TotalCode & Grainy films

[srfscenar]

Hi all,

a question about compressing for SD with TotalCode.
I have a movie which is grainy. That's OK, I know that grainy picture is MPEG2 worst nightmare, but TC seems to handle grain very poorly.
In the final video you can literally see the grainy dark areas flashing a bit...
Are there any tricks for TC to handle grain a good way?

Thanks.

[perquin]

Hi,

TC is not good with SD video, but it's only my opinion.

[mp3dom]

I agree. There are better encoders for MPEG2 (for AVC too, but it's another story). Try to play with the adaptive AQ and the settings for dark/bright scenes or try to raise the bitrate. What's your average/max bitrate?

[srfscenar]

Hi both and thank you for the answers.
The bitrate is 6-9, so i guess there should not have been any issues.

I will try your suggestion mp3dom and get back to you.
CCE that I also tried does an amazing job.

Mp3dom, what do you use for Mpeg2 and AVC encoding?

Thanks!

[mp3dom]

If you already own CCE, why are you using TotalCode?! Is your footage progressive?

[srfscenar]

Unfortunately we do not own it.
I had to ask for help from someone who does to do some tests.
Some footage are progressive and some interlaced. This one is progressive.

[mp3dom]

Ok, be sure to set the source and the output as progressive since if you encode it interlaced (I assume your video is PAL) the video is OK but the encoder is a bit less efficient.

[srfscenar]

I will try your suggestions.
I never thought that a 7+K software is not good for encoding SD!!! Anyway, i'll comeback with results or a license for CCE!

[srfscenar]

Hi again,

mp3dom I tried what you suggested but I did not get anything better.
I'll ask rovi before going for CCE.
One last question though, I noticed that CCE encoded file is a bit darker that TC's and to be honest,
TC's image seems closer to source.

Why CCE is darkening the picture?

[mp3dom]

CCE works in YUY2 colorspace. If you feed the encoder with a YUY2 file then you get no luma/chroma change at all. The output is 1:1 identical to the source. If you use a YV12/RGB codec (or a codec that CCE isn't able to decode natively in YUY2) a conversion takes place. The RGB->YUY2 conversion is lossy and should be avoided if possible. If your source is not YUY2 it's probably better to frameserve with Avisynth a video already converted to YUY2 colorspace.

[srfscenar]

Thanks for the details.
I am guessing YUY2 is the uncompressed files and anything else are with some kind of codec like ProRes.
Am I right? In order to avoid that luma/chroma change I have to import an uncompressed file?

[srfscenar]

I am asking because that specific video is in ProRes 422HQ.
That's what the customer gave us, so that is what I imported in CCE.

[mp3dom]

You can also use intermediate codecs like Canopus, Cineform and so on. But some codecs with multiple colorspace support (like UTVideo, Huffyuv etc) are not always decoded as YUY2. CCE has an option to try to always decode in YUY2 first, and then switch to RGB. During the encode in the log you can see if the file is decoded as yuy2.
I think ProResHQ is decoded as RGB, since there is also the 10bit part of the file.
If you want to do the 'proper' way, you should use Avisynth to import the ProResHQ, dither the 10bit to 8bit YUY2 and feed it to CCE. This will input a native YUY2 file to CCE.

[srfscenar]

Thank you!
Now, where can I find how to do that with Avisynth? Is there a walkthrough?
I am downloading it now.

[mp3dom]

You can find all the infos here: http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/High_bit-depth_Support_with_Avisynth

[srfscenar]

Thank you VERY much!

[srfscenar]

mp3dom, one quick for CCE to complete my tests please,
my source file is progressive, so what do I do in Output Top Field and Offset Line tabs?
Anything else I should take care for progressive source?

Thanks!

[bigotti5]

Output Top Field - yes
Offset Line - 0

[srfscenar]

Thank you!!!

[mp3dom]

You should also set "Picture Type: Progressive"

[srfscenar]

Got it! Thanks!!!