heavy noise settings

[philtre]

I'm trying to encode a very grainy video with XviD, but I'm really not satisfied with current results. The avg. bitrate at which the video looks kinda ok is 2000kbps?

I've tried applying smoothing filters, but it destroyed the whole feel of the source video, so I decided I'd like to keep it grainy.

Can anybody recommend some settings and/or custom matrices that would keep the graininess of the video at lower bitrates.

[Tommy Carrot]

I don't think xvid is the best choice for noisy material. I'd recommend FFVFW or divx3 SBC, they have less problem with noise.

[Teegedeck]

You could try "Andreas einfache 99er Matrix" or "Andreas doppelte 99er Matrix".

[iago]

Use a high bitrate matrix as Teegedeck suggests. Also, you might try Quarterpel! ;)

[Arcon]

Originally posted by philtre
I've tried applying smoothing filters, but it destroyed the whole feel of the source video
did you try fluxsmooth with low settings? i've used this one for several grainy sources and he seems to leave much detail compared to others.

[BoNz1]

Originally posted by iago
Also, you might try Quarterpel! ;)

I would suggest quite the opposite. Qpel on really noisy sources doesn't look very good at all IMO unless of course the video has a lot of very still scenes. Even then backgrounds may look swimmy. I would say try a high bitrate matrix ie hvs-best or something like that but you will have to be prepared to use high bitrates to keep the grain.

[Prettz]

Originally posted by Tommy Carrot
I don't think xvid is the best choice for noisy material. I'd recommend FFVFW or divx3 SBC, they have less problem with noise.
Yeah, xvid and especially divx5 tend to try to encode random noise as movement way too much, leading to the 'swimming walls' artifacts. It would be really cool if they could add a setting that makes xvid avoid encoding noise like this, and make it a zone-specific setting, since I'm sure that these artifacts are simply unfortunate side-effects of xvid's more efficient ME algorithms (so maybe you would only want to make xvid spend more bits encoding noise in scenes where it's absolutely necessary).

I would second the suggestion for FluxSmooth. It's one of the most versatile denoisers out there, and is always very good at preserving detail.

[Soulhunter]

All XviD n' old DivX builds show this 'swimming walls' effect with noisy sources... :(

But the newer DivX 5.1.1 seems to have less problems with this !!!

But its picture looks much more smoothed also (bad)... ;)


I would also try FluxSmooth !!!

Maybe PeachSmoother too... :rolleyes:

Or a blend of Deen & one of the above mentioned = even less noise !!!


Test for your self n' post back your results... :)


Bye

[iago]

I can't understand why everybody keeps on suggesting the use of a smoother/denoiser, when the owner of the post wants to keep the source grain. :confused:

[Soulhunter]

Originally posted by iago
I can't understand why everybody keeps on suggesting the use of a smoother/denoiser, when the owner of the post wants to keep the source grain. :confused:
Forgot to say something... ;)

Use ffdshows "Add Noise" function for playback !!!


Bye

[bond]

hm interesting discussion

i am planning to encode blair witch project on 1cd when xvid 1.0 final is out...

would you also recommend qpel and high bitrate metrices for 1cd bitrate encodings when it comes to keeping grain? or is this only usefull for high bitrates?
i also dont really want to smooth out all the grain of the source

[Koepi]

*sigh* we had _real scientific_ (and thus: interesting) discussions about the problem with grain/noise in the sources _years_ ago. It's quite likely still reachable via the search (i'll fetch the links the next days, tonight i'm more than busy).

So this thread isn't interesting, but showing the lack of understanding of the basics of mpeg compression, sorry pals (i don't mean everyone and every post in this thread, but some).

It's not bad to bring this issue up again. but it's not bad using the search to some extend as well (btw., google is your friend, even if they're capitalistic).

Koepi

[Soulhunter]

Originally posted by Koepi
So this thread isn't interesting, but showing the lack of understanding of the basics of mpeg compression, sorry pals (i don't mean everyone and every post in this thread, but some).
I know you mean me... :D

Bye

[bond]

Originally posted by Soulhunter
I know you mean me... :Dwhy that? he means me! :p

[iago]

No man! I'm sure he means me! :p

[yaz]

Originally posted by iago
I can't understand why everybody keeps on suggesting the use of a smoother/denoiser, when the owner of the post wants to keep the source grain. :confused: imho, it's not contradictory. applying flux (with a mild temp setting & wout any spatialling) may help compression a lot wout loosing too much from that nice grain. i used this trick when i made 'lock, stock, ...' for my sister & it worked. (at least, she loved it:-)
btw, i would suggest mpeg (or more) as qm with qpel for such movies. otherwise, grain can easily turn to spots looking quite ugly.

the bests
y

[EDIT] hmmm ... i thought that lame mentd by koepi was me ... :confused:

[crusty]

Hmm...looks like everybody feels spoken too when Koepi said that....

Perhaps I should make an MPEG FAQ as well? :D :D :D

[BoNz1]

Originally posted by yaz
imho, it's not contradictory. applying flux (with a mild temp setting & wout any spatialling) may help compression a lot wout loosing too much from that nice grain. i used this trick when i made 'lock, stock, ...' for my sister & it worked. (at least, she loved it:-)
btw, i would suggest mpeg (or more) as qm with qpel for such movies. otherwise, grain can easily turn to spots looking quite ugly.


Filtering out the grain is a very bad idea IMO even if it is quite heavy. You will get lots of nice artifacts if you do this which may not look too bad to you but probably would look hideous to others. You are going to lose the grain unless you use a high bitrate matrix and high bitrate there is no other way around it. Don't use qpel either it performs badly on very noisy sources I posted some examples of this several months ago where no qpel clearly beat qpel both visually and by PSNR. Besides likely if you target a high resolution and high bitrate and use a high bitrate matrix qpel is more trouble than it is worth anyway IMO. BTW you can never hope to reproduce the grain by adding it back in again, sure some more detailed scenes might look ok, but as soon as you get something without much detail it will not look anything like the original. BTW Koepi probably meant me because I just said what to do and didn't really back it up but it seems people just want someone to tell them what to do and don't really care about why. I'd be happy to have a scientific discussion though.

[iago]

Originally posted by BoNz1
... BTW Koepi probably meant me because ...The most paranoid thread of all times! :D

C'mon Koepi, free us from this! :D

[dbzgundam]

No one has mentioned Conv3D?!

Not as helpful as FluxSmooth, but if you want something subtle I would look into it.