GraphEdit and Xvid DSF

[MaTTeR]

@Nic,

I've been using your wonderful Xvid DSF compile that incorporates the brightness control. I don't have any issues with it during playback. However, I'm getting crashes (SDK error) in GE when I start to mux my audio (Vorbis). If I delete the Xvid DSF out of the graph and then mux, it works fine. This isn't a major issue but just wanted to make you aware of it. I also tested with the Div4 DSF while muxing and it didn't crash.

Xvid Build- 2-27-2002 Nic
Xvid DSF- Brightness control/Nic
OggDS- 0.9.8.5
GraphEdit- Doom9's download section

@All,
Can anyone else confirm this crash?

Thanks for the filter, quality is superb while watching a sample on a 27" tube TV @ 800x600 res.

[Acaila]

LOL, I've been getting that error since about forever, thought it was just my system. I also always delete the XviD DSF when muxing, no problems then.

[MaTTeR]

@Acaila

Are you using Nic's brightness filter as well? I suppose it doesn't really matter now..Nic has made a breakthrough on the post processing DSF. Perhaps we'll see it this weekend.

[Acaila]

I've been using Koepi's builds all along, so that included Nic's brightness filter. I think I've had the error before as well though....not sure.

And I'm also very excited about seeing Nic's new (old?) post-processing in action.

[Nic]

I havent tried the ogg filters (I expect Chris to shout at me if he knew :) ). But ill try & debug them, im sure it will only be something small to fix.

Post-Processing is a funny thing....Im going to, like all of xvid :) , make it very customizable (is that a word :)

In DivX 4 Post-Processing, the last two notches are for deringing, in my opinion, on my latest xvid movie, all it needs is deringing...Doing any deblocking, gets rid of the blocks, but softens the picture too much (I tend to prefer DivX3 than DivX4 at times, so maybe thats why I have this preference)

Also, there is a threshold which uses the DC (lpf) filter, using this filter really smoothes the picture, the normal filter doesn't, but isn't strong enough....So ill also have to allow you to set the threshold (personally I prefer a slighty higher threshold than the standard (where as DivX4a50 (therefore probably DivX4)) prefers a slightly lower one.

Anyway don't expect the difference to be amazing (because no post-processing can do anything amazing) but it is better :)

Also, it will contain my filter for dealing with really low bitrate material, (I wrote it using the deblocking algo pdf they give at mplayer, but ive changed it a bit)

Ill also make the filter look more fabby & save the settings to registry :)

Cheers,
-Nic

[rui]

Humm.. Sounds great!
I can't wait for next week.:)

[rui]

Nic, currently i am encoding all my XviD avi’s using Divx FourCC, because of the post processing.

Will your XviD DS filter be able to play these avi’s? Or will i have to modify their FourCC to XviD?

[Nic]

You'll have to modify the FourCC......But I could make a switch on the properties page that could allow the filter to be used for DivX, but I'd rather keep the two things seperate for now.

Does modulated quantizer work fine with DivX Decoder? I thought there might be problems with the MPEG quantized frames? (I guess not hey :)

Cheers,
-Nic

ps
I wrote my own FourCC changer, because AviC is huge for what it is (about 200kb!) mine is 5kb (uncompressed) :)

pps
Ill include it in my next CVS update...its not easy making VC produce a file less than about 40kb big you know? :) (original AviC was written in Delphi, ugh)

[rui]

Originally posted by Nic
You'll have to modify the FourCC......But I could make a switch on the properties page that could allow the filter to be used for DivX, but I'd rather keep the two things seperate for now.


Ok, no harm done.

Originally posted by Nic

Does modulated quantizer work fine with DivX Decoder? I thought there might be problems with the MPEG quantized frames? (I guess not hey :)

...include it in my next CVS update...its not easy making VC produce a file less than about 40kb big you know? :) (original AviC was written in Delphi, ugh)

Strange has it may seem, my encodings using koepi's modulated option play fine with divx4 post processing. I've encoded "The Replacements" trailer like a thousand times using the modulated option, and can't see any problems. Also, i encoded two times the movie "Platoon", one time using the build that gave everybody oversized files, and another time using Koepi's latest build, and for what i could see, no problems again.
I use post processing level 3, and my resolution are always 16x multiple, both width has height.
Th only time i had trouble with colors was with that old build that had problems with 3dnow.

[Nic]

Hmmmm...I wonder what would happen if you encoded the trailer with just MPEG quant...would there be blocks then with DivX4 ? One would guess so (Ive never even tried changed the quant yet! So I could be completly wrong :) )

The thing with the DivX4 post-processing is you can only get deringing by puttting it up to notches 5/6.

The Notches are as follows:
1) Horizontal Deblocking on Y (Luminance)
2) Vertical Deblocking on Y (Luminance)
3) Horizontal Deblocking on U,V (Chrominance)
4) Vertical Deblocking on U,V (Chrominance)
5) Deringing (Luminance)
6) Deringing (Chrominance)

But my preferred setting is to filter the Luminance (which is more noticable to the eye) & do horiz, vert & deringing on it. Less blocks, no real smoothing & gets rid of halo/mosquito/ringing noise (I sometimes put deringing on in Chrominance as well)

You cant do my preferred with DivX, but you'll be able to with XviD....I just hope I implement it right. :D

Cheers,
-Nic

[rui]

That's a good question.

I noticed that, since i encode my trailer always at 600 KB bitrate, most of the time H.263 quant should be used.

But the in the platoon movie, i noticed in debufview that the codec used mpeg quant multiple times. But maybe, because it's alternating between H.263 and mpeg, probably i can't begin to notice any problems.
Like you said, my next test will be encoding The Replacements trailer using only mpeg, and see the results ;)

I will post here my findings.

Interesting info about divx4 post processing. :)
So, your post processing will be the same has divx4 one until stage 2, then will jump to the equivalent stage 5/6 of dvx4, right?

[Nic]

Nope, it'll will be checkboxes (allowing selctions of any of the settings mentioned) instead of a slider, not quite as pretty or nice, but allows full control :) (at least for testing ill have it this way)

-Nic

ps
BTW is the trailer you use downloadable? I wouldn't mind comparing :)

[rui]

At last i could make that test.
Hey, i am at work, so i got to work :D

The checkboxes seem fine to me.
No, the trailer isn't donwloadable (at least that i now of).
I have the dvd, and riped to my hard drive the trailer vob (it has about 100MB). Then i saved it ot a cd-rw, and brought it to work. That's why i make so much trailer tests ;) But in home most tests are done using full movies (like Platoon, the Replacements, Green mile, The Entrapment...)

But, anyway, i used in this test mpeg quant for 1 and 2 pass. And still can't see any problems in the colors using divx decoder in 3 scale :confused:

Maybe because it's a trailer? I just don't get this.
But at least i can continue using modulated option with no worries.
But after monday i will have a all new DS filter to play with, right? :D

[MaTTeR]

I found that using Div4 for post preocessing defeats the entire purpose. Divx4 softens way to much and as I like to keep as much detail as possible then the current Xvid filter works just fine:)

Edit-
I tend to prefer DivX3 than DivX4 at times, so maybe thats why I have this preference From Nic

I can't agree with you more. If Xvid didn't exist I'd still be using SBC.

[rui]

Can't agree with you more.
But, has i do a lot of 1 cd rips, the divx4 post processing becomes usefull. But, like i said, i don't use it to the max, because i too believe that it softens the picture too much.

[Ripe73]

My XviDmovies looks much better with XviD DSfilter.Divx DSfilter smooth to much i think and give me sometimes huge blocks so i prefer to have small blocks and details with XviD.
Thats all for today

[rui]

Originally posted by rui

Strange has it may seem, my encodings using koepi's modulated option play fine with divx4 post processing. I've encoded "The Replacements" trailer like a thousand times using the modulated option, and can't see any problems. Also, i encoded two times the movie "Platoon", one time using the build that gave everybody oversized files, and another time using Koepi's latest build, and for what i could see, no problems again.
I use post processing level 3, and my resolution are always 16x multiple, both width has height.
Th only time i had trouble with colors was with that old build that had problems with 3dnow.

O.k., so I spoke to soon ;)
I just finished a encoding of the movie "The Independence Day", done with the latest Koepi build, using modulated quantization.
In the very beginning of the movie, where the alien space ship is near our planet, the picture gets a little green. The planet earth is almost green. This happens during a second or so. Then it all goes back to normal. But, when I watch the same scene in Vdub, al goes well, no green anywhere. So the cause it's the divx DS filter.
Guess I will have to revert to Xvid ds filter. Now I am really, really looking forward for Monday :)

[Nic]

LoL :)

I only do 1CD rip movies, and with DivX4 it was then very necessary to have post-processing set reasonably high, because it really helped DivX4's picture.....

.....XviD doesn't need it (YaY!) :D

-Nic

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by Nic You'll have to modify the FourCC......But I could make a switch on the properties page that could allow the filter to be used for DivX, but I'd rather keep the two things seperate for now.
Nic, if you could give us independant access to the postprocessing filters this 'switch' would be very much appreciated ! Would it be possible to register your filter for DivX3/4 and XviD ?

[Nic]

DivX3 wouldn't be available & the post-processing isn't as strong as that of DivX4 so your better off using DivX4's DSF for DivX4 material for now (especially since they may have improved things for DivX5 (which is probably only a week away at most.......doh......now even im speculating :) )

Also, AviH seems to be doing post-processing as well, he's also going to be adding more options to brightness (saturation, etc)...So hopefully I can work with him....to bring it to you faster :)

Cheers,
-Nic

[BlackSun]

Hurry up Nic :) :p

[Nic]

Dont expect too much of a miracle....but it is good :)

Oh, & of course ill release the source so everyone can have a fiddle and correct the one hundred & 1 mistakes that i've probably made :)

Cheers,
-Nic

ps
@BlackSun: Dont you think PowerDivX should be renamed PowerXviD??? :D

[rui]

I must say that, after having those problems with mpeg and divx4 DS filter, I have been experimenting with Nic's XviD DS filter (not the one that will have post processing), and I was very happy with the results. I didn't noticed so much blocks has i was expecting.

So, when next monday (still is next monday, right Nic? :), the new ds filter is available, i probably will uninstall divx4 for good from my system. ;)

[avih]

Originally posted by Nic
...Also, AviH seems to be doing post-processing as well, he's also going to be adding more options to brightness (saturation, etc)...So hopefully I can work with him....to bring it to you faster :)


i do hope i'll b able to help nic. if u can send me your ds sources. my problem at the moment is that i don't have the sdk, and it'll take me too much time to download using 56k modem.

so my postprocessing stuff is on the decoder level (before the ds filter). unfortunately, i can't use the configuration dialog to change the settings at real time, so i can only change setting, and load the movie again and then the settings are in effect.

pls email me nic to avihpit _at@_ yahoo.com

best wishes
avi

[Nic]

Hiya, avih,

Yes the wonderful DirectX 8 SDK, when I got it I had to get someone I knew off the internet to download it & post it to me :)

Ill be in contact :)

Cheers,
-Nic

ps
I started making changes to the core as well, but now I do everything through the DShow filter (but this means I need access to the image.c (color conversion) functions....so a very minor change to core)

[avih]

hey folks.

i've updated my build, it now includes everything from the topic. also, the postprocessing tab is fully active, and the features can be enabled/disabled/changed in real time (including MV visualization).
it does have some issues though. have a look at:
http://www.geocities.com/avihpit/xvid/post.html
available for download: dll only or dll+src

note: i've written the brightbess/ contrast/saturation functions out of the sleeve. corrections/improvements/suggestions are welcome

:) enjoy

[MaTTeR]

Very impressive avih. Good work.

No chance of a DSF though?

[-h]

This looks very cool.

With regard to reading the post processing settings every 10 frames from core, wouldn't it be easier to add a couple vars to the XVID_DEC_FRAME struct and have the vfw side copy the values straight from codec->config ?

-h

[Nic]

AviH you do work quickly :) (far quicker than myself..far too tired yesterday)

Im downloading your sources now :)

Cheers,
-Nic

ps
edit:
Just scanned through them, I should really add contrast as well....Maybe ill do that :) Im trying to make my sources completly generic from the rest of the library (I initially did it in core).

pps
Did you immediately know to copy the frame before outputting? I wasn't that clever, so as you can imagine, with my first attempt, I set the brightness up a bit & it got brighter & brighter & brighter :) (until a key frame of course) & then I hadn't capped how bright it could get so the colors start to loop round the unsigned char (really weird hallucagenic effect :)

[avih]

Originally posted by Nic
...Did you immediately know to copy the frame before outputting?... so the colors start to loop round the unsigned char (really weird hallucagenic effect :)
lol no !
i initially drawn my lines at dec->cur and just noticed they're moving along with the picture :), then i came up with copying it 1st... so i wasn't any smarter than u on that issue :)

I'm quite new to mm coding, and only been messing with xvid sources for few days now.. all is new to me :)
i must admit the xvid code is beuatiful, and easy to work with, but learning from such complicated code without too much documentation ;).. might take some time...

@-h well, i do think this functionality belongs to a ds filter and not vfw/core, i think i'll live with this 'ugly' method, till someone (nic? :) )will incorporate these effects to a ds filter. (will someone send me the sdk my snail-mail? ;) )

cheers
avi

[Koepi]

avih,

i wrote a compressor that compresses the SDK to ~2bytes.

I can send you that, but you have to think about coding a working decompressor for that... ;)

SCNR,

Koepi

[avih]

i've just improved my postprocessing build:

- added picture comparision mode (split screen)
- improved histogram visualization
- reduced CPU usage by ~70% (factor of 3!)
- improved MV visualization. it's now working on a per MB-mode basis, and has different visual representations for INTER/INTRA/INTERV4 MBs.

check it out at:
http://www.geocities.com/avihpit/xvid/post.html

cheers
avi

ps. congrats nic, i LOVE your ds filter, excellent job :)

[Ripe73]

HI!

When i use Post-processing in my XviDmovies to smooth movies the blocks looks worse and bigger both with DivxDS and XviD DS.Someone else with this problem?

[MaTTeR]

@Ripe73

I don't have this problem at all using the filter from Nics build/03032002. Which options did you have on in the DS?

[Ripe73]

Which options did you have on in the DS?

I use the three options to the left and when i not use the filter i have small blocks but with the filter it gives me bigger blocks:confused:

[MaTTeR]

Have you tried resetting with the button, closing the filter window and then open it back up. I'm not using the deringing options, mainly because of the intense CPU usage. I have all deblock features set though.

[Nic]

@Ripe73:
That is possible, Although Ive never seen it create bigger blocks...
Im glad at least the DivX filter has the same problem....

Can you cut a bit of the clip were the blocks get worse, & ill try to work on it...

....I also want to work on intelligent adapting of the filter strength, but thats for the weekend :)

Cheers,
-Nic

[Ripe73]

Can you cut a bit of the clip were the blocks get worse, & ill try to work on it...

Sorry i have deleted the *.avi i only have the Oggcontainer so i cant cut the movie:( but i will reencode the movie with lower resolution and see if it looks better if it dont i can send you a clip.The movie is Fallen and it looks great to be a 2hour movie but there is 2-3 scenes with blocky walls(i hate walls,why dont they do movies with out walls,i wil call Hollywood and say its not good for Divx:D stop do movies with walls:devil: )

Thanks

[Nic]

Walls are always done badly, Ive been wondering if I wrote some region find algorithms (I had to write them for my Computer Vision course at Uni, I may as well put them to good use :) ) and applied more smoothing to big regions it might help (it tends to occur on things like sky too)

Anyway ill look into it, dont worry about supllying a file too much.
Also the deblocking of v.low bitrate files is different from deblocking of normal DVD rips.....

Cheers,
-Nic