Filter advice for this...?

[LordTrace]

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2jvxf4 30MB Sample.

Hey guys. Been trying to get this to look ok in AvsP (with my limited knowledge) before encoding. It has some pretty bad dot crawl (watch the edges of the dragons as they fly in). Its actually kinda hard to see but once i saw it i can't unsee it. It is also quite a bit worse in some places of the other episodes. The only filter that really works on it is CheckMate. However when i use it in with a denoiser it gets to blurry. Everything i have tried to sharpen it after makes it look like ass lol.

Any advice is most welcome.

[LordTrace]

:(

I tried an encode with
CheckMate()
TemporalCleaner(ythresh=5, cthresh=10)
VagueDenoiser(threshold=3, method=3, nsteps=6, chromaT=2.0)
MSharpen(threshold=10,strength=50)
CRF 20
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/122836
Looks ok i guess *shrugs*

I just tossed those filters in there and hoped for the best lol. Would still love the opinion of someone with more experience :)

I should also probably mention that my goal is as small a file as possible. CRF 20 with Q0.36 (I think) AAC was around 147MB. Which is ok but love to get it around 120MB if possible (At CRF 20).

[Nightshiver]

Alright, here.

First, you need to IVTC. This source is hard telecined.

TFM()
TDecimate(mode=1)

Getting rid of the dot crawl....

tcomb(mode=0, fthreshL=7,othreshL=9)

Your source also has a hell of a lot of halo's.

YAHR()

And also a little bit of rainbows.

Chubbyrain2()

Note however, that for dot crawl removal, it smooths the picture. It gets further smoothed when removing halo's as well. You should also not try this "small a file as possible", as your source is terrible to begin with. It already suffers from the aforementioned problems and is also heavily compressed already, showing more of those kinds of artifacts. You need to give your video some breathing room. What is the size of your original file? I cannot believe that this is an actual DVD source, but there has been worse. For AAC, the file should be much smaller than that. For just plain stereo, 64kbps is just fine. You also shouldn't use CRF when attempting to reach a specific file size.

Some light sharpening could be lsfmod(smode=5, smethod=3).

[LordTrace]

Yea i am aware it needs IVTC. I didn't mention as i thought that was a given

No offence, but, i tried everything you just suggested and it looks worse in a lot of ways. Also dosent get rid of the dot crawl much. hehe

I tried
DeGrainMedian(limitY=2,limitUV=3,mode=1)
DeGrainMedian(limitY=2,limitUV=3,mode=1)
vmToon(ssw=2,ssh=2,strength=48,xstren=128)
And that seems to help quite a bit. The only dedicated dot crawl filter that works on this is checkmate. It creates a lot of weird artifacts in the video and makes it to blurry for me though.

Well aware you can't get an exact file size with crf but you can reasonably guess after a few test runs. Also my AAC settings where mentioned. The file size shown is muxed WITH the CRF video :)

[Nightshiver]

Then do what you will. I found what was pleasing to me, but you are free to use whatever you want.

[Taurus]

@LordTrace

1.: You did not mention the resolution you're targeting for.
Your screenshots show 640x480.
Is this the desired resolution?
2.:You wrote 120MB (Video+Audio):mad::D
How long is the clip/episode?
For this you have to make it death calm to reach the desired bitrate.
I played around a little with your sample vob.
I've crunched it down to approx. 6.8MB at full resolution
(720x480) anamorph 4:3, x264 CRF20, 8bit, preset slow, profile auto, no tuning
incl. audio 64kbps/48khz aac stereo.
Looks ok.
Show us what you have got with your script
and I will show you mine:cool::p

[LordTrace]

1.: 640x480 or maybe 624x464 (full 720 anamorph dosnt compress as well)

2.: Each episode is about 23 mins

Here's the test script i ran last night.


movie = mpeg2source("E:\Ripping\01.d2v")
cropclip = autocrop(movie,mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=0,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0,leftadd=0,rightadd=0,topadd=0,bottomadd=0)
fixed_aspect = 0.888888888888889
c_width = width(cropclip)
c_height = round(height(cropclip) / fixed_aspect)
input_par = float(c_width)/float(c_height)
input_par = (input_par > 1.4) || (input_par < 1.25) ? input_par : (4.0/3.0)
out_width = 624
out_height = round(float(out_width) / input_par)
hmod = out_height - (floor(out_height / 16 ) * 16)
out_height = (hmod > 4) ? (out_height + (16 - hmod)) : (out_height - hmod)
new_aspect = (float(out_width) / float(out_height)) / fixed_aspect
Telecide(movie,guide=1,post=2).Decimate(mode=0)
autocrop(mode=0,wmultof=4,hmultof=4,samples=10,aspect=new_aspect,threshold=34,samplestartframe=0,leftadd=0,rightadd=0,topadd=0,bottomadd=0)
Spline36Resize(out_width,out_height)
CheckMate(tthr2=0)
Chubbyrain2()
TemporalCleaner(ythresh=5, cthresh=10)
VagueDenoiser(threshold=2, method=3, nsteps=6, chromaT=2.0)
Toon(strength=0.75)

Yes, checkmate ran after IVTC. I cant get it to work in that script if i put it anywhere above resize. Anyways, it still did its job just fine

10bit x264 --level 4.1 --preset veryslow --tune animation
NDAAC Q0.3 (66.2 Kbps HE-AAC)

I did a 2 pass encode at 126MB (With audio). Looks ok i guess. Still gonna play around with it for a bit as im in no hurry.

I really don't like what YAHR does to the video so i have stopped trying to use it.