculate, as other posters to this thread have, that the original source material for the disc my have been a videotape...

[Nightshiver]

This is an incredibly craptacular source. I don't think you can get rid of all of the dot crawl, it's just that bad. I used a combination of checkmate, tcomb and aa=4 from animeivtc.

MPEG2Source("D:\test.d2v", cpu=0)
animeivtc(mode=1,aa=4)
checkmate(15)
tcomb(mode=0,fthreshL=6,othreshL=8)
source = last
vectors = source.MVAnalyseMulti(refframes=2, pel=2, overlap=4, sharp=1, idx=1)
source.MVDegrainMulti(vectors,thSAD=300,idx=1)
LimitedSharpenFaster(ss_x=1.8, ss_y=1.8, smode=3, strength=180, overshoot=1, undershoot=1)
Crop(8, 74, -10, -68)
Spline36Resize(720, 384)

I have no idea what or why you want to go to 16:9, and cannot help you in that area.

[Zaaacharias]

I have no idea what or why you want to go to 16:9, and cannot help you in that area.
First of all: Thank you for your help :thanks:

- why do you do the IVTC before decrawling? isn't it better to do the decrawling first? or does it depend on the footage?

- What do you think, is it a stupid idea to make it 16:9? I wanna make a DVD that looks good on a 16:9 TV without stupid black on the sides and the need to zoom in on the TV. I think that you get better picture quality when you make the scaling first and not let the TV do it. Or am I wrong?

Are you implying that this is other than a commercial DVD?
No this IS an official DVD release by Warner! That's why I was so shocked when I saw the awful picture quality. (and you haven't heard the crackling sound yet!!!). But I guess there simply was no better master for the hong kong cut available.

__________________________

In case anyone else wanna help pimping this shitty source: here are the vob splits hosted on mediafire:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dyymyzzunf3
http://www.mediafire.com/?mzmvlvftdhm
http://www.mediafire.com/?m2olmqmnor3
http://www.mediafire.com/?b1dejtziyzh
http://www.mediafire.com/?mqezxumndmm

[Nightshiver]

I would let the TV do the scaling first/dvd player do it and compare that to what you get from doing it with Avisynth.

[Zaaacharias]

Use checkmate before IVTC.

:confused:

[Nightshiver]

Seems I was wrong, looking back on other threads. Just switch the dot crawl stuff then, although there was no difference when I did it before or after the IVTC.