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View Full Version : AviSynth in action - or How I Wasted My Summer


wonkey_monkey
31st August 2012, 21:38
Hello all,

I've recently completed my little project, which has taken me about six months, and as 99.9% of it was done entirely in AviSynth (a few thousand lines of it, in three separate scripts because I kept running out of memory), I wanted to share it here as an example of how much you can do with AviSynth.


https://i4.ytimg.com/vi/GZfU9olGiiE/default.jpg?v=503be312
I'm the Doctor (2005-2011) [720p] - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZfU9olGiiE)



Starting with the sources, the first half is from DVD rips opened using Neuron2's fantastically useful DGMPGDec (http://neuron2.net/dgmpgdec/dgmpgdec.html), with the audio handled by NicAudio (http://nicaudio.codeplex.com/). The rest are 720p MKVs of (my own) Bluray rips (at 1080p, the rips themselves were too big and too slow to work with) sourced with ffmpegsource2. Some of the Blurays were poor 60i conversions - I also wrote filters to fix those (more information on that here (http://horman.net/doctorwho/specials.php))

I wrote a bunch of functions to allow me to overlap audio:


scene1=source.trim(0,153)
scene1_=source.trim(154,166) # remaining audio to place over start of second clip

scene2=source.trim(1234,1256)

scene1+scene2.audio_inpaste(scene1_) # scene1's audio is continuous, but continues over scene2


which is a surprisingly effective way to improve the look of a video (amateur film makers take note :) )

I also found some use for mvtools2, not just for slowmos (of which there are several) but also for shortening clips by deleting frames and using mvtools2 to smooth over the jump (there's a good few seconds deleted in this way at 11:38 between "basically" and "run", and again between "me" and the gunshot at 12:36). I also found a use for a shabby excuse of a filter I wrote called "pin", which is a very basic stabiliser (3:03 was a fakey-shaky shot).

I also used the internal supereq plugin - which I never knew existed until recently - to sort out some of the audio. Some audio had to be externally edited to subtract music (one instance was done entirely with AviSynth) or delete some extraneous sound effects, but other than that all of the audio (music, some of which is rearranged/retimed within the AviSynth script, and effects) is placed in with AviSynth with careful use of trim, blankclip, mixaudio and the like.

Two frames used overlay to add a brief special effect (the flash in the window at 10:26 was in a different shot in the episode).

Other mentions must go to tritical (http://web.missouri.edu/~kes25c/)'s nnedi3, which was used to upscale the SD sources to 720p, and to the incredible QTGMC (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156028), which was used to deinterlace one of the aforementioned screwed-up Blurays, and the interlaced DVD sources used for the final montage of faces.

Global variables were put to use to allow me to globally toggle timecodes for all sources, and to switch between draft and final slowmos.

Test viewing was done with VirtualDub, and the final encode was done with AviDemux/Avsproxy.



In short, this as much as a tribute to AviSynth as it is to my favourite time traveller. I really do think that with my borderline OCD and obsession with the perfect trim that I would have lost patience with "real" video editing software long ago.

I'd be interested to hear what other complicated uses people have put AviSynth to - for example at my old job at a TV station I used to handle all the PAL/NTSC conversions with AviSynth/mvtools2 because it was better than any of the pro equipment we had!

David

PS The text right at the end was done with Blender (http://www.blender.org/), in case anyone was wondering.

sirt
1st September 2012, 09:53
So where is that project ? Would you mind uploading the "thousand lines of it" ? I can't pretend to understand everything but I am curious, that's why I decided to reply to this thread. I would like to deeply understand what you exactly did : from what I read it appears you edited audio in some way, deleted some frames, and you appeal to some other filters such as deinterlacers. Forgive me for my ignorance, but I don't understand why you needed thousands of lines to do this. That's why I am curious and I would like to understand more.

wonkey_monkey
1st September 2012, 10:29
You're welcome to take a look at the AVS files, although they're not exactly neat, tidy, and well commented :) And of course they don't come with the 175gb+ of sources...

project.zip (http://horman.net/project.zip)

The plugin folder contains the avsi file with all the audio functions, whereas the functions.avsi file in the top level contains project-specific functions, like slowmo and the morphing/cutting stuff.

David

StainlessS
2nd September 2012, 00:23
I have to say, I have not looked at your peccadillo,
but I hope that the one and only true Dr Who made it into there,
ie, William Hartnell, well scary he was when I was about 6YO.
The rest got increasingly more silly as time progressed, you'de think that
the lords of time would have mastered absurdity by now.
Still, a delightful way to pass the time, even though some of us are grown ups.
Hope you enjoy the new series (I missed it).

PS, Wish I had a Time And Relativity Displacement (forgot the rest) machine, ie a Tardis.

EDIT: Maybe "In Space".
EDIT: If I did,perhaps I could be the "Doctor", then you could worship, ME! :). Dont think I would mind that at all.

wonkey_monkey
2nd September 2012, 01:41
I have to say, I have not looked at your peccadillo,

I should hope not too! ;)

but I hope that the one and only true Dr Who made it into there, ie, William Hartnell, well scary he was when I was about 6YO.

He only makes a brief appearance in the last minute or so, along with the rest... unfortunately a montage covering all the past episodes, as well, would be a) impossible, since they don't all exist any more and b) 10 years in the making.

David

StainlessS
2nd September 2012, 01:49
10 years in the making.
Not 10 years in your making, have BBC lost all/most of Hartnell ? Sad.

EDIT: Think he went for a couple of years before Patrick Troughton. (Spelling).
Not sure, maybe he died mid way and they had to invernt the metamorphosis
of the time lord. (EDIT: Retrospect, Yes, think thats what happened).

sirt
2nd September 2012, 17:03
davidhorman, I simply don't understand what you did and why. Are you perhaps dealing with some kind of audio effects ? I had a brief look at your AVS files and it ensues that you have speciafically edited audio tracks from movies. Am I wrong ? I thought you may also edit the video flux.

Rumbah
2nd September 2012, 20:05
Great stuff, I really love that show!

Phaex
3rd September 2012, 08:06
This thing is impressive, it looks like something that should be done using NLE software. Amazing work using avisynth to create this video.