Stargate SG-1 Season 1 Brightness

[GPhreak]

Hi!

Currently I'm ripping Season 1 of Stargate (PAL) to SVCD (1 Episode per Disc). While watching one of the darker episodes ("Tin Man") I noticed that my SVCDs are more colorful and alot darker than the DVD.
I set "Lum. gain" to 0 and "Lum. offset" to 5 according to Alsair's Guide.
As I searched the forum I didn't find any thread that discusses these two parameters. Could someone give me a hint?

Thanks in advance for your help! :)

Greets,
GPhreak

PS. Yes, my "englisch" (;)) is a bit loosy
:rolleyes: :o
PPS. I'm fooling around with those two parameters already, but I thought an explanation would be useful (and I only rented the DVDs so I have to give them back soon)..

[manolito]

Taken from COMMANDLINE.TXT in the DVD2AVI subdirectory:
-Luminance-Filter -LF (Not implemented yet)
I remember doing a few test encodes a while ago and found out that it is true, luminance settings in DVD2AVI have no effect.
If you use FACAR you have an easy way to play with brightness, otherwise you could use the AviSynth "Levels" command.

[Nick]

Firstly I second the recommendation of FACAR for an easy way to get results, although it is actually Gamma correction that this offers, nor brightness adjustment. As for DIY Avisynth, there are two filters you may want to add to your avisynth script

Levels, as suggested by manolito:

Levels(0,x,255,0,255)
x=Gamma (0 to 10, default=1). Try about 1.3 and work from there.
This is actually gamma correction but may get you closer to the result you're after. If you increase brightness this will affect black bars round the picture and so on - ie black will be slightly grey. If you want black to stay black but everything else to be lighter this might be just the trick.

Also Tweak:

Tweak(0,a,b,c)
The first parameter is hue, increasing makes pic redder, decreasing makes it greener. Leave at 0

a=colour saturation (0 to 10, default=1). If colours are too bright try 0.75 and work from there.
b=brightness (-255 to 255 default=0)
c=contrast (0 to 10 default=1)

If you struggle to get the results you want with FACAR try the solution below:

Without D2S running open AVISYNTH.INI using Notepad (perhaps worth saving a backup in another folder first in case of calamity).
Copy and paste this into the bottom of the script

[AVISYNTH_GammaCorrect]
0=Levels(0,^Gamma,255,0,255)
1=Tweak(0,^sat,^bright,^cont)
2=BicubicResize(^TargetWidth,^TargetHeight,^b_value,^c_value)
3=AddBorders(0,^BorderTop,0,^BorderBottom)
^Gamma=2
^sat=1
^bright=0
^cont=1
^b_value=0.6
^c_value=0.2

Then resave it. Launch DVD2SVCD

In the frameserver tab you should now have another option in Avisynth setup - GammaCorrect. Choose this, then find your IFO in the Conversion tab, hit go and select "Preview Video". Find a suitable test frame then hit "Show DVD2SVCD".

You can now go back to the frameserver tab. By clicking under "Parameters" you can now adjust the variables in Levels first, then Tweak and see the results in the preview frame. Once you are happy with your settings go ahead and encode.

Note that unlike FACAR this offers no TV overscan correction, so if you get the right results with Levels alone, use FACAR. If you're confident in what you're doing you can add the tweak parameter to the FACAR script anyway.

Good luck.
Nick

[GPhreak]

First thanks to both of you for your advise.

About the luminance-filter thing: I opened the DVD2AVI project file to check and I think the luminance filter options are set correctly despite what is written in the manual. :confused:
So I think these two parameters are used, can someone confirm this?

@Nick: I forgot to mention that I use AutoFitCD 1.5/FitCD to resize and crop. I didn't know FACAR before I read your post. After searching the forums a little bit I think it is something like FitCD?

When using AutoFitCD, can I still use the levels parameter in the AviSynth-Script (to be honest, I never got in touch with AviSynth before :rolleyes: )? As far as I unterstand the situation, each entry in the frameserver tab is an AviSynth-Script on his own, so I could just add the parameter to the FitCD script?

Wow, a lot of questionmarks this time...:D

Thanks people, this forum is great... :)

Greets,
GPhreak

PS. Yes, a long, long time ago I was tought english grammer... a LONG, LONG time :D

[Nick]

The honest answer is I don't know for sure. I've never used AutoFitCD.

I don't see why not to be honest. Try it and see! As long as you back up your AVISYNTH.INI file so you can replace it in case of calamity, you have nothing to lose but a bit of encoding time!

If AutoFitCD is basically a custom avisynth script like FACAR is, I can see no good reason why not.