.vcf for Memento or Virgin Suicides

[sid]

As the topic says i am searching for some sbc nandub settings (vcf) for the two movies Memento and the Virgin Suicides for 1CD (!)rips. I already have good quality, but there are still blocks when it comes to the fire in Memento or heavy blocks in the background in the Virgin Suicides...and i already saw encodes (Vite's Memento rip for example) which were better.

Especially the blockiness problem for 1cd is a problem for me...when i watch vite encodes for example i notice that they have only minimum or very small blocks...they seem to compensate that problem by using other filters and let the whole movie be a little bit unsharp. I personally would also prefer to let the movie a little biot unsharp all in all than to have heavy and medium blocks.


Maybe someone has an idea...

[manono]

Hi-

You could disable Motion and Luma Compression. Then the DRFs won't jump as much during the heavy movement scenes (like the fire you referred to). If you don't mind sacrificing a bit of sharpness, then you might try the Smart Smoother HiQ or even the 2D Cleaner at a very low setting. Or you could use a Bilinear resizer which will also soften the picture (I personally wouldn't recommend that, but you said that you wouldn't mind losing a bit of sharpness). And if by chance you're using the Sharp Bicubic resizer, then by all means don't. Maybe use the Neutral Bicubic.

[sid]

I am not that familiar with those nandub filters, i only know the resize (bicubic, bilinear, precise...) so far. Where can i grab all those extra filters you named and how to configure them.

I need something which lets get the movie all in all a little bit unsharp or with some kinda "shit" (no moving blocks or ugly looking things or heads for example). I cant describe it that good on english...maybe you saw John Q by DiAMOND...i think its the same for the vite rips...they loose a little bit on Sharpness for the whole movie, but in exchange they get rid of those nasty blocks. I mean you cant prevent blocks in very high motion scenes, but they should not be there when they scenes where you can easily take notice of them, like in the background or when a man burns his wife stuff like in Memento. It is possible like i saw in the Memento rip on 1CD, i just need to find out how. I came to the conclusion that filters maybe worth a try, cause everything else i tried failed, or i tried it in the wrong combination and i saw this effect i told you about.

hehe ok enough about the story ;) Maybe i will try the filters now. Would appreciate it if you could tell me where to grab them and how to configure.

[manono]

Hi-

It sounds as if you're frameserving with a VFAPI, which is fine. But I would recommend you trying GKnot as a front end for all this, and frame serve with an .avs. It's faster. But when I mentioned those resizers, they are the ones you use with AviSynth and an .avs. So, doing your resizing in Nandub, then choose Precise Bilinear (NeVeRLiFt likes it-it must be good), or just Bilinear for a softer picture.

To disable Motion and Luma Correction-in the BitRate Curve Tab of the Nandub settings, make sure Motion Based Curve Modulation=0 (or even slightly negative), Curve Compression=0, Luma Correction not enabled, Bit rates Redistribution is Proportional. In the Motion tab set Crispness Modulation=0. In the Compression Level tab, change that Top DRF setting from 2-16 to 2-5 or so. I'm not necessarily recommending all this, but you asked how to improve the motion scenes-this will come at the slight expense of the non-motion scenes.

As for the filters, you can get Smart Smoother HiQ (for VDub, very good but VERY slow) Here (http://sauron.mordor.net/dgraft/hiq/smoothhiq.html) and the 2D Cleaner (for VDub and pretty fast) Here (http://sauron.mordor.net/dgraft/2dcleaner.html). For settings for the 2D Cleaner, maybe 3,2,2 or 4,2,2 at most.

I haven't seen the group rips you mentioned. I "make" my own movies. If you practice long enough, you'll be making movies as good or better than anything you've downloaded. But I would recommend you learn about Gordian Knot. Good Luck sid.

[sid]

SHould i enable Bitrates reservoir modulation when i switch Motion based off ?

And what about the settings for Smart Smoother HiQ

[manono]

Hi-

I would leave Bitrate reservoir modulation unchecked. Have you seen Doom9's SBC Guide (http://www.doom9.org/nandub.htm)?

As for SSHiQ:

Diameter=5, Threshold=50, Amount=150, Maintain Diff=25, Weighted Ave (or Ave Pixel to make it softer-blurrier, also slightly faster). If the whole thing is too soft for you, then lower Threshold to 30 or so and Maintain Diff to 10.

Just remember that this will more than double your encoding time. You might want to try the 2D Cleaner first since it's much faster. And to get some faster results to get an idea of what the whole movie will look like, maybe make a new .d2v of part of the movie (maybe some fast action part) using the [ and ] buttons in DVD2AVI and run the 2 passes with that to see if you like the looks.

[NeVeRLiFt]

What Anti-shit settings are you using.
If you have a few scenes that goto hell and get nasty blocks, then you need to tweak your Anti-shit settings.
When I ripped Moulin Rouge I had one scene that would just get nasty.... and then a few scenes that where not as good as they should be. I encoded this movie 5 times, and tweaked the Anti-shit :devil: and made a damn near perfect 1cd rip with that movie.

The quality of my 1cd rips speaks for itself ;)

[sid]

i tried a few
21/1/0
16/0/50
16/30/50
and antifreeze
didnt help much

i am running a test encode with the changed settings manano gave me and after that i will try those additional filters, maybe that will help

[sid]

One last question manono...apply those filters before or after resizing (i guess after ?) ?
And should i use (precise) bilinear or bicubic resizing when using those extra filters ?

[manono]

Hi-

You apply the filters after resizing, they'll be stronger (that is they'll soften or blur more) and work a bit faster. You apply them before resizing and they'll be a bit slower, but not as soft. As for the resizer, personally, I try not to use Bilinear and would choose Precise Bicubic(A=0.60). But you said you don't mind a softer picture and then Presise Bilinear may be OK. If you do use the Bilinear together with the smoothers, you may wind up with a picture that's too smoothed for your tastes. I mentioned all of the choices so you could take your pick, and if it does wind up too smooth for your tastes, then you can sharpen up the picture a bit by using Bicubic and lighten up on the smoothers. Don't be afraid to do the thing 4 or 5 times till you get something you like. I just wanted to help you to get rid of the blocks. And thats also why I suggested doing part of the movie to get an idea of how it would look before taking the time to do the whole thing.

Speaking of blocks. I always use Anti-Shit with 16,1,0 because I have trouble with shit when doing DivX 3.11 rips. Not everyone does. Shit takes the form of big ugly prominent blocks, inverted blocks, or really nasty looking smears. But the blocks I believe you were referring to were the ones caused by too much action and not enough bit rate.

[sid]

I dont remember if it were those blocks in the Memento fire, i have to check that again. But i think some of those blocks in Virgin suicides are those smear and nasty looking blocks...but also heave movements on backgrounds like walls and stuff.

[manono]

Hi-

There's not much you can do about the moving blocks on solid masses of light color, like the sky or walls. Well, you could change codecs-the others are a bit better about it. And NeVeRLiFt was right then-you may have to tweak your anti-shit settings. 21,1,0 should do it, but may lead to oversized files.

[sid]

manono and the others, i really have to thank you for your tips. this time it was like it should always be in forums. no discussion about the sense of my question.

to come back to the topic.

manono, your tip to leave the luma, mbcm and curve compression away really helped me to get rid of the blocks when the fire appears! was it exactly the luma or the curve thing which was the reason for the blocks ?

and i guess virgin suicides is to hard to compress even with usage of your filters. its a slow motion video with a good length for 1cd, but blockst, this smear and the heave movement in the background appears too often. there are scenes which look great (slo-mo scenes) but other slow-mo scenes look nasty, so i think its the compressibility of the movie which dont let you get to a good result on 1cd.

[manono]

Hi-

The theory behind curve compression is that the eye won't notice when bits are taken away during scenes of high motion. But motion isn't just people running around fighting and shooting at each other. Among the highest motion scenes are those with fire, water, smoke, fog, or even a close up of a tree with the leaves blowing in the wind. If you enable curve compression, those types of scenes won't get their full percentage of bit rate the way static scenes will. And you can't tell when played full speed. Well, that's not really true. Maybe you can sense or feel it doesn't look as good. And, as encoders, we like to stop the movie at many different places to study how it looks, and many of us want all the scenes to look good. Luma compression works in a similar way-some believe that you can't tell when bits have been taken away during very bright or very dark scenes. So, probably all three contributed to the improvement (with a fire you would have both motion compression and luma compression stealing the precious bits), but mainly not using motion compression.

I don't know Virgin Suicides (I know Memento very well and love it much), but maybe you should do a compression check on it with GKnot. Some movies can't be compressed to 1 CD and look good, no matter what you do. You might also consider lowering the resolution, lowering audio quality, and putting on some smoothers. Maybe it is a very "noisy" movie and doesn't compress well, and you'll have to go to 2 CDs. Maybe the problem is in the source. Before encoding, open the VFAPI in Nandub and scroll to the places that look bad in the finished .avi. Maybe you'll see the same problems before you ever encode it.

But I'm glad for you that you've learned a bit about improving the quality of your movies. Good Luck sid and thanks for the kind words.