new sharpen filter for avisynth 2.5 : asharp

[Marc FD]

Hi ^^
i'm too lazy to write, because i've already wrote a very complete readme :


asharp beta 1 - adaptive sharpenning filter for Avisynth 2.5 - by MarcFD

1. intro

hi ^^
first, thanks for trying my first attempt of a sharpenning filter :)
basically, this filter is a very common unsharp mask, simply because unsharp
mask is the most pleasant sharpenning technique for my eyes ^^
but i've added 3 simple ideas i had about sharpening :
- adaptive thresholding to avoid maskito noise enhancement
- block adaptive sharpenning to avoid DCT block edges enhancement
- block based sharpenning ( not implemented nor tested yet )

okay, i admit, i'm inspired by the RV9 codec post processing sharpenning ^_^

it's working in YV12 colorspace, and on luma only
(chroma shapenning seems to only introduce artifacts)

2. syntax

okay, to the good stuff :

asharp(float "T", float "D", float "B", bool "large")

T : unsharp masking threshold. 0 will do nothing.
1 is like 32 in ffdsow/Vdub, it'll enhance contrast 1x
default is 2

D : adaptive sharpenning strength.
set to 0 to disable
if D>0, adaptive sharpenning is enabled.
the threshold is adapted for every pixel.
it's going to sharpen more around edges.
if adaptive sharpenning is enabled, T acts like a maximum.
default is 2

B : block adaptive sharpenning. (value clamped to [(disabled)..2])
set to a negative value to disable.
if B>=0, Block adaptive sharpenning is enabled.
it acts very simply, by lowering the threshold around DCT-blocks edges.
avoid any non mod8 cropping between decoding and this filter.
default is -1 (disabled)

3. examples

LoadPlugin(asharp.dll) # no autoloading in Avisynth 2.5 yet (too bad i loved it ^^)
asharp(2) # unsharp masking with a strength of 2x
asharp(2,2) # some adaptive sharpenning
asharp(4,6,1) # for DCT-based codec decoding (try without any PP)

4. tests

i tried it on anime (as always ^^)
3 tests with asharp(4,6,1)
- a 350 kbps advanced profile XviD video (on my site, the "Slayers Next" trailer :)
asharp(2,2,1,true) looked cool. without any PP,
blocks not annoying, and heavy enhancement.
- a 1000 kbps simple profile CBR XviD video
asharp(4,6,1) was really adding something to this video.
it raised the sharpen level a lot, and blocks were almost invisible.
- a 6 mbps MPEG-2 (from a anime DVD)
XD it was way to slow to work in 720x567 :(
i'll test again after optimisations.

5. coming

block based sharpenning
A bit more complicated to code, but could improve quality against my basic
block adaptive sharpenning. so i'm gonna implement that first.

optimisation and SIMD
some C optmisation could be done (about +25%/50% speed boost)
SIMD optimisation is a child game (that's cool i'm a child. i hope +200% at least)

6. ffdshow

why did i wrote this filter ? why do it work in YV12 ? why am i gonna play
with SIMD stuff ?

because i like ffdshow a lot, and current sharpen filters aren't pleasing to my eyes.
current ffdshow sharpen filters are :
- xsharpen : too destructive for my eyes
- unsharp mask : blocks & noise is too noticable after
- msharpen : unsharp mask is much pleasant for my eyes
- warpsharp : cool, but it's not really sharpening ^^

so when this thingie would be blind-fast (SIMDed) and stable, i'll give the
code to milan, and we would all enjoy RV9-like postprocessing
(but better. opensource devellopement is always better ^__^)

MarcFD - 18.11.2002


(attached "asharp beta 1.zip")

[Marc FD]

no feedback ?
if someone if convinced, and could make some demo screenshots, that would be great ^^.

BTW, i've tried block-based sharpenning, and it doesn't give what i expected. so i'll try some thresholding smoothing, and if it's good, do the SIMD stuff.

[Marc FD]

oups forgot to explain the "large" parameter.
false => diameter 3 (faster)
true => diameter 5 (slower)

for both unsharp masking and adaptive thresholding. that's all ^__^

[drebel]

I had a crash last night which kept me from replying sooner...(Koepi's 11/18/2002.2),b-frames(5/200),GMC,Qpel and your filter:

Movie=Part2.crop(0,75,720,424).LumaFilter(-3,1).Undot().LanczosResize(672,272).asharp(2,6,1)

Right now i'm finishing 1st pass at ~7 fps(speed dropped 50%).Visual effect from small clips: perfect .My favourite sharpening filter so far was msharpen(9,45,true,false,false) on clean sources ,but asharp gives a more pleasant to the eye effect(i noticed it to from ffdshow a week before)

I just have to wait and see the effect on blocks in THE TIME MACHINE(pretty clear source though).From feeding Gnot with stats file is seems that all the gain in compressibility from the use of b-frames is "lost" in sharpening.Of course ,your deringing (cpu2=ooooxx) is also applied to avoid the usual(?) renging enhancement(to my eyes,anyway) of YV12.

regards,
george

[Marc FD]

argh !! you shouldn't use sharpenning for encoding. and block filtering is meant for POST-processing !!!

in fact too use it instead of msharpen, something like asharp(1,3) would be more appropriate. i think it should lead to similar/better results than msharpen this way.

[iago]

Marc,

I'm considering to run some compressibility and visuals tests using asharp and some other sharpening filters tonight.

What would be your recommended settings as a starting point for clean real-life/normal movies?

regards,
iago

[drebel]

I disagree with you on this..Seems my TV really needs this extra thing.So i don't mind "spending" 100 MB of a 2cd-encode for sharpening :)

About PP maybe i'm too dumb :could you please be more specific?Is the filter performing any?Which setting do you fird more appropriate(strength "2" suits me fine)

Thx in advance,
george

[Marc FD]

>I'm considering to run some compressibility and visuals tests using
>asharp and some other sharpening filters tonight.

okay. asharp is not meant for encoding (i didn't encode everything with it) but adaptive thresholding may help to do very clean sharpenning.

because i decode everything with my PC (i've no hardware MPEG-4 decoder), my idea was to create the best post-sharpen filter, to sharpen as much as needed (and more :devil: ) clean XviD anime.

>What would be your recommended settings as a starting point for clean
>real-life/normal movies?

first, use adaptive thresdolding, because you're gonna encode, so it would be much better. and DON'T use block filtering. that's only for decoding post processing.

i think asharp(1,3) might be good.
raise T to a higher value if you want more maximum sharpening, and raise D if you want more aggressive edges.
example :
asharp(1,6) will sharpen more, but not too much.
asharp(2,3) will not sharpen much, but it'ld be very localised to edges.

you should try to tweak a bit. values are float (you can use asharp(1.4,4.7,-0.1) if you want.

>I disagree with you on this..Seems my TV really needs this extra
>thing.So i don't mind "spending" 100 MB of a 2cd-encode for sharpening

do you have a hardware MPEG-4 decoder ? try an avisynth script with sharpenning to decode you avis to your TV with asharp. may worth a try.

>About PP maybe i'm too dumb :could you please be more specific?Is the >filter performing any?

no debocking nor filtering. it's just some sharpenning strenght moderation around blocks edges, because normal sharpening filters would make them very noticable.

>Which setting do you fird more >appropriate(strength "2" suits me >fine)

noting, or -1 (disabled) for encoding. definitively.
it's for final playing only (on your TV for example)

the initial goal of this filter is to sharpen MPEG-4 video playback with outstanding quality. i dunno if you noticed, but the RV9 looks very sharp (look at doom9's codec comparison) because of his post processing. and this filter does it, and on anime, using asharp gived me huge sharpenning without additionnal blocking.

[Zarxrax]

This filter sounds really great marc! I wish I could try it out, but my monitor died so I can't use my PC :(

[drebel]

First full encodind is finished.Results:
- Outstanding quality.Except for edging sharpening,no mosquito noise appeared in the screen ,no blocks enhanced,ever in dark areas with more than 50% Zoom and 70% brightness(monitor).
- You were right about strength.Value "1" is closer to msharpen(x,40),but in "Time Machine" i prefer 2 instead.
- I realize that the purpose of this filter is not encoding.But decoding b-frames,ac3 sound with milan's or nic's filter and asharp incorporated might be too heavy for some machines(mine,anyway-Duron 1GHZ here).I think i would prefer +1hr of encoding rather than possible choppy playback
- It "restores" some missing sharpness by the use of H.263 with b-frames-hope it will be fixed soon
- It 's not enhancing ringings preety common in YV12(you 're wright MaTTeR).With your deringing(cpu2....)the result is amazing.(another filter "grabbed" form PP-area).
- Enough said.I won't try to persuade you although the hope for optimizations dies last:p

regards,
george

[milan]

I tested asharp yesterday and I was very satisfied with results. I'll include it to ffdshow immediatelly after the source code will be available.

[Marc FD]

i played around with asharp a bit, and it seems i was very inspired when i wrote it, because it seems the algorithm is almost perfect ^_^

i'm going to SIMD this afternoon.

>- I realize that the purpose of this filter is not encoding.But >decoding b-frames,ac3 sound with milan's or nic's filter and asharp >incorporated might be too heavy for some machines(mine,anyway-Duron >1GHZ here).I think i would prefer +1hr of encoding rather than >possible choppy playback

just wait for SIMD optimisations ^_^, i'll start with ISSE (my cpu target), maybe add MMX support later. i hope +200% speed at least.

>- It "restores" some missing sharpness by the use of H.263 with >b-frames-hope it will be fixed soon

fixed ? what ? H.263is just more low-frequency friendly. i recommend you too keep H.263, even with movie, because the quality is better in low frequency, and post-processing (with sharpenning ^^) will do the job better than MPEG stuff. MPEG is good for hardware decoding.

>- Enough said.I won't try to persuade you although the hope for >optimizations dies last

i'm going to do that ASAP ^_^

I tested asharp yesterday and I was very satisfied with results. I'll include it to ffdshow immediatelly after the source code will be available.

would i be possible to allow 3 scroll bars settings ? if it's helping you, i can merge 2 settings into one + checkbox. it may be more easy to make the interface this way.

BTW, since it's a post-processing filter, it may be a good idea to have QP acces (like PP) at decoding. maybe it would help to enhance quality a bit. would it be possible ?

[milan]

I can add new slider if it would be needed. Access to quantizer array is possible too.

[Marc FD]

>I can add new slider if it would be needed.

the best would be 3 sliders : strenght / sensibility / block-filtering.

>Access to quantizer array is possible too.

i'ld play with that later ^^

okay, i've almost finished the SIMD stuff ^_^
i really like MMXing, it's so easy. i've just seen that masking and adaptive thresholding are independant, so i can interleave the code to get huge pairing.

my masking code is in word x4 and the adaptive thresholding is in byte x8, so it's monstruous fast ^_^.

BTW, i've added a new feature, where adaptive thresholding is block based, and it improves quality (less blocks).

maybe i wouldn't have time to release tonight. but i would tomorow anyway.

okay, back to code ^____^

[Blight]

Nice work Marc, I'm a true believer in post-processing where possible.

[wing1]

@Marc FD

nice filter! the sharpness level is just amazing. I use this filters at asharp(1.5,2,1,false) on movie instead of anime. edge enhancement is quite pleasant and compressibility are ok. If T > 2 then compressibility drop considerably.

[Marc FD]

thx ^^

okay, i've done 80% of the SIMD stuff. i'll add MMX support (there are some ISSE instructions)

the good news : MMX gives a nice speed boost : on a 512x384 clip, i have 40 fps in C and 100 in MMX ^_^, and there still something i can improve.

i'm taking a lot of time because i've cleaned the whole MMX stuff to avoid any errors. (overflow, ect..)

i tested a bit against msharpen thresh=20, strength=127 in ffdshow, vs asharp (via avisynth)

msharpen shows a lot of blocks (even with PP before), is slow (100% cpu load) and gives a bit sharper image.
asharp shows almost no blocs, is fast (50% cpu load) and gives a much sharper image.

@milan,

in fact my filter only calls the asharp code, who's a function with this kind of prototype :

asharp_run_xxx(ui8* planeptr, int stride, ui8* lineptr, int width, int height, int T, int D, int B, + some bools...)

with asharp_run_isse / asharp_run_c (for self-check) / asharp_run_mmx, ...

when you would add asharp in ffdshow, could you just add the asharp.cpp/asharp.h files, without changing the files at all, just do a function call in ffdshow's multi-sharpen filter ? i think it's much easier this way for you, and it'ld be easier for me to do updates of the code (because you'ld just have to change 2 files, and keep the ffdhow part as-is)

okay i'll finish the code and try to release something tonight.

[NoLogo]

Hi all

Ok, my question may sound a little stupid, but how do you use that filter with decoding ?
I've tried many possibilities, none of them seem to work :(

[Blight]

NoLogo:
You'll have to wait for it to be integrated into FFDShow for it to work as a proper post-processor.

[sh0dan]

Originally posted by Blight
NoLogo:
You'll have to wait for it to be integrated into FFDShow for it to work as a proper post-processor.

I have no problems using AviSynth (either 2.0 or 2.5) for postprocessing. Simply opening the avi using avisource, and then opening the AVS in Zoomplayer works like a charm. You might have to use "EnsureVBRMP3Sync" on some movies though.

[Marc FD]

i run everything with avisynth to BSplayer w/ ffdshow (raw mode) and my favourite DSP (for sound), and it work like a charm.

i like to watch DVDs with PP, deinterlacing, sharpenning, and some ffdhsow thingies (in raw mode) in post processing ^__^

i've finished to optimise asharp (the harder was HQ block filter in mmx)

i'll play a bit with some MPEG-2 stuff, take one or two cool screenshots to show an example of the post-processing effect on my test clips (anime ^^), and implement mmx selfcheck, and then release. tonight, sure ^_^

[Marc FD]

finished ^^

asharp v0.9 out.

dl on my site (link as always on my signature)

i wait for feedback. i think it's almost final now ^_^

[wing1]

@Marc FD

tried out the new release, and I do like the speed...it's a speed demon! However, the sharpness level is less than that of the first release using the same options. Over all, it still is a great sharpening filter.

[Marc FD]

settings may have changed a bit between the 2 versions.

test asharp(32,16) and if it's not sharp enough, give a look to asharp(32,0) ^^

[wing1]

holy moley...asharp(32,16)! wayyyyy too sharp :D

[drebel]

After more than 20 small tests with different settings of the new version,i still cant find a value to create the same effect as (2,6) of the old one...
Does the SIMD opt lower quality (small "scaling" effect at the edges)or it 's just an eye game? :confused:
Thanks for the HUGE speed increase!Could you,please suggest a nice movie setting(tried of course 32,16 or 32,0 but wasnt satisfied with the final result)?It's really a waste to switch back to the first version

best regards and thx for all,
george

[Marc FD]

dunno ^^

what about asharp(2,4,-1,false) ?? (default settings ^^)

[drebel]

This setting was the best from all 20,but still far away from perfection...Some more testing didnt hurt anyone, i guess ;)

[FuPP]

A few problems with asharp :

- 1/ asharp seems to introduce a clearer line on the left border if placed after crop (when left and right parts of picture are cropped, picture resized and borders re-filled; see script below). Things are ok when asharp is before cropping

try with hard settings like asharp(20,30,-1,false) to see the problem.


- 2/ asharp mmx error if lumafilter before asharp


script example :

LoadPlugin("C:\video\avsfilters\MPEG2Dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\video\avsfilters\asharp.dll")
mpeg2source("C:\video\tests\vts_01.d2v",cpu=6,idct=2)
Crop(24,76,672,424)
asharp(20,30,-1,false) # 20,30 are here to enhance the problem
LumaFilter(-2, 1.02)
BicubicResize(448,318,0,0.5)
YV12toYUY2(interlaced=false)
AddBorders(16,129,16,129)


- 2/ asharp mmx error if lumafilter before asharp

Hope it can help,

Regards

FuPP.

[Marc FD]

>asharp mmx error if lumafilter before asharp

i think there is a emms missing in lumafilter, and because asharp uses floats as arguments... crash. i'm gonna fix that in MPEG2Dec3 v0.93c

for the clearer line... i added some code in C/isse to fix this kind of issue, but it don't seem to work. i'll look into it too when i would do the MMX stuff on asharp tomorow.

[Marc FD]

no it's not MPEG2Dec's fault ^^, everything is okay, i checked the code, and LumaFliter().asharp() works very well.

[FuPP]

With latest mpeg2dec3 0.93b and latest avisynth 2.5 build, I have no more mmx errors :); I though still have green screen in some cases (depends of asharp position in the filter chain) :(. I will try to be more precise in my next post, but I think there's something with lumafilter.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your work, Marc.

Regards

FuPP

[FuPP]

OK Marc, here are the results of my tests :

I'm using the following script :
--------------------------------
LoadPlugin("C:\video\avsfilters\MPEG2Dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\video\avsfilters\asharp.dll")
mpeg2source("C:\video\tests\test\vts_01.d2v",cpu=0,idct=2)
LumaFilter(-2, 1.02)
asharp(1,6)
Crop(30,80,660,416)
BicubicResize(448,320,0,0.5)
AddBorders(16,128,16,128)
YV12toYUY2(interlaced=false)

With this, I get a mmx error + green picture (using virtualdubAVS)

- If asharp before lumafilter : no more problem

- If I remove crop, no more problem (even if asharp before lumafilter)


Summary :

test 1:
-------
1 asharp
2 lumafilter
3 crop

=> ok

test 2 :
--------
1 lumafilter
2 asharp
3 crop

=> nok !

test 3 :
--------
1 lumafilter
2 asharp

=> ok

test 4 :
--------
1 asharp
2 lumafilter

=> ok

test 5 :
--------
asharp
crop

=> nok !

My conclusion :

Problem between asharp and cropping, except if lumafilter (or another filter ?) between asharp and cropping


Hope it will help

Regards

FuPP

[Marc FD]

can you try mod8 non-mod8 horizontal resolutions ?

[FuPP]

yes, sir. But I will be able to post only tomorrow.

Cheers,

FuPP

[FuPP]

LoadPlugin("C:\video\avsfilters\MPEG2Dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\video\avsfilters\asharp.dll")
mpeg2source("C:\video\tests\vts_01.d2v",cpu=0,idct=2)
LumaFilter(-2, 1.02)
asharp(1,6)
Crop(32,80,656,416).BicubicResize(448,320,0,0.5)
AddBorders(16,128,16,128)
YV12toYUY2(interlaced=false)

original horizontal resolution : 720 (mod8)
after croping : 656 (mod8)
after resizing : 480 (mod8)

=> I get green screen

In my previous post, horizontal resolution after cropping was 660 (non mod 8) and I had the same result.

Do you want me to do another test ?

FuPP

[Sgt_Strider]

Originally posted by Marc FD
i run everything with avisynth to BSplayer w/ ffdshow (raw mode) and my favourite DSP (for sound), and it work like a charm.

i like to watch DVDs with PP, deinterlacing, sharpenning, and some ffdhsow thingies (in raw mode) in post processing ^__^

i've finished to optimise asharp (the harder was HQ block filter in mmx)

i'll play a bit with some MPEG-2 stuff, take one or two cool screenshots to show an example of the post-processing effect on my test clips (anime ^^), and implement mmx selfcheck, and then release. tonight, sure ^_^

About your settings with ffdshow. Did you just check post-processing and didn't bother changing any settings in that option within ffdshow? Where is de-interlacing in ffdshow? What ffdshow thingies did you use? What is raw mode??? Also what is your dsp? What is DSP? Sorry for these noob questions but I'm a noob at all of this encoding stuff.

[TelemachusMH]

I tried to use asharp in an encode of mine but I got an error message when I loaded it into vdubmod. It told me that asharp was not a valid avisynth 2.5 plugin. The avs works fine without the plugin in YV12 colorspace. Does anyone have any idea why? I am using version beta 1, on a win2000.

Thanks in advance,
TelemachusMH

[Marc FD]

re-download it

current version is avs 2.5 beta compatible

[Pratticus]

This filter sounds promising, especially since I do alot of ~1Mb/s conversion for DVD. The sources tend to be heavily blurred.

However, I tried the following script:

LoadPlugin("h:\windows\system32\MPEG2DEC3.dll")
LoadPlugin("H:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\asharp.dll")
DirectShowSource("l:\Movies\x\x.mpg")
LumaFilter(-2,1.02)
asharp(4,6,1)
BiCubicResize(720,480)
#AddBorders(0,104,0,104)
#selectrangeevery(1200,12)
#SwapUV()
#ConvertToYUY2()
resampleaudio(44100)

in CCE 2.64.01.10 and got the error shown below:

CCE Error (http://members.rogers.com/pratticus/images/error.jpg)

I don't for the life of me, know why this filter has anything to do with size... anyone?

*Edit* I'm such a dweeb. I had the old asharpen.dll :D .

Alright. With the following script, I get this (http://members.rogers.com/pratticus/images/badozzy.jpg).

LoadPlugin("h:\windows\system32\mpeg2dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("h:\windows\system32\asharp.dll")
DirectShowSource("m:\S1E7.mpg")
#LumaFilter(-2,1.02)
asharp(4,6,1)
#BiCubicResize(720,480)
#AddBorders(0,104,0,104)
#selectrangeevery(1200,12)
#SwapUV()
#ConvertToYUY2()
#resampleaudio(44100)

[sh0dan]

TroubleShooting (http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?page=Troubleshooting) says "always test in Virtual Dub first".

Try MPEGDecoder (http://nic.dnsalias.com/MPEGDecoder.html) instead of DirectShowSource - it could help.

What does the image look like without asharp?

[Pratticus]

I tried using MPEGDecoder with the following script:

#LoadPlugin("h:\windows\system32\mpeg2dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("h:\windows\system32\MPEGDecoder.dll")
#LoadPlugin("h:\windows\system32\msharpen.dll")
#LoadPlugin("h:\windows\system32\asharp.dll")
#DirectShowSource("m:\S1E7.mpg")
MPEGSource("m:\S1E7.mpg",38764)
#LumaFilter(-2,1.02)
#asharp(6,8,1,hqbf=true)
#msharpen(25,100)
#BiCubicResize(720,480)
#AddBorders(0,104,0,104)
#selectrangeevery(1200,12)
#SwapUV()
#ConvertToYUY2()
#resampleaudio(44100)

... but what I got was a .d2v file and a .m2v of 0 bytes.

The problem I am having with asharp is that it creates the wrong color space on the left side of the picture.

VDubMod gives me an exception error when I try to load this script.

[Holomatrix]

Hi, where can I download the new version of asharp? Is the one on the front page the newest? I'm just trying AVIsynth 2.51 now and need a great/fast sharpen filter.
Thanks

[DDogg]

http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?page=Section+3%3A+Filters+and+colorspaces#q3.4

Just in case you don't have it bookmarked.

[Holomatrix]

Thanks, got it :)

[unmei]

I built up my own chain to play with from scratch by try and error. I optimised my chain for all YV12, Xvid 1-pass with Quantiser 1 () and found this, well , uncommon use for aSharp :

-first i do full post processing in mpeg2dec3, telecide, deinterlace and heavy softening

then this:
-aSharp(0.025,0.7,4.0,hqbf=true)
aWarpSharp(depth=14.0,blurlevel=4,thresh=.5,cm=1)

which gives me a 20-30% smaller file than without the aSharp (only the aWarpSharp)!
Note the parameters for the aSharp are way off recommended/default settings, and i could not see any difference in the picture by using or not using the aSharp, but the h.263 matrix seems to be far more effective with the tiny bit of aSharp.

Well one thing to mention is, i do this on anime, with heavy denoising before (noisy DVD), it might be a absolute no-do on 'photographic' (non-cartoon) movies.

you might have to fine tune the parameters a bit, depending on what source/filtering - but the effect is only achieved with T= 0.2 to 0.5 and D= around 0.7, B is at the max as you can see...i would like to know what would happen if one could set B to higher values like 6 or 8 since the effect is only starts to kick in above 3.0

someone a comment why this happens or similar results?

most likely i'm just dumb and i should not have written this because in the end i will probably find it's all nonsense but chances are i found something really interesting - i tweaked around on the same few parameters in deen, aSharp and aWarpSharp for 3 days now and it really all seems to rely on the aSharp :)

BTW MarcFD your filters are dead-sexy :D
I am very new to AS, but right now i prefer them in most cases over the alternatives (well i haven't managed to master eDeen till now, but deen is already formidable)

[kaitsuburi]

@unmei--

I was just playing around with asharp and awarpsharp testing compressibility when I read your post. I eagerly tried your settings and indeed the compressibility gain is huge, but to my eyes the resulting picture had lost a noticeable amount of detail and was unpleasant. The speed hit over using just asharp or just awarpsharp was also noticeable: around 4-5 fps on my Athlon XP.

I tested on Mononoke Hime (R2 NTSC Japan) using XviD with qpel and chroma motion, no vhq or b-frames; standard avs script with temporal/2D cleaning followed by lanczos and then the sharpening in question. Aiming for 2CDs with subtitles and AC3.

Here's the compressibility numbers for the movie (reported by gknot after SelectRangeEvery(280,14) on 1st pass stats from XviD) using identical avs scripts and codec settings:

Only asharp(1,3,1,true) -> 0.511
Only awarpsharp() -> 0.400
Your suggestion -> 0.228

To my eyes, the first two looked almost identical, so I've decided to go with awarpsharp(). Your observation is intriguing, though (can someone suggest why this might be happening?), and I think could be useful with noisy/heavily filtered sources at lower bitrates.

Just my 2 yen.

[Marc FD]

I'm just passing by and i didn't looked really close, but remember asharp is sharpening AND cleaning the picture, so if you use very low values, you may end with more compressibility.

Marc

[Sirber]

any link to the DLL?

[Wilbert]

http://www.avisynth.org/warpenterprises/