Proper tactic to IVTC/deinterlace this 90's animated show?

[Synnove]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CUMrQFLyexX-pvcEqTzbkU3EZphVzbY9 <- Here's a two minute clip to give an idea of what's being dealt with. This is straight from my DVD copy only having been edited/remuxed by AVIdemux. The goal is to get everything to 24p with minimal artifacts and loss of quality, so as to facilitate HD upscaling (similar to the Avatar Last Airbender upscale project).

It's my understanding that the show was animated with 24p in mind and shot on film, telecined for compositing, editing, and FX in a video program, and exported to 480i NTSC tapes. There are a high amount of dot crawl and rainbows, as well as a very pixelated red channel... These are issues which I've fixed.

The biggest problem I've been having is deinterlacing and IVTCing in a way that doesn't introduce a ton of artifacts. I'm willing to accept a little bit of an interlaced look in the video sections (panning, titles, etc) if it means preserving high amount of clarity and proper cadence in the film sections.

What I've tried so far (trying many combinations of the main settings on each filter):

QTGMC + Decimation
This results in no interlace combs, maintains high sharpness. However, introduces judder (animation on 2s is no longer animation on 2s for example) and colors that will "ghost ahead" on some frames. Also the frame after a scene change will have some artifacts.

TFM + QTGMC as clip2
This results in minimal interlace combs (during panning or titles for example) but preserves the proper animation pattern (2s are still on 2s, for example). However, colors, especially read, ghosting ahead is still a problem (and these colors are usually combed/interlaced in appearance). There are also artifacts that appear in some frames that I can only describe as blotches of pixels that clearly do not belong.

AnimeIVTC
Same as above but without the blotches of artifacts. Color's ghosting ahead is worse.

Rematch + Decimation
Interlaced colors ghosting ahead, interlaced frames at the beginning of some scene transitions.

It's worth noting that, thanks to most of the animation being done on 2s, that some of the problems caused above (like the colors ghosting one frame ahead) could be remedied by removing the afflicted frame and copying the previous one. This wouldn't work for sections that are done on 1s or involve video fx.

Anyway, would love some advice on this as I'm way out of my depth when it comes to handling hard interlaced NTSC restoration (most of my experience is with progressive sources). Thanks!!

[Sharc]

Try this:
First, index your file with DGIndex.exe which will produce the .d2v file
Then apply the script:

mpeg2source("C:\......\HA_Test_NA.d2v", cpu=0)
TFM(d2v="c:\....\HA_Test_NA.d2v").TDecimate(mode=1)

[Synnove]

Thanks for taking a look at the clip!

I should have clarified I was already using an indexed d2v source. I tried your script but was left with the same artifacts as when I used "TFM + QTGMC=clip2"; namely the picture becomes somewhat blury in shots and interlaced chroma "ghosting ahead" one frame on some shots.

I've attached some pictures to show what I mean, and here is the script I'm currently using:

SetMTMode(5, 28)
MPEG2Source("C:\HeyArnold\VTS_02_1.d2v", cpu=0)
SetMTMode(2)
ConvertToYUY2()
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AvisynthRepository\AVS260_MT\plugins\LoadPluginEx.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AvisynthRepository\AVS260_MT\plugins\GuavaComb.dll")
GuavaComb(Mode = "NTSC", Recall = 75, MaxVariation = 23, Activation = 40)
ConvertToYV12()
#QTGMC=QTGMC(preset="very slow", noiseprocess=0, FPSDivisor=2)
TFM()
tdecimate(mode=1)
finedehalo()

https://imgur.com/a/kzFov

[StainlessS]

perhaps something like

LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AvisynthRepository\AVS260_MT\plugins\LoadPluginEx.dll") # Load plugs FIRST
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AvisynthRepository\AVS260_MT\plugins\GuavaComb.dll")
d2v="C:\HeyArnold\VTS_02_1.d2v"
#SetMTMode(5, 28) # slip this stuff in when working
MPEG2Source(d2v,UpConv=1) # YUY2, Default cpu is 0
#SetMTMode(2) # slip this stuff in when working
TFM(d2v=d2v).TDecimate(mode=1) # result progressive YUY2
GuavaComb(Mode = "Progressive", Recall = 75, MaxVariation = 23, Activation = 40) # Progressive is a testing mode, no idea about other args
ConvertToYV12()
#QTGMC=QTGMC(preset="very slow", noiseprocess=0, FPSDivisor=2)
#finedehalo() # slip this stuff in when working


EDIT: I think GuavaComb might mess up d2v hinting for TFM, if used first (before TFM).
EDIT: Is it telecine or interlaced, you dont seem sure (see text at end of d2v file, eg 100.0% FILM/VIDEO).

[Synnove]

Ah that seems to've fixed most of the issues with the chroma jumping around. I still got some blury frames (I guess it was dropping one field and scaling the original), but using clip2=QTGMC fixed that. Still some toothy bits of some frames but it's not too bad.

Unfortunately the rampant dot crawl and rainbows now remain; GuavaComb was the only filter I've used that was able to remove to squash the dot crawl and stationary rainbows (I use a different piece of software for the moving rainbows).

The show was shot on 24 FPS film and then telecined to NTSC video for editing, FX, compositing, panning, etc, then rendered out at NTSC 480i for broadcast. So I guess I'd say it's hybrid.

[Sharc]

For dotcrawl removal of NTSC sources you may want to have a look at this filter

http://home.earthlink.net/~tacosalad/video/dotcrawl.html

You have to figure out where it fits best in your script, see the Usage Notes