Anime - Naruto DVD encoding

[Nemesis7]

Hey guys,

I finally got ahold of a Naruto DVD. I encoded a few eps with XviD and I really like it. But one thing keeps bugging me. The teacher characters have these darkblue outfits, and the facial mask of one has huge macroblocks dancing in it all over the place (on tv VERY good visible). What I'm trying to do is have it like one solid FILLED color. I tried a few filters but I got 'the best' results with Areasmoother (0.1) (can't find a newer one), it removes the block perfectly but it also has 'artifacts' once in a while.

So I will have a sample ready where the blocks are visible. Who is willing to help me with his (or hers) masterful anime-encoding skills.

- the 'dancing' macroblocks should be removed
- background should NOT be blurred (like in SmoothHQ and other similar filters)

Specs:
Resolution: 640x480 (of course)
Bitrate: 1230 kbps
Codec: XviD 22-10-2003 version (Frontier's Athlon Optimized Build)
NO B-frames or Q-pels
ONLY Chorma Motion
Qants: 1-2 1-3
H.263

Using VirtualDubMod.


Sample available at:
130.89.226.201
port 666
naruto/encoding

3 users at a time.

Thnx in advance.

P.S. Results may be uploaded. Or posted in topic, doesn't matter.

[Zarxrax]

Temporal Cleaner should help.

[Prettz]

I've never heard of Areasmoother, but it sounds just like neuron2's MSmooth filter. You might try that, MipSmooth, or maybe FluxSmooth.

edit: which quant type are you using, MPEG or H.263?

[K-Dash]

I think Prettz suggestion is better, an additional to Prettz recommendation try c3d/unfilter/SmoothHiQ with care. Cheers.

[Nemesis7]

@Prettz: I edited the thread. H.263 :)
I will try MSmooth and MipSmooth. Could u try it on the sample too? So I can compare results.

@K-Dash- conv3d and smoothhi1 do not help, and they blur too much.

@rest: remember the background should not be blurred out. its just certain dark areas (not dark corners, but just a dark color fill)

Thnx for replying.

[mf]

My recommendation: MPEG2Source(cpu2="xxxxox") and Deen("a3d", 4, 3, 5, 30) - but be careful; deen is very powerful, and it can smooth out your backgrounds. Also, Limiter() might help with the apparent blocking on TV.

[K-Dash]

Nemesis7: Try this Convolution3d(1,10,20,10,10,6,0)

EDIT2: Oh, and limiter() which was suggested by mf could be some great help as well, I dunno about "deen" allthough since its been helping some but created random artifacts elsewhere which I've experienced.

[Nemesis7]

Thnx people. I got exams coming up, so I won't be encoding for a while. But I will try al your suggestions.

Thnx,

Neme.

[Joe Fenton]

NO B-frames or Q-pels

The no B-frames is what's killing you. Although the average PSNR goes down a little with b-frames on, you gain a tremendous amount of bits saved on compression allowing their use on high-motion and high-detail. Anime really MUST be encoded with b-frames to look decent at a rate near 1000 kbps.

[Nemesis7]

@Joe Fenton:
no dude that's not what's killing me, the bitrate is 1200+ kbps, and the blocks that I mean have nothing to do with compression. It's the source, same blocks there too. The only filter I got nice results (+ artifacts) is Areasmoother 0.1 , 2bad there aren't newer versions, but what it does is amazing, the fills are just 1 color, you can see the lines (in virtualdub) that pure black solid backgrounds have, I don't know if they have a name. But I will try the tips I got in this threat later.

Neme.

[Xndo]

ahhhh. anime encoding. the bastard child of it all. I think you should take a few of theses people's suggestions about useing mipsoomth or cnr2, but I would use undot(), I've seen some good results using this. another thing you could try is useing deen, you really need to smooth out them edges, as well as trying not to make it look like crap. So in that cause you need a temperal cleaner

try this to see if you get good results

TemporalCleaner(4,6).Temporalsoften(4,8,8,mode=2,scenechange=10)


other than that all i can say is, you should test your ass off, its going to take at least 10 tests before you find the one test that you like

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by Nemesis7
@Joe Fenton:
no dude that's not what's killing me, the bitrate is 1200+ kbps, and the blocks that I mean have nothing to do with compression. It's the source, same blocks there too. The only filter I got nice results (+ artifacts) is Areasmoother 0.1 , 2bad there aren't newer versions, but what it does is amazing, the fills are just 1 color, you can see the lines (in virtualdub) that pure black solid backgrounds have, I don't know if they have a name. But I will try the tips I got in this thread later.

Neme.

Ah! Okay, I didn't notice that in the original post. A (relatively) bad source makes your job a lot harder. However, once you do find a filter combination which gives you an acceptable picture, I still recommend encoding the final result with b-frames.

In many of the threads I've read where people were trying to do this same feat, one thing I saw which was reported to do okay was resize the frame larger (say 1024x768), add some noise to it (read as artificial detail), then resize back to 640x480.

Sorry about the misunderstanding...