One thing is killing me

[YellowShark]

Hi all,

Well, I’ve been reading the Doom9’s mpeg forums for maybe a month now. I’ve read all the FAQs and lots of threads and found the answers to almost all my questions. Almost. So I decided to register and post the remaining ones.

I am capturing DV video (PAL) from my Sony Digital8 camcorder thru FireWire using Pinnacle DV500 interface card and Studio v7 software. I want to encode with DivX and display on PC screen (I use GKnot/Avisynth/VDub/DivX501 + some nice tools/filters you ppl write - thanks).

Initially my biggest problem was proper deinterlacing. Still, I am not happy with my results but there are lots of interesting threads on this subject so I hope to find the right filter/settings one day.

But the thing that is killing me are the horizontal lines in the frames where fast motion is present. They are very distinct even after I separate the fields (so they are not any side effect of deinterlacing). Please have look here (http://yellowshark.republika.pl/index.html) to see what I am referring to. I would expect the motion artifacts to appear as ghosts or blurring (resulting from not fast enough shutter speed) but not in form of these annoying lines! Can anyone explain this effect? Can it be eliminated or at least reduced?

And another thing are ghosts. What are you guys using to remove them? I know that a ghost-removal filter is on Donald Graft’s to-do list. But what is available now?

If the above have been already answered then could you please post a link instead of crucifying me? Just kidding – I know you’re all nice and would not hurt a newbie :)

Cheers.
YellowShark

PS I thought capturing/encoding DV would be as easy as 1-2-3 – it’s all digital after all. Well it’s not and I’m learning the hard way!

[Fasola_Jan]

Hi !

Try rmPAL VDub filter:

http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg6423/rmPal/index.englische-uebersetzung--translated-into-english.html


Bye.
Fasola

[YellowShark]

Thanks Fasola_Jan. Great tip. This rmPAL filter really reduces those ugly lines quite a bit! Have a look here (http://yellowshark.republika.pl/index.html) again to see my results.

Any further views on the subject are still welcome.

Cheers,

YS

[droolian01]

Hi there Fasola_Jan,
I used to use your filter when i started getting into capturing some months ago, and it is really very good. But i don't use it now as i have so much stuff (enterprise, 24, buffy, auf weidersehen pet, spooks etc...) to encode to xvid on my modest system (celeron 800) that i can't afford to use vdub filters, and rely on avisynth (fast recompress) to gain a little speed. I have even stopped resizing now to speed things up a bit, i just cap at close to my target res and crop to modulus 16 (480x360 cap mjpeg 19 cropped to 448x352)

N.B. i have managed to get rid of most of these lines by seliberately oversaturating my source caps and using tweak to reduce the sat, this works nearly perfectly. But i would love to use your filter again, and i was wondering if it could be ported over to avisynth. I have no idea how this could be done, but if you ar anyone could do this i would be eternally gratefull, and one day i may be able to switch my computer off for more than a few hours!!
Thanks again.

[Fasola_Jan]

Hi !

I am NOT author of this filter !

This is rmPAL homepage:

http://homepages.fh-giessen.de/~hg6423/rmPal/

Sources included :)))

Bye.
Fasola

[chemmajik]

Seems your web server took off the examples.

[YellowShark]

I am 100% sure the pictures are there! I've just checked it! Just open the page (test images (http://yellowshark.republika.pl/index.html)) and give it some time. It will load the images eventually - it's still loading even after the word Ready shows up in your browser's status line.
I don't know why it is like that. It's a lousy free web hosting provider. Or maybe it's because the page has been simply saved as .html from MS Word :) Perhaps not the best way to create a webpage :)

Cheers,
YS

[chemmajik]

Have you tried mjpeg picvideo or huffy codecs instead? Well I don't know what Mhz or Ghz you are & what video card you are using. Are you getting any dropped frames while capturing at 720x480?

[YellowShark]

@chemmajik

About my capture - as I wrote in my original first post:

I am capturing DV video (PAL) from my Sony Digital8 camcorder thru FireWire using Pinnacle DV500 interface card and Studio v7 software. I want to encode with DivX and display on PC screen (I use GKnot/Avisynth/VDub/DivX501 + some nice tools/filters you ppl write - thanks). I get no dropped frames at all. My system is:
Athlon XP 1700+
MSI KT3 Ultra mobo
512 MB DDR
GeForce-3 Ti 200 64 MB
HDD for capture is 40GB Matrox 7200 ATA133
Capture card is FireWire interface card DV500 from Pinnacle
OS is Windows XP Pro

Codec used for capture is DVSD (FOURCC) codec installed with Pinnacle Studio v7 that came with the card. This codec from Pinnacle is supposed to be among the best for DV (so I read on this forum somewhere). Btw, I capture PAL DV so it's 720x576 interlaced.

How can I capture from DV device using other codecs?
Any help would be greatly appreciated 'cause even though the rmPAL VDub filter works, it takes time and is not perfect as you can see on the example page liked before.

Thanks for your interest chemmajik :)

Cheers,
YS

[chemmajik]

You definently have all the hardware you'd need to prevent problems. I was only asking about video card because when I had a slower system, if I just overclocked my video card just 6mhz it was just enough to allow me to capture at 720x480 without dropped frames.
What about capturing at 24fps? If the camera has a setting for shutter speed, set it to 1/50th of a second, or the nearest value (e.g. 1/60th). You might have a issue dealing with needing to convert to progressive-scan maybe.

[avih]

looking at your pics, it definately seems like a bad capture (the original is bad already). it's NOT a 'normal' interlaced image. interlaced image has only 2 fields, but your image clearly has 4 of them (or at least it looks that way since it can't have real 4 fields). you can see a vertical pattern of red-orange-black-grey at the (phone-set area).

as a hunch, i'd say it's a bad color conversion from one of the components during capture. prob involving yuy2 in that way or another, and affecting the chroma layer only (i.e. b/w should be normal interlaced).

what i can suggest:
1. try capturing with a different codec/application (go for huffyuv/mjpeg/uncompressed rgb/uncompressed yuy2/uncompressed yuv). if you got a 2-way pattern (2 alternating colors and not 4 as your current image has), than we're ok, and you'll have to deinterlace normally.

2. try to enable/disable any 'field' setting that u have in your app. i.e. swap fields or any other field related options.

3. my hunch tells me this problem only relates to the chroma layer of the image, so i suggest to remove the color using a filter (vdub or avisynth: set saturation to minimum), and try to deinterlace normally (bob or separate fields, or any of the other deinterlacing plugins). if the new b/w clip looks ok and without these artefacts, than one of the components handles a yuy2 (probably) conversion badly. try to change the setting of your capture app that involved color formats (i.e. force yuy2, use rgb24... etc)

4. can u change the setting of your dv camera?? try different format or different configuration is possible.

let us know if it worked.

cheers
avi

ps.
that's the strangest interlacing effect i've ever seen.

[theReal]

I'm just guessing, but can you change the field-order somewhere (on capture, or on saving the edited file)?

I think swapped fields could produce an effect like this, but I'm not sure. At least it's worth a try if you don't have any further ideas about it.

[YellowShark]

@avih & chemmajik

THANKS, THANKS, THANKS x 1000 for your hints. Problem is SOLVED!

However, on the contrary to what you (avih and chemmajik) suspected my capture is OK. You are right that the first picture on my test images page already looks bad, and as I say there, it is an uncompressed, original captured avi. It's a screen shot from VDub/AVISynth. The script is only one line:

AviSource("D:\Video\Test.avi")

It works without the script also of course and gives the same, kind of double interlaced effect which, when deinterlaced, gives this ugly horizontal lines. What screws my captured clip to look like this is a Pinnacle DSVD decoder!

When I am capturing DV from my camcorder I think it is just a digital transfer of DV video without any decoding/coding (even on my old Pentium II 350 MHz I had no dropped frames). I can not set any parameters for capturing. Resolution is fixed at 720x576 and compressor is Microsoft DV (PAL) (I can select NTSC but my camcorder is PAL so ... ). No matter what other DV codecs I have installed on my system there is only one choice for capture: Microsoft DV (I capture using either Adobe Premiere or Pinnacle Studio 7).

Also, to do my DV capture I don't have to install any special codecs. Fresh install of Win XP Pro and Adobe Premiere and my capture works. I don't even install any drivers for my capture card - Win XP Pro does it automatically. But I cannot open my captured avi in VirtualDub nor in VirtualDub/AVISynth. When I try my simple AVIStynth script it gives me this error:

Avisynth open failure:
AVISource: couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc dsvd

That's quite normal I would say :)

When I install Pinnacle Studio 7 my script works! But gives my the crappy images with horizontal lines.

Now, after avih suggestions, I have exported my captured script from Premiere as Huffyuv v2.1.1. Opened that in VDub/AVIStynth and ... no more horizontal lines!!! When I export as uncompressed AVI I also get perfect picture in VDub.

Taking into consideration the following (approximate) size for one frame in different formats:

DV 140 kB/frame
Huffyuv YUY2 358 kb/frame
Huffyuv RGB 538 kb/frame
No compression 1215 kb/frame (= 720x576x24bits)

I would not like to transfer all my captured clips to Huffyuv: waste of time, not enough disk space and no gain in quality since I capture in DV in a first place. Also I can not set my capture to anything else then Microsoft DV (anybody knows perhaps how to change it?).

So I have downloaded a demo version of DV codec from Main Concept (download it from here (http://www.mainconcept.de/downloads.shtml)) and it works OK. Open DV file in VirtualDub/AVISynth and NO horizontal lines! The demo version of the codec inserts a logo when encoding. But I don't need to encode to DV! So this free demo is enough for me - decodes perfectly! BTW, Pinnalce has some upgrades/patches for the drivers/codecs on their website but the downloads are soooo slooooow. I'll give it a try one day. Till then I will stick to the Main Concept demo.

Again, thanks to all for your help, and avih and chemmajik in particular :)

Cheers,
YS

PS See the final "perfect" frame on my test page (http://yellowshark.republika.pl/index.html).

[chemmajik]

Glad it ended up being a codec related issue, because I sure would think that firewire technology should be able to do better then my 4yr old tech. Try to reinstall huffy or picvideo codecs again.

[theReal]

before you are going to pay for the Mainconcept codec, you can also try the Panasonic (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24956&highlight=panasonic+codec) . It's a VFW compatible variant of the MS-DV codec and it's free.

[YellowShark]

@chemmajik

I have never separately installed any of the codecs your are referring to (huffy and picvideo). I have a fresh install of Win XP Pro + Adobe Premiere - no other video editing software nor standalone codecs. And since both Main Concept and Panasonic DV codecs work fine (no horizontal lines anymore) should I be trying anything else?

@theReal

Thanks for the link to Panasonic DV Codec. I have downloaded it and it also works fine + encodes without any logos. I will use that one then.

Thanks again, you've been a great help!

Cheers,
YS

[Ookami]

Thank you all for this great thread (altough I don't have a DV camcorder or similar)!

I will add this thread to the FAQ.

Thanks.

[chemmajik]

Well thats something you would have to determine, I don't have a firewire capture card. See why alot of people use those two codecs I mention is bec they are optimized to allow 720x576 captures without dropped frames. They still take alot of hard drive space, but not as much as raw avi, picvid can be adjusted with more compression. But if I had the hard drive space to spare I'd do lossless raw avi or huffy. Because any compression on the first avi will effect the final outcome to whatever codec you choose be it mpeg2 or mpeg4. See the goal is to get the video the smallest to where the original doesnt look any different from the original product, but in the end takes less space to store it. But the ultimate goal is to do it in one step, with new hardware & new technolgy sometimes that can be done with a price, but with others like a 50 dollar capture card it requires 2-3steps. I've not seen if firewire can do it in one step since I don't have one, but I doubt it except with 3ghz & RAID like some have said, without a mpeg2 encoder card.

[YellowShark]

@chemmajik

I am certainly not an expert in FireWire capture, however I think that capture from DV camcorder thru FireWire works more like a simple copy operation then a real video capture - no decoding/encoding takes plase during this process. My video is already in DV format on the digital tape and it is just transferred to hard drive (only some avi headers/formatting information is probably added). No codecs are needed for capture, they are needed to watch/process the video. So even if capturing to loseless raw AVI would be possible it would not have a better quality then the original DV ecoded video in my camcorder (tape).

Still, I might be missing something here :) Any DV/FireWire expert here?

Cheers,
YS

[chemmajik]

Cool now that makes me feel worse, better quality then AVI. Just joking... But the camera still must use some internal compressor thats probably adjustable I'm sure. Wish I had one to test out, but I really wouldnt use it much, except for special occassions & what not trips. I understand the header explaination.

[YellowShark]

I'm sure a DV camera uses some DV codec to compress the video, however mine is a (relatively) cheap one (Sony Digital-8 DCR-TR7000E PAL) and has no settings at all regarding the video codec. Some fancier models perhaps ...

[ulfschack]

Of course the CODEC becomes an issue when you're putting it on DIvX, SVDC or DVD, since it'll need to decode the information before sending the video to the encoder/codec in question.

As to how much these DV-decoders differ in qualtiy I'll not speculate in. I can only say that I dont see any difference whatsoever in using Main Concept, MS, Sony, Adaptec (DV soft) in the resulting avi/mpeg.

If we look towards the realms of audio you never hear mentions of good and bad mp3 decoders ... only encoders. I think the same applies to DV. Please comment further.

cheers

[Ookami]

> you never hear mentions of good and bad mp3 decoders

Uiuiui... How wrong, how wrong... :)

For example:

http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~djmrob/mp3decoders/objective.html

It should make obvious that with MP3 there is quite a difference between the decoders (just like with the encoders).

BTW, I don't know anything about DV :D .

Cheers,

Ookie.

[ulfschack]

Er ... I stand corrected then :eek:

should have said "I never hear about" instead, which even that isn't true anymore, thanks to you :)

Still, I've tried and failed seeing a difference in DV decoders.As for encoding: what little rendering is done in transitions during the master edit doesn't weigh a great deal either on my list. The rest is just direct stream copy just as YellowShark explains.

Thanks for the correction

Cheers

[YellowShark]

@ulfschack

So you say ...

I can only say that I dont see any difference whatsoever in using Main Concept, MS, Sony, Adaptec (DV soft) in the resulting avi/mpeg.

I had never seen any difference either. Until I came across these strange horizontal lines which are the main subject of this thread :) Look at some stills from my captured video (http://yellowshark.republika.pl/index.html) to see the difference in codec quality when it comes to DECODING (give that page some time to load into your browser :)). The artifacts are there only when the original DV clip is decoded using Pinnacle DV codec (came with my FireWire capture card). MainConcept and Panasonic codecs give nice, clean picture. It is THE SAME DV clip - only DECODED using different codec. So THERE IS a difference.

BTW, these artifacts are there only when truly high motion is present in the video.

Cheers,
YS

[ulfschack]

Allright, there might be a decoder that doesnt follow the rules. But come on .. a standard is no guesswork. There is a structure of sure things on top of others and I really don't see how you can fail complying to it(I've read (browsed)some DV white papers). There certainly are a few post processing things open to whomever chooses to manufacture a decoder, but that should be beyond simple things as rendering fields in the correct state, as you seemed to have a problem with initially. That's one of the reasons I was surprised to learn that there obviously were great differences in mp3 decoders ... how hard can it be?

I've never tried the pinnacle, nor have I heard any critisism such as yours against it, but I will stay clear of it in the future. Glad your problems are solved btw :)

cheers

[theReal]

I stumbled upon something regarding DV codecs lately: Some sources say that the MS and the Panasonic codec were 100% compatible with Sony's hardware DV encoder, so it should be perfect as long as you're using a Sony camcorder. I've read elsewhere that the MS DV codec was crap and you should definitely not use it if you like high quality DV.

Well, these statements are pretty far from each other...
I tend to believe the first one because I am using a Sony camcorder and the MS codec and I have never noticed any reduction of quality in my videos.

What do you think about this ??

[ulfschack]

I think it doesn't matter what we use :) For the time being I use the Sony CODEC myself for my JVC Cam. When I format my HD and reinstall I might choose another ... I really don't care. One important thing I've learned trough the last two years in this forum is the importance of having options to choose from. I've never had a foolproof way of doing SCVDs or DivXs, cause as soon as you think you do have one a new app or a new CODEC comes along and screws everything up, either because of system conflicts and incompabilities or (better) a new revolutinary thingy that makes everything you did before seem downright stupid :)

Some of us (me included) need to take a step back and consider the importance of DV codec deltas, one RGB to YUY2 conversion too many, MMX idct instead of IEEE standard, mpeg matrices, ... the list goes on. Try asking the girlfriend (If she hasn't allready left by now) how she rates the importance of such things as compared to everyday basics as having a life. *grin*

Piieewh! Where does the man get the air from ?

One very funny guy (I'm sorrry that I don't remember who) once wrote an addiction list to video encoding.


You know that you're addicted to dvd rip when...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- you check doom9's news 4 times a day
- you visit this forum 10 times a day
- you have at least 5 different versions of Flask and 4 different versions of VirtualDub installed on your harddrive
- your family/wife/room mate can't use the computer because you are "using it for something important that won't be finished before tomorrow !"
- you have bought a 80 gig drive only to store vob files
- you ALWAYS have the latest build of dvd2avi and vobsub installed (yes, even if it was updated 3 hours ago)
- your favorite number is 23.976
- you moved the computer from your room to the toilet so that you could rip overnight whitout having the sound of the your pc-cooler prevent you from sleeping
- you've not bought a single videotape in months
- you tought all your friends how to rip
- you never stop looking for blocks and compression artifacts, even when you are watching telly
- you rent dvds just to rip them, and don't bother watching them before taking them back
- you always think of buying a faster computer althought you would only use the extra speed for ripping
- you HAVE bought a faster computer only for ripping !
- you've stopped playing counterstrike, now your favorite toy's name is VirtualDub
- you've ACTUALLY downloaded windows media encoder 8
- you type "www.doom9.net" faster than your own name
- you wake earlier in the morning so that you can start a rip and this way it'll be finished when you come back from work/school
- you have ripped the same movie more than 5 times, just to try out some new progs and settings
- you've tried to explain your grandma what IVTC is, and why it is better than de-interlacing
- you wrote a stupid list like this one



PS hope I disn't step on too many toes. TheReal, I know you as a very competent forum member and I don't think that I my answer was one that you were hoping for ... just happen to be in a philosophical mode. (And NO, my wife hasn't left me :) )


cheers

[theReal]

You could've added:

-You have a doom9 forum post count of >400 ;) :D

I wonder how I got so many posts...