Order of operation. help please

[Holomatrix]

Hello, just wondering, out of these filter; BiCubicresize, TemporalSmoother and Sharpen, in what order should I put them in my script? Encoding DVD to VCD. Thanks

[hakko504]

Just make sure TemporalSmoother is before Sharpen and it should be fine. If you have a fast machine I recommend that you put Resize last, but to save time you can put it earlier in the script.

[Holomatrix]

Thanks for replying. What about for best quality ?

[DJ Bobo]

Best quality is when you put the smoother filter first, then resize, then sharpen... BUT! for VCD you should use BilinearResize and not sharpen at all, since VCD has such a limited bitrate, it can't get enough blurring -.-
With BicubicResize & sharpen you'll get a worse video definitely!

[Holomatrix]

Originally posted by DJ Bobo
[B]Best quality is when you put the smoother filter first, then resize, then sharpen...

Ok, so I would use thiese settings with SVCD then?
Thanks

[WarpEnterprises]

& sharpen you'll get a worse video definitely

But I want to add that with a xVCD (one with VBR) the subjective quality gets surprising good if you sharpen quite much as the last step (e.g. Unfilter(60,60) ).
I think many DVD-players play it, aren't they?

[Holomatrix]

I probably should clarify. I am creating an XVCD. I am crating a mpeg2 vbr stream but want to use VCD 352X240 resolution because it speeds the encode up really fast.

@ WarpEnterprises
ok, I will try the Unfilter filter because it is faster, but do you think 60,60 will be comparable to Sharpen(.05) ?

@ DJ Bobo
so with XVCD should I still use Bilinear?

or am I just being stupid and forget the speed diff and just do a SVCD? (for quality purpose)

Thanks all

[DJ Bobo]

XVCD can't have MPEG2 video, it can only have MPEG1 video.
If your bitrate is high enough (let's say over 2000kbps), you may try bicubic resizing & sharpening, but don't expect wonders, MPEG1 is very crappy.

SVCD is a little bit different, bicubic won't bring anything anyway, since you'll be resizing in only one direction. Sharpening is here not needed, since SVCD has already a high resolution.

[Holomatrix]

Well, what I'm creating is a SVCD @ 352X240 resolution with bitrate under 2000kbps so I guess that would make it a XSVCD. I'll get it right one of these days :) Bicubic?

EDIT: Damn, maybe I should do a CVD. If so then what would my order of operation be?

[h00z]

I always crop, IVTC if needed (Decomb.dll), Smooth, resize (SimpleResize), then sharpen last.

I'm having some strange problems with Unfilter though, so I'm still using an imported VirtualDub sharpener (WarpSharp).

[WarpEnterprises]

1) (x)(S)VCD,...: for the filter chain it is NOT relevant which mpeg-type, only the resolution matters.
2) Why do you make a mpeg2 and not a mpeg1?
3) Unfilter(60,60) is pretty much, appr. sharpen(0.3). But you can easily compare:

LoadPlugin("c:\_video\unfilter.dll")
version().blur(1.58).blur(1.58).converttoYUY2
clip_unfilter=unfilter(60,60)
clip_sharpen=animate(0,100, "sharpen", last, 0.0, last, 1.0)
return subtract(clip_sharpen, clip_unfilter).Levels(64,1,192,0,255)

Now if you open this in Virtualdub and move along, you see that the difference vanishes ~ at frame 30
-> that means unfilter(60,60) = sharpen(0.3)

Btw. a bitrate of 2000 is PLENTY for 352x240 !

[Holomatrix]

I'm trying not only to increase the encode speed but also fit the movie on one CD. So by using a VBR (mpeg2) I would not be wasting bits if the sceen does not need them. If I wanted a sharpen of .4 what would I use? (70,70)? can you explain what thoes line mean in your script, I'm new to this. Also is puldown only needed when the resolution is SVCD 480X480 or do you still need it if doing a VBR?
Thanks

[WarpEnterprises]

The script ("animate") varies the filter settings from frame 0 to frame 100 (so the sharpen value goes from 0.0 to 1.0), with subtract you can see the difference between the two methods.

With pulldown I dont know (PAL-only...)

You didn't answer why you stick to mpeg2.
As far as I know a 352x240-VBR-mpeg1 (burnt as xVCD) is more compatible than as a 352x240-mpeg2 (burnt as xSVCD) because this resolution isn't SVCD-standard and it seems many player do VBR-VCDs (but of course you simply have to check if yours plays it).
For the issue of bitrate saving it doesn't make a difference (I too make a VBR-xVCD if I want the video on one CD and the quality is not the top goal, e.g. "internet"-video)

[Holomatrix]

Ok, I thought VBR was mpeg2 and CBR was mpeg1. May you could just clarify what the difference is between mpeg2 and mpeg1. I believed that mpeg2 is better.I'll take a look at the script in a minute.
Thanks

[WarpEnterprises]

for your thing the differences are:
mpeg1: no support of Interlaced and pulldown-on-playback
mpeg2: Interlaced supported
(there are more differences indeed, but those are not "visible" to people like you and me [profiles, buffer sizes, ...])

All other properties (resolution, VBR/CBR, bitrate, audio,...) equally possible (in fact VBR is a special case of CBR)

The real diffs come when making a (S)VCD.
standard:
VCD: mpeg1 CBR muxed as video-cd-stream, 352x240 + audio 224kbit
SVCD: mpeg2 VBR muxed as SVCD-stream, 480x480, audio ~ 96-384kbit
(there are some more diffs about menu, subtitles, how many audio tracks,...)

[Holomatrix]

That's good enough. Thanks
I saw this script in another thread;

mpeg2source("arista25.d2v")
ConvertToYUY2()
TomsMoComp(1,15,1)
BicubicResize(448,448,0.6,0.6,0,0,720,480)
UnFilter(40,40)
TemporalSoften2(2,5,5)
AddBorders(16,16,16,16)
ResampleAudio(44100)

Would you recomend these other filters as well - TomsMoComp and TemporalSoften2? As you can see I'm trying to use filters to fool the eye into thinking the video still looks good with low bitrates, but I guess that's why they are there, if I always used a bitrate of 2000kbps and up then probably would not need filters. I'm going to loose my speed again adding all these filters arn't I? Oh, well, it's fun to play with :) Would a mpeg1 VBR be better than a mpeg2 VBR using low bitrate? (not worried about subs and the other stuff)

[WarpEnterprises]

import from mpeg(DVD)-file: mpeg2source("arista25.d2v")
make TomsMoComp happy: ConvertToYUY2()
deinterlace: TomsMoComp(1,15,1)
SVCD-resize: BicubicResize(448,448,0.6,0.6,0,0,720,480)
sharpen: UnFilter(40,40)
temporal denoise: TemporalSoften2(2,5,5)
(I would not use for DVD-source)

overscan area: AddBorders(16,16,16,16)
CCE-bug workaround: ResampleAudio(44100)

As you see, this script gets a interlaced input and deinterlaces it (to save bitrate).
For your resolution you could change to
BicubicResize(352-2*4,240-2*8,0.6,0.6,0,0,720,480)
...
AddBorders(4,8,4,8)

This chain is "medium" slow, and it runs every pass (if you do multi-pass)!!

[Holomatrix]

Oh, ok. This movie is not interlaced. Ok, well I'll start doing some more testing with doing xVCD's from this new info.
Thanks for the advice.