Capturing NTSC HELP!!!

[DigitalfreakNYC]

OK...i'm back.

Side note: i'm an actor and was in rehearsals/tech/shows for the past two weeks. I haven't seen my floor...nevermind have time to fiddle with the computer.

So yes, I haven't had time to play with it at all. This week I'll have some more free time and I'll get back to you.

Have a question tho...you had said you still haven't gotten great results with the ADS. I'm wondering if I should really pick up a firewire card and the Canopus.

Apparently I missed some *ahem* interesting things happening. I think that gentleman made some points that I had wanted to make but in an unintelligible and moronic way. I guess I'm still feeling a bit frustrated and alone about this whole thing.

We'll see and I'll let you know how things progress.

[FredThompson]

I haven't been able to get back to the ADS due to DV editing.

Umm...I don't know what to tell you about DV. It absolutely will NOT properly work with saturated red or blue on a black background. Star Wars laserdisc? Forget it. The laser shots in outer space are absolutely hideous. Granted, converting an analog signal to digital means it becomes a series of dots but this was horrible. There's no way around it, either. NTSC DV uses 4:1:1 colorspace. MPEG2 is 4:2:0.

Go here and look at the sample image: http://www.geocities.com/fredthompson6

I think I've also mentioned the problem of dancing pixels on what should be straight lines and problems with computer-generated graphics. I've also watched thin lines like those in window dividers confuse the snot out of DV.

I've been talking with a guy in Australia who has that FlyVideo card. That's where the DV problem surfaced. No solution for drivers with the FLyVideo and he's got audio sync problems.

I do have a far-improved cleanup script for captures and I'm registering SpotRemover because it takes care of dropouts.

It's not that the ADS makes a bad capture, far from it. I haven't been able to put time into calibrating it. That's an entirely different issue. Like anything else, more adjustments means more power but also more headaches initially. I need to run some colorbars through it and note the baseline settings. That's what I meant. It works like a charm otherwise. The upside is the settings will make it easier to work with low-color or low-light source. Think of how you'd adjust your TV for brightness, contrast, etc. Those are the settings I need to baseline.

DV devices don't have those kinds of settings. It's nice because they never have to be adjusted but the source has to be good. I've got some multi-generational camcorder that's almost impossible to use unless a lot of manipulation is done to bring detail out of the dark areas. The ADS adjustments will let me capture it with a wider range of values in those dark areas making it a lot easier to work with.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Fred,

Checked out your page. Again...was happy with the way the flyvideo looked. :( *sigh*

Are the video captures at the bottom using the ADS? I'd like to see some examples of that. :) You've almost got me.

[FredThompson]

No, those are DV passthru. I've got a bunch of stuff that is on DV tapes and I'm trying to get them done so the tapes can be used. The ADS captures with 4:2:0 because it's MPEG2. I did a few tests with tape 2 of the Ken Burns film about Lewis & Clark comparing the ADS with DV. ADS was better for shape but the color wasn't correct. I could "fix" it by adjusting the settings but without first having a proper baseline, couldn't properly compare the 2 devices.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

So you're saying it doesn't capture color correctly?

[FredThompson]

Which "it"?

The ADS device has adjustments, just like the internal capture cards. DV camcorders and the Canopus device do not have those adjustments.

Those adjustments need to be calibrated to a known baseline in order to compare against the DV devices. It's no different in concept than calibrating cameras with whitecards. You've seen people calibrate sound for theatrics or tune musical instruments, right? Same concept.

What we discovered with the Star Wars laserdisc is NTSC DV has some serious flaws. They appear to be due to 4:1:1 color. PAL DV shouldn't have those flaws but then you're not going to have the proper frame size and rates for capturing NTSC source.

The FlyVideo was dropping frames all over the place and audio sync was messed up.

I think you'll get the performance you want from something that has both audio and video integrated and locked and uses 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 color model. The ADS 2.0 is an MPEG2 device so uses 4:2:0. There are other products as well but most of them are more expensive.

I hope to get to the calibration tonight. I've been working on about 15 DV tapes for work and that's a LOT of disk space.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

How did you get this information about the flyvideo?

And you're saying you're calibrating the ADS 2.0. Which means that I (or anyone else) should make the same calibrations to my own if I purchase it? Is it a universal type system?

Thanks again for all your help...and for essentially holding my hand

[FredThompson]

I was contacted by a guy in Australia who wanted help with his captures. The FLyVideo3000 gave him great quality but also dropped frames and bad audio sync. The Canopus ADVC royaly screwed up the color, as you can see. His source is Star Wars laserdisc.

I assume the calibration settings will be universal. Having said that, this is a test to calibrate the device. Tapes can have variance also. That's why setting white and black points are important. Just as you'd tune a stringed instrument for a different key, you'll want to use different settings on the capture device if your source is low quality. Suppose it's all rather dark. I have an important tape like that. To get the detail, you'd retune so those luminence values are a larger portion of the allowable scale than usual. You'd still need to process but it's a lot easier to take something with a range of, say, 1-50 and do something accurate with it than a range of 1-5. Make sense?

My opinion: It is easier to calculate these kinds of things in VirtualDub but better to do the modifications with AviSynth so you aren't changing color models. You can have VirtualDub scan an entire capture and show a graph of luminance values. From there, you can determine the white and black points. I realize it will be giving you values based on RGB colors but it's still helpful.

Having said that, I do not know of a way to use SpotRemover without converting color. Its internal routines are YUV but it expects to be fed an RGB source. I don't know which RGB conversion it will accept. Hopefully, RGB32. I've asked Konstantin but don't have an answer yet. I'm working on the Jose Ferrar version of Cyrano de Bergerac and the tape has a large scratch on one field of one frame. That's where the sample frame on my support files page came from. It also shows a few other things which I'll detail later in the filtering discussion.

[DigitalfreakNYC]

OK.....what???

lol

What do virtualdub, avisynth or any of the other programs have to do with ADS?

I read posts like that and i feel like I should just purchase a stand alone unit. I'm really confused as to why the ******* capture is so complicated. I understand everything else...it's just the capture.

[Wilbert]

My opinion: It is easier to calculate these kinds of things in VirtualDub but better to do the modifications with AviSynth so you aren't changing color models. You can have VirtualDub scan an entire capture and show a graph of luminance values. From there, you can determine the white and black points. I realize it will be giving you values based on RGB colors but it's still helpful.
Sorry to interrupt. Maybe you know it, but it is also possible to do this in AviSynth (using Histogram) + scripteditor of vdubmod. It is described in the capture guide how to do that.

[FredThompson]

@ DigitalfreakNYC

You can't have both quality and a "one-button" method. If you want to come close to the original quality, you'll have to do some work on your captures. I'll put a before and after sample frame on my support page soon.

@ Wilbert

No, I didn't know that. Thanks. Guess I'll have to study the guide. :rolleyes:

[DigitalfreakNYC]

Fred,

Will you also put a detailed guide of how to calibrate the ADS along with the captures?

[FredThompson]

I guess I could. When I have some baseline numbers, those will go on the webpage and possibly the images I use to tune. My priority right now is to get today's work done and in the mail, calibrate the ADS and finish the cleanup script. You'll be safe with the settings but might want to tweak them for difficult source. Don't know what they should be for PAL. I have a multi-format VCR and some PAL tapes but no way to make a known good PAL analog source from which to calibrate.

There's also the problem of webspace. That page is about full so something will have to be removed.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Fred,

If you've got and managed to view the PAL Jaguar CD I sent you. Would you like me to create and mail you a PAL VHS and S-VHS copy of same?

Just let me know,

Cheers.

[FredThompson]

PM me because I don't have it and don't remember where you sent it.

If you know of a good source for the Honda ad, I'd be VERY interested. http://home.comcast.net/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html

[wotef]

i have this on dvd, came free with my sunday paper a few months ago

[FredThompson]

No kidding! Is it any better than this one: http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html

The DVD they link to looks really cool, also.

--

You followin' me around tongiht? :)

[wotef]

yes, it's better than that

the dvd contains a qt and mpeg2 version, also has the updated shorter advert as well that's not linked

p.s. rest assured i am not stalking you :p

[FredThompson]

I just thought it was funny. ;)

[SeeMoreDigital]

How many MB's is the Mpeg2 stream. Will it fit onto a CD-R?

[wotef]

only about 100mb

[SeeMoreDigital]

I presume Fred has PM you with a request?

If he has'nt already.... you better keep an eye on your inbox!

Anyway, may I ask are you in a PAL or NTSC country?

[FredThompson]

No, I just grabbed the OGG. Would rather have the MPEG2. Hmmm...maybe we need to do an FTP server.

I haven't forgotten your questions. Been working hard on filtering. Was about to put it all up last night then got deep into ways to reduce the 4:1:1 color bleed and played with VagueDenoiser. Man, that's a NICE filter but too slow.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Surely Fred, with all your PC's you could put your own web site on one of them. Then we could have some serious downloads to look at!

Mind you. I should talk. I've been meaning to do this for months!

[FredThompson]

It's not gotten any better. I keep saying I'll release the cleanup script then I find another way to tweak it. Result is hard drives full of DV that needs to get compressed.

Actually, I'm thinking about a small FTP server as a way to share test footage.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Me too!

I created a spare boot drive on my home ISP/file server PC six months or more ago. I even downloaded a copy of 'Apache' to play with but........ still no go.

I'm just lazy I guess.

What am I saying. I returfed part of the garden, rewired the garage, repainted the lounge, renewed the kitchen cabinets (god bless Ikea!) and managed to con my wife's parents into taking the kids away for the summer holidays!

Oh, I think it's beer time already. I'm starting to ramble!