Lord of the Rings - How to encode?

[AsTimeGoesBy]

I would like some hints how to get my encodings smaller while maintaining almost DVD transparent quality.

Maybe you have the box set too and found a good filter set for AviSynth?
I really would appreciate some piece of adice, i'm no expert in filtering and thus i only have used this:
Tweak(bright=-5,cont=1.03)
Undot()
STmedianBlur(3,5,2,3)

Meanwhile i have changed from Xvid 1.03 to 1.1B, i have alternatively checked with DivX 6/1453 (some samples at least) and also increased the bitrate from 1800 by 2000 to 2200 kbps (at 720x320) - but nothing seems to help, i still find some and unclear (mostlt darke scences) or 'arctefact-ringing' scenes...

Thanks for any idea!

[ppera2]

If you have Russian LOTR DVD, nothing will help (except buying other one, from west, lets say) :)
All Russian DVD's what I saw have common error - too big contrast, what destroyes bright and dark parts.
If it's not that, I can only recommend that you make your backup 1:1, with some DVD burner.
Of course it's not possible here to giving advice about bright and contrast tweaks. It depends a lot of your concrete material.

[AsTimeGoesBy]

Hi, i haven't the russian DVDs i guess ;) but i also have found 'errors', not about contrast, but dots and splits (hairs?) in some frames.

I have noted that all the VOB video streams are encoded at ~4.7Mbit/s. That is generally quite a low rate for films on DVD, maybe this is not enough 'original' data and the reduction to Xvid/DivX will result in lower quality compared to the case of encding a DVD with e.g. 6-7Mbit/s...

[ppera2]

Of course bad quality is not only Russian DVD's 'privilegy'.
There is no way that you fix DVD encoding errors. Only can make less visible.
Btw. can you say more about that DVD? What edition?

[AsTimeGoesBy]

Originally posted by ppera2
Btw. can you say more about that DVD? What edition? It's all the (un-extended) triology , 3x2 DVDs (3x (1DVD progressive film + 1 DVD interlaced addon stuff)).
If i am back home i can check if there still is any sticker with ISBN or any other number on it.

Spots and hairs i have found on the first film till now, maybe i will encounter similar thing on the over 2 films, but until i haven't found time to ckeck them more in detail.

I 1st-aid-method i have found to reduce flashing dots or splits is to use temporalsoften(), on low motion scenes at least. I would be happy for any 'CopyPartialArea' filter, something like freezeframe() but not for the hole frame.

[Didée]

Well, technically, you're asking for a scratch removal filter. There are a couple of those, but on overall good quality sources they'll do more harm than good. Perhaps try

repair(last.clense(),last,mode=1)

or

temporalrepair(last)

with repair.dll & removegrain.dll from kassandro's RemoveGrain package. Just a guess, can't tell you how good that is suited in your case.

Personally, I own "only" the SEE editions of LotR, but even these are not perfect in quality. Reasonably good, but far from perfect. FotR is rather soft, TtT not quite as, but still soft, plus shows blocking in several complex scenes. RotK seems the best of all, but I havn't examined it too closely yet.
Problem is the audio overkill. Several tracks in 5.1 AC3 and 397.1 DTS :rolleyes: - didn't calculate it, but assumingly the audio alone draws 2000 kbps, if not even more. Not ideal for the PQ ...

FotR I had encoded quite a while back, in November '03, with an alpha version of XviD. The basic script was (from memory):
mpeg2source("FotR.d2v",cpu=2,moderate_h=50,moderate_v=60)

crop(4,80,-4,-80,true)

FluxSmooth(1,-1)
ConvertToYUY2().FaeryDust(1).ConvertToYV12()

Lanczosresize( [400%] )
XSharpen(216,255)

LanczosResize(960,528)targeting for an "off from all specs" 960*528 (anamorphic 720p /w cropped borders, if you wish so) frame size.

Pretty heavy filtering was used, as you can see ;)
XviD settings were [everything] @ [max], 1 Bframe, offset 1. (Bframes were not yet as good as today).

Some results: (jpeg-99%/100%/PNG acc. to image requirement)

http://img26.exs.cx/img26/668/fotrsee0352532sr.jpg

http://img223.exs.cx/img223/2499/fotrsee1697679yb.jpg

http://img225.exs.cx/img225/4913/fotrsee2187636iq.png

http://img225.exs.cx/img225/2302/fotrsee2261914no.jpg

http://img225.exs.cx/img225/9410/fotrsee2309068jc.jpg

http://img225.exs.cx/img225/2466/fotrsee2336624fe.jpg

http://img225.exs.cx/img225/7718/fotrsee2767283yk.jpg

http://img225.exs.cx/img225/4282/fotrsee2950113hk.png


And a little joke for those who know:

http://img225.exs.cx/img225/858/fotrsee0237939yc.jpg

There ARE toes ! ;)

[AsTimeGoesBy]

Thanks for the images, expect from the imige twith the ring with the blury heads in the background all they look quite good i think.
Maybe i also should try a higher resolution as you did, some images are really rich of details and sometimes it seems there is not enough space in 720x320 to keep them all...

First experiences with RemoveGrain/Dirt filters i have already made, but then I have canceled using stronger noise filters, even RemoveGrain(mode=2) is quite aggressive.
Happily there is the applyrange() coomand i have 'discoverd' in rencent time allowing to filter problematic scenecs individually.
Of course lots of work so i'm permanently testing some filter combinations. I guess i shoud do some test runs with these FluxSmooth and FaeryDust filters. ;)

[KaiserS]

Originally posted by Didée
Problem is the audio overkill. Several tracks in 5.1 AC3 and 397.1 DTS :rolleyes: - didn't calculate it, but assumingly the audio alone draws 2000 kbps, if not even more. Not ideal for the PQ ...

The problem isn't with the main audio tracks, its with the extra 4 or 5 commentary tracks that they added that have the major impact. Splitting it between the 2 discs helped but if they would have put the commentary tracks on the extras discs it would have been far better. That or they could have just ditched the DD-EX mix for DTS-ES only, since that's the only track I ever listen to :p. Even still, the average bitrate for these releases is easily 1-1.5mbit above the standard DVD release which is usually around 5-5.5mbit while this hovers around 6.5mbit. At least to my eyes, in most cases, other then when doing a frame by frame analysis, the blocking isn't all that visible in playback, and is much less visible then in many other DVDs I own.

[Didée]

Originally posted by AsTimeGoesBy
I guess i shoud do some test runs with these FluxSmooth and FaeryDust filters. ;) Yes you should.


First experiences with RemoveGrain/Dirt filters i have already made, but then I have canceled using stronger noise filters, even RemoveGrain(mode=2) is quite aggressive.Try LRemoveDust(4,2) (http://forum.gleitz.info/showthread.php?p=169704#post169704), or even only (4,1). Best usage of RemoveGrain so far, for me.