getting rid of noise in anime

[predatorian]

I'm having serious problems reducing the noise i have while encoding Dragonball z episode 113 ntsc. I did seven other episodes and i managed to get rid of almost all the noise. I am using smart smoother hq and warpsharp. Does anybody have a hint for me to improve my encodes?

Thanks a lot!

[midiguy]

Originally posted by predatorian
I'm having serious problems reducing the noise i have while encoding Dragonball z episode 113 ntsc. I did seven other episodes and i managed to get rid of almost all the noise. I am using smart smoother hq and warpsharp. Does anybody have a hint for me to improve mij encodes?

Thanks a lot!

Use smart smoother in "weighed average" mode, not "average pixels" mode. don't use warpsharp. instead, use temporalsmoother (3) or better yet, use a filter called "temporal cleaner" at the default settings (work well for dbz especially). use precise bilinear as the resize filter.

also, what resolution are you using?
and, can you post your smart smoother settings? that would help a lot. those DBZ dvds are especially noisy, the worst DVDs I have ever seen in my life. I encoded ep 118 from the DVD @ 233 MB using the following settings, and in the following order:

smartsmoother (dia: 7 threshold: 32 amount: 215 maintain diffweight: 4)
temporal cleaner (default settings)
resize (precise bilinear, 512 x 384 + crop)
subtitler (yeah.. I really hope you are encoding subbed dbz and not dubbed :p )

and that's it. ep 118 came out nicely too. I know it is a harsh filter chain, but those DBZ DVDs require it! also, make sure the filters are in the same order. it is key to do spatial smoothing, then temporal smoothing, then resize.

*EDIT* I used mp3 variable bitrate audio @ an average bitrate of 128 kbps

[DJ Bobo]

@ midiguy
Your audio bitrate is a bit too high. Keep in mind that the japanese track is mono. And encoded with VBR (q=0) I get about 100kbps average.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
@ midiguy
Your audio bitrate is a bit too high. Keep in mind that the japanese track is mono. And encoded with VBR (q=0) I get about 100kbps average.

yeah, good point, it may have been overkill. but, we are talking about a 1-4 MB difference here so I can't be bothered to re-encode =\ thanks though

[clima]

You can try too an other denoising filter : 2D cleaner.
I am sorry, i don't have the urls here :( If you test it, be sure to use the optimized 2D cleaner, the normal one takes its time :p

[predatorian]

My resolution is 512-384, my smartsmoother settings are dia 5 treshold 40 amount 245 difweight 0. I have all the filters that are named in this thread but don't like 2d cleaner. I'm testing Midiguy's
settings right now. Other question, should i enable GMC or bidirectional encoding @ a bitrate of 1450?

Thanks a lot!

[DJ Bobo]

@ midiguy
tip for your next rips ;)

@ predatorian
GMC is buggy, don't use it, which was told many many times in this forum -.-
And *always* use bidirectional encoding, it gives you about 33% quality increase, or in quality based mode about 25% less size.

[predatorian]

well, i read also topics that said that GMC was such a great thing when using higher bitrates. I always use bidirectional encoding but i was interrested if you would agree with me. And RC averaging period frames or RC averaging reaction frames, do you do anything with these settings?

Thanks again

[DJ Bobo]

@ predatorian
"The only parameter you can safely change is RC averaging period, This represent the number of frame the RC algorithm will take in account to match the requested bitrate. Do not go under 100 frames even for shorter clip, the idea is to have the RC averaging period long as the half of the length of the clip you encode. The RC, specially in 2 pass mode, will allow more temporal variation of the bitrate and thus have a better handling of the fast motion scene"

[midiguy]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
@ predatorian
"The only parameter you can safely change is RC averaging period, This represent the number of frame the RC algorithm will take in account to match the requested bitrate. Do not go under 100 frames even for shorter clip, the idea is to have the RC averaging period long as the half of the length of the clip you encode. The RC, specially in 2 pass mode, will allow more temporal variation of the bitrate and thus have a better handling of the fast motion scene"
in other words, leave RC reaction at the detault, and change RC averaging to 1/2 of your total frames. so if your movie has 500 frames, RC averaging should be set to 250. just thought I would jump in there. :D

[midiguy]

Originally posted by clima
You can try too an other denoising filter : 2D cleaner.
I am sorry, i don't have the urls here :( If you test it, be sure to use the optimized 2D cleaner, the normal one takes its time :p
2d cleaner is optimized for speed while sshiq is optimized for quality.. I have tested both extensively, and I like sshiq a lot more (even if it does take a lot longer).. but for clean material that has very little noise (maybe just some very minor line noise), I don't do any spatial filter, but rather do just a temporal smooth using either temporal smoother or temporal cleaner..

has anyone else here tested the filter "temporal cleaner"? I am interested to know other people's results with it. I can't configure the bloody thing though... when filtering a spatial smoother, it is esay to be precise, because of "visual blur" or "show edges" or whatever.. but with a temporal smoother, esepcially one with this many options, I just don't know how to do this properly =\ it seems that the default settings are about equivalent to a temporalsmoother (3) in terms of compressibility, but it is a "smarter" smoother, in the sense that it is more precise because of its extra features (lumi, chroma thresholds, etc.)

[manono]

Hi-

I used to use it a lot, and found it very good. But nowadays I do everything in AviSynth and I use TemporalSoften2. But if you haven't found this Temporal Cleaner (http://www.undercut.org/articles/temporalfilter.html) page yet, then you might find it useful.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by manono
Hi-

I used to use it a lot, and found it very good. But nowadays I do everything in AviSynth and I use TemporalSoften2. But if you haven't found this Temporal Cleaner (http://www.undercut.org/articles/temporalfilter.html) page yet, then you might find it useful.
what's temporalsoften? do you mean temporalsmoother?

[midiguy]

ergh.. posted twice accidently, damn edit/quote buttons (yes, again).

[midiguy]

yeah you must have meant temporalsmoother.. tried temporalsoften and it doesn't work (unless it is another plugin)? anyways, jsut wondering, do you always do spatial smoothing even for material that doesn't really need it?

[theReal]

temporalsoften2 is another plugin, but TemporalSoften(radius,luma_threshold,chroma_threshold) is a native avisynth filter.

I never use it though, I think temporalsmoother is better. :)

[manono]

Hi-

Yep-TemporalSoften2 is another plugin for Avisynth. I like it because it's fast. But I find all those temp smoothers can be dangerous to use if you're not careful. Here it is (http://http://users.win.be/dividee/TemporalSoften2.zip) if you'd like to try it out.

As for spatial smoothers, since the main one for AviSynth these days is SSHiQ, and because it will automatically double the encoding time, I don't always use it. But it sure helps compression, and it sure is good. I was just thinking back-I guess I have used it on most of my anime encodes recently, even the pretty clean ones-Cowboy Bebop episodes-Kite-the Escaflowne movie-Battle Angel-Spirited Away-one of the Armitage movies-some Nadesico episodes-Totoro-Panda, Ko Panda-yeah-just about everything.

[midiguy]

I used it on cowboy bebop with very light and precise settings.. I still don't like what it was doing to the BGs.. (blurring them just a bit, but still...) I mean, a lot of tihngs can help compressibility.. for instance, making the video darker can help compressibility, but just because it does doesn't make it good to do.. I used temporalsmoother (2) on cowboy bebop episode #1 (with long version of intro theme, credits + preview, a bit over 25 minutes in length) @ 233 MB with 128 kbps audio and a 512 x 384 resolution.. came out very nice..

and came out 232 MB by the way

[DJ Bobo]

@ midiguy
Just a small notice: Cowboy Bebop has a very nice compressibility, I put 5 episodes with 384x288 1-pass quality based 100% or 4 episodes with 448x336 1-pass quality based 100% on 1 CD, without any filtering! don't know how it is with your HK DVDs, but it should be approximately the same thing.

[midiguy]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
@ midiguy
Just a small notice: Cowboy Bebop has a very nice compressibility, I put 5 episodes with 384x288 1-pass quality based 100% or 4 episodes with 448x336 1-pass quality based 100% on 1 CD, without any filtering! don't know how it is with your HK DVDs, but it should be approximately the same thing.
nah, I got the R1s now (got a hook up with that).. and yeah, I did a test with that, I used temporalsmoother (2) and 448 x 336 and 1-pass quality based 100%.. and for that first episode (25 min long) it came out 246 MB (with audio, 128 kbps VBR).. so I can get a lower file size @ 512 x 384 2-pass.. and I am liking the results I got with that a bit better =\ how big was your cowboy bebop ep #1? thanks!

[DJ Bobo]

Episode1 was done in 384x288 2-pass with 256kbps audio (2x 128k) without closing -> 147MB (not saturated)
But I noticed Episode5 got undersized (only 124MB)
I ripped 1 DVD <=> 1 CD

So I made the other CDs with quality based (all episodes are without opening/closing)

For example, CD3, each of the 4 episodes is about 21 minutes, 448x336 1-pass quality based 100% + 2x Dolby Digital 192k audio each! => 692MB + 3MB VobSub subtitles.
Absolutely no filtering was done! (resizing with BilinearResize)

[midiguy]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
Episode1 was done in 384x288 2-pass with 256kbps audio (2x 128k) without closing -> 147MB (not saturated)
But I noticed Episode5 got undersized (only 124MB)
I ripped 1 DVD <=> 1 CD

So I made the other CDs with quality based (all episodes are without opening/closing)

For example, CD3, each of the 4 episodes is about 21 minutes, 448x336 1-pass quality based 100% + 2x Dolby Digital 192k audio each! => 692MB + 3MB VobSub subtitles.
Absolutely no filtering was done! (resizing with BilinearResize)

instead of doing 1-pass quality based at such a low res, I can do a 2-pass encode @ 512 x 384 or even 640 x 480 and keep the intro/outro + previews/recaps and still be ok... and I prefer to use soft bicubic for cowboy bebop.. it is a compromise for me.. between sharpness and compressibility... just my opinion though I guess...

also, a temporalsmoother (2) can really help compressibility and does't really hurt the quality at all.. it cleans it up in some areas even.. areas that have some minor line noise.. but, since you are using bilinear resize and at such low resolutions, you probably wouldn't need that filtering much...

[theReal]

something I just noticed is that for the Simpsons (ok, it's not anime, but maybe it's true for anime as well) the good old spatialsoftenmmx is still the best filter.

I use it like this:

TemporalSmoother(4,1)
SpatialSoftenMMX(1,3,20,false,false,4,4,6,8)
TemporalSmoother(4)

It gives me very good results for Realmedia 9 files.
(note that this is for tv-captures, so maybe it's too strong for DVD-rips)

[midiguy]

Originally posted by theReal
something I just noticed is that for the Simpsons (ok, it's not anime, but maybe it's true for anime as well) the good old spatialsoftenmmx is still the best filter.

I use it like this:

TemporalSmoother(4,1)
SpatialSoftenMMX(1,3,20,false,false,4,4,6,8)
TemporalSmoother(4)

It gives me very good results for Realmedia 9 files.
(note that this is for tv-captures, so maybe it's too strong for DVD-rips)

I have tested that actually, and I prefered sshiq... but that is for DVD rips.. never tested it on a TV capture.. just curious though.. why did you do:

temporalsmooth
spatialsmooth
temporalsmooth

why 2 temp smooths and in that order? thanks!

[DJ Bobo]

@ midiguy
Have you ever checked "Heavy Noise" in GKnot? ;)

[theReal]

Actually, the spatialsoftenmmx settings were a bit too heavy on the chroma (and not enough on the luma). I changed the settings again and now I'm using (1,6,15,false,false,4,4,6,8).

Well, I almost change those values from episode to episode and every time I think "a bit more of this or a bit less of that would've been better" ...

I use temporalsmoother before the spatialsoften because my tv captures have too much noise in motion and spatialsoften detects edges much better when I "calm down" the noise before spatial smoothing.

I use Temporalsmoother at the end to soften all the possible artefacts of spatialsoften. I have tried various times to use just one temporalsmoother, either before or after, but it just looks better with two of them :)

DJBobo, you're right, that spatialsoften/temporalsmoother combination is just a slight variation of GKnot's medium noise reduction (heavy uses two spatialsoftens, that is just too slow...)



from the Gknot skript:

# 2) medium noise (slow)
#SpatialSoftenMMX(1,4,6,false,false,4,4,6,8)
#TemporalSmoother(2)
#
# 3) heavy noise (very slow, you have been warned)
#SpatialSoftenMMX(2,4,6,false,false,4,4,6,8)
#TemporalSmoother(3)
#SpatialSoftenMMX(1,4,6,false,false,4,4,6,8)

[DJ Bobo]

@ theReal
A small tip for your captures: enable noise reduction of VirtualDub while capturing. A Level of 8 is absolutely fantastic! may be then you'll need less filtering after (I personally never filter after that, that capture noise reduction filter of VD is awesome and very effective!)