What can I use to improve picture and sound for mpg2 file?

[friendtoall]

I currently use WinDVR to record my old VHS movie to my computer in mpg2 format and now I'll looking for a way to improve picture quality before authoring to dvd. I have been reading alot of forum about using virtauldub to improve picture and redose noise but they all are in .AVI format and I can't find anything that show how to improve a mpg2 file. May I ask what program will do this or what is the best way to improve my old vhs movies? Thank you

[hakko504]

First of all, the 'what's best?' comes under #12 (http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm) and can't be answered.

What can be done to a file CAN be answered though, but first you need to realize that ANY form of picture enhancement MUST be followed by a re-encoding of the whole movie, something I suspect isn't what you wanted. What CAN be done is quite similar to what you read in the VirtualDub guides actually, and you can even use VD to do it! There are reasons not to do it in VD too, and most of the time they are the most important ones. The general answer to your question is something called frame-serving. You open the MPEG-2 file with DVD2AVI and save a project file. Then you can take two paths, AviSynth (faster) or VirtualDubMod. This depends on what filters you intend to use.

With AviSynth you write a script where the first line opens the D2V project file and the rest contains the actual filtering commands. Then you can open this text file in any MPEG-2 encoder (like TMPEG or CCE) and it will be treated like any other video file. Both CCE and TMPEG have basic default settings for DVD creation and can safely be used in your case. Authoring programs also have MPEG-2 encoders, but they do not always accept AviSynth scripts as input video and will in any case NOT produce as good quality video as TMPEG or CCE (with CCE being the better and more expensive of the two)

With VirtualDubMod you just open the D2V in VDM and add filters under the heading Video->Filters, just as was described in the guide you mention. But you do not save the video, but here too you just save a frame-server file which then TMPEG or CCE can use. (You can find more about VD's frame-serving capabilities in the help file!)

And the burning question: what filters should you use? #12 (http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm) I'm afraid. That depends so heavily on what you think is a good quality movie, and how the source actually looks, what kind of noise there is etc. A short sequence might help us to give you some recommendations in the form of useful filters etc. Again, take a look at the VD help file which lists all internal filters of VD to see if you find anything that seems to suit your needs. Otherwise Neuron2 (http://neuron2.net) has compiled a list of useful filters (including many he wrote himself) both for VD and AviSynth. And the internal filters of AviSynth can be found in the AviSynth manual (http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?page=AviSynthManual) and in the introduction to AViSynth (http://www.avisynth.org/index.php?page=MostCommonFilters)

I need to start using IE Spell (http://www.iespell.com) instead of just talking about it...