Improving old Films...

[Lathe]

I have some really old transfers and captures that I did years ago, they are all in the MKV format with AC3 audio. The 'Quality' (such as it is) varies from pretty bad to not so bad... :)

I'm going to include 30 second snippets of the worst ones to see if anyone has any suggestions as to what I might use Avisynth to improve. Now, I am still a moderate Newbie with Avisynth, and it seems like almost every time there are certain scripts that mysteriously won't work even though I have them in the Plugins folder and I 'Load' them or the other thing you do which I forget at the moment (I can look it up - one kind is self loading and one isn't) So, very importantly, I really don't have the knowhow to run anything complicated or any script that isn't REALLY basic and EASY, to make sure it runs.

Thanks kindly for any suggestions!

WHOOPS! My site is not working and I cannot attach MKV files, I'll need to check my site and see what's going on, sorry...

Okay, like the complete BONEHEAD that I am, I didn't realize my domain had just expired, so... Renewing now... �� I don't know how I get through the day without hurting myself.

I'll come back and post the links IF my bloody site comes back up anytime soon.

Thanks for y'all's patience!

[Selur]

mkv is only a container format, that does not say anything about the video format it, if you used a non-lossless format you probably added additional artifacts and complicated any clean-up by adding new artifacts and changing the content,..
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
you might also want to share what hardware you plan to use for encoding, thus potential 'suggestion givers' know whether some filters can be used or not,...

[Lathe]

mkv is only a container format, that does not say anything about the video format it, if you used a non-lossless format you probably added additional artifacts and complicated any clean-up by adding new artifacts and changing the content,..
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
you might also want to share what hardware you plan to use for encoding, thus potential 'suggestion givers' know whether some filters can be used or not,...

Hey Selur! Great to hear from you man, I'm glad you are still going... :)

Yeah, I know about the MKV container, I just mentioned that is the format of the snippets I'd be posting here. Bro, these are OLD recordings from broadcasts etc., so we are most definitely NOT talking pristine elements here. You'll see once I get my site up and running again, hopefully soon.

These are various stages of fuzzy, blurry, etc., recordings that I simply want to try to make look better (not perfect!) Or, even if anything can be done using AVS or whatever may be suggested that I could use to do so.

I am just using my Win10 computer, with moderate specs, nothing fancy and either using Hybrid (if I can figure out what settings to use, which would probably make this easier) or a VERY straight forward CMD line with SIMPLE AVS script. I can play around with the contrast and maybe degraining and a few simple things, but some guidance would be super helpful, thanks!

I'll post back here when I have hopefully have access to my site and give links to the snippets so you guys can take a look.

I BET there is some trick AI out there you can run these old movies through, but I don't know anything about that.

[johnmeyer]

You will find very useful film restoration advice in three different posts started by "videofred".

The power of Avisynth: restoring old 8mm films (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144271)

The power of Avisynth: new 8mm film restoring examples (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=174298)

Capturing and restoring old 8mm films (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=165975)

He has a few others.

[Lathe]

You will find very useful film restoration advice in three different posts started by "videofred".

The power of Avisynth: restoring old 8mm films (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144271)

The power of Avisynth: new 8mm film restoring examples (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=174298)

Capturing and restoring old 8mm films (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=165975)

He has a few others.

Hey, thanks Bro, I'll check that out! :) I'm not restoring super 8's but just old television broadcast movies, but maybe he'll have something useful there too.

[johnmeyer]

For old TV movies you must first apply inverse telecine (IVTC) to remove duplicated fields. Usual script:

TFM()
TDecimate()You then apply whatever dirt removal, stabilization, and other post-processing.

[Lathe]

For old TV movies you must first apply inverse telecine (IVTC) to remove duplicated fields. Usual script:

You then apply whatever dirt removal, stabilization, and other post-processing.

Excellent suggestion, thank you!