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  #21  
12-03-2015, 05:50 PM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mnewxcv View Post
The more I play around with it, the more confident I become. The histogram was such a crucial thing. I attached a capture of a retail video as well as a capture of a home movie (from 1988 mind you) so you can see what I am working with.
Yeah, it's rather fiddly at times. But it does give you a leg up on levels.

Working with the Mcqueen cap.avi. It's a good capture with nice color and safe levels. The only glitch was that the black borders and bottom head switching noise affected the histogram. In the avi the black borders come out as RGB 25 or so.So black levels are a little high and images a bit thin looking, but not unworkable.

Below are YUV and RGB histograms from a frame in the McQueen avi. You'd be able to allow for the black borders and let the left end drop down a bit. The RGB has a tiny bit of red overshoot, but that's no problem during post processing. And sometimes you just have to live with such things if they're not extreme.


This the frame I took those readings from (frame 252 after telecine was removed). It's certai9nly not the horror you had with the earlier tape. It could use some tweaking in the darks below RGB 64 to make it more snappy and realistic.


Here's the filtered version and its RGB histogram:


You can see that you were pretty close, even if the borders got in your way. My first step was to shift all pixels to the left (dark side) of the YUV graph by about 6 points (that's about 10 RGB values). That was in Avisynth, where I also cropped the old borders and added new ones to center the image. The main VirtualDub filter I used was gradation curves. In the image below, you can see it in action:



I moved the diagonal line in that filter into somethging like an "S" curve, which is where the curves filter gets its name. You can use some weird shapes and do crazy stuff, but not here. The bottom of the diagonal line works with darks, the middle part works with midtones, the top part works on brights. Move the line left, it brightens. Move it to the right, it darkens. People pay big bucks for Adobe Pro, Vegas Pro, and After Effects, etc., to get things like a curves filter. The VirtualDub version is free. That filter was tweaked with a second one in the filter chain, then tweaked some more with ColorMill. The RGB histogram is from ColorTools. All these filter thingies look funny at first, but you soon get the idea behind them.

After all that, I got up an mp4 encoded at near DVD or SD-BluRay spec and reinstated the 3:2 pulldown (telecine) to make it 29.97 fps again. Of course you can make it DVD or whatever you want.

These videos have dot crawl and that dratted fine-hair crosshatch. The Checkmate filter cleaned it pretty well. Hopefully you're using s-video cables.

[EDIT] I forgot to attach the DVD-format MPG. Frankly I like MPEG better.


Attached Images
File Type: png 252 original YUV-RGB.png (39.5 KB, 83 downloads)
File Type: jpg 252 original R.jpg (53.1 KB, 82 downloads)
File Type: png 252 curves RGB hist.png (356.4 KB, 83 downloads)
File Type: png 252 s-curve.png (50.7 KB, 83 downloads)
Attached Files
File Type: mp4 McQueen_cap.mp4 (8.25 MB, 4 downloads)
File Type: mpg McQueen_cap.mpg (9.29 MB, 4 downloads)

Last edited by sanlyn; 12-03-2015 at 06:33 PM.
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  #22  
12-03-2015, 06:11 PM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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I didn't have time to get into more work on the home video or make more graphics, but I think you'll catch on from the previous post.

This time, the thicker black borders really threw things off, but you did manage to keep everything within bounds. The reason the video looks washed out somewhat is shown in the two YUV histograms below. There's one YUV chart made with the borders still in the video (left). The YUV chart on the right is the result of a histogram with the borders cropped off (right). You can see how the big borders gave you elevated black levels. But the brights are OK. Still a workable capture, though.



Below, the result of elevated blacks, from the original capture. You can see that borders are still there, at about RGB 18.


Below, after new borders, a curves filter, and ColorMill:


Like a lot of home videos, this one is problematic because the camera tries to take in a range of lighting valkus that are broader than the media can manage. You can't have everything, so I decided to let that microwave in the corner disappear a bit (it has very little detail anyway, even at brighter values, and you can see it hasn't turned into a black blob from being crushed with image controls. This was a somewhat quickie correction because I was running out of time tonight. I was less concerned with the microwave and more concerned with keeping detail in mom's and the girl's hair.

This is a tough scene because it has so many very bright and very dark objects, and the glare from the window doesn't help. Get what you can during capture, then fix it in post processing. Trying to capture and do post stuff at the same time is a good way to speed up the aging process, LOL!.

You can crop borders during capture. But be sure to disable cropping before you start capture by setting the crop values back to zero's! I forgot once and left it on, then captured 2 hours at the wrong frame size. Bummer.


Attached Images
File Type: png YUV Borders - No Borders.png (24.5 KB, 83 downloads)
File Type: jpg home 220 original.jpg (42.4 KB, 83 downloads)
File Type: jpg home 220 filtered.jpg (45.4 KB, 84 downloads)
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  #23  
12-04-2015, 09:39 PM
mnewxcv mnewxcv is offline
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awesome. I will have to play around with the RGB histograms in avisynth as well as colormill. I see what you mean about the borders causing the black of the actual video to be light. Adjusting contrast/brightness only with a crop from now on (pre-capture) and it is a great difference (just like the curve corrected). I also got my new sound card today, the audigy 2 ZS and WOW, not only are my speakers sounding way better (clearer, deeper, louder), but my line in noise floor is basically undetectable, just what I wanted. I will be sure to upload some samples this weekend to be critiqued, along with some color mill adjustments to get some feedback on that. Thanks! Have a great weekend.
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  #24  
12-04-2015, 10:45 PM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Yes, with more suitable levels during capture the corrections you'd need won't usually be as extensive as those that I used. But there's always that maverick sequence that comes along.

If you submit filtered videos, we ask that you also submit at least an unprocessed frame capture or two from the same filtered scene. Without knowing what the original looks like, it's difficult (if not downright impossble) to guess what corrections were needed in the fist place. Your newest captures involved mostly levels work. I saw no need to fix any off-color balance. But everyone has their preferences. You'd be surprised at the way appropriate levels make color look more convincing with very little help from the user..
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  #25  
12-04-2015, 11:35 PM
mnewxcv mnewxcv is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sanlyn View Post
Yes, with more suitable levels during capture the corrections you'd need won't usually be as extensive as those that I used. But there's always that maverick sequence that comes along.

If you submit filtered videos, we ask that you also submit at least an unprocessed frame capture or two from the same filtered scene. Without knowing what the original looks like, it's difficult (if not downright impossble) to guess what corrections were needed in the fist place. Your newest captures involved mostly levels work. I saw no need to fix any off-color balance. But everyone has their preferences. You'd be surprised at the way appropriate levels make color look more convincing with very little help from the user..
yes I will absolutely post source clips as well. However, I can't seem to get colormill and colortools to work simultaneously. Whenever I open colortools, it takes the spot of the output (or is it input?) window, and then opening colormill, the preview displays the histograms, not the video. Any ideas? I haven't played around with the non-capture portion of vdub so I will try to solve it on my own as well.
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  #26  
12-05-2015, 12:20 AM
mnewxcv mnewxcv is offline
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Ok, i determined maybe we cannot monitor color histograms with on the fly changes?

Here is a single frame that is uncorrected. I tried exporting as jpeg to desktop but after hitting ok, nothing showed up. So here is an AVI with a single frame. What exactly should I be noting in the colortools and what does it correlate to for colormill?


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File Type: avi capcmt2.avi (1.00 MB, 2 downloads)
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  #27  
12-05-2015, 04:12 AM
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Write out the colors in their place, to the left in the picture.
Here it looks as if it would be 704 instead of 720th

With a matching Feeder could get a better picture as yet


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File Type: jpg VDub_Color_Shift.jpg (61.0 KB, 8 downloads)
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  #28  
12-05-2015, 10:19 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mnewxcv View Post
Ok, i determined maybe we cannot monitor color histograms with on the fly changes?
Yeah, that's one of the klunky "features" of Virtualdub and a lot of free editors that don't have built-in histograms. Also, ColorTools should be kept at the bottom of VDub's filter chain. The filters in he filter list work from top to bottom. Each filter feeds the next filter in turn. So if you have your histogram as the top filter, it won't show you what the other filters are doing.

You can turn off any filter by unchecking the checkbox on the left of each filter in the list. But I guess you know that already.

The preview in VDub filters shows you what is being input to the filter (i.e., if you have other filters preceding it, it also shows you what those filters did). If you make changes in the filter's preview window, the filter's preview does indeed show what the filter is doing -- but you might notice that the Virtualdub output window itself doesn't change until you save the changes and close the filter. Sometimes you have to move back or ahead 1 frame before the VDub output window shows the changes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mnewxcv View Post
Here is a single frame that is uncorrected. I tried exporting as jpeg to desktop but after hitting ok, nothing showed up. So here is an AVI with a single frame. What exactly should I be noting in the colortools and what does it correlate to for colormill?
Well, to start, your AVI was converted to RGB. That's not a really big problem in this case, but it does show how the conversion blew some bright red off the histogram. Any YUV image converted to RGB will display that kind of problem--that's why maybe 10 YUV frames or more should be in most samples, as many Avisynth example fixes we might show you won't work with a 1-frame video. But sometimes a single frame is enough to show many kinds of problems. In this case the RGB frame does tell us what the RGB colors are doing in display.

To get a single frame from Virtualdub: Use "Video..." -> "Copy source frame to clipboard". Then open a graphics program (you can use Windows Paint) and paste it from the clipboard into the graphics app. That single image gaphic will be RGB. In Paint you can save the output as jpg or png. JPG is lossy compression. PNG is a bigger file but is lossless compression. JPG will usually suffice, but avoid using it for line art like histograms or animation, because it distorts lines and creates artifacts in solid color areas. On the internet many line-art graphics and logos look cleaner because they're usually PNG or GIF.

The filter that Goldwingfahrer shows in the previous post is VDub's chroma shift filter function from FlaXen. I'll post a demo of that chroma problem in a little while.

Goldwingfahrer mentioned 704 width instead of 720. That's another story, but I noticed your earlier home video AVI had side borders. That's normal for 4:3 input, but if you cropped off the side borders and stretched the image to make it 720, it distorts the image proportions horizontally and will look slightly but visibly stretched when displayed.

Goldwingfahrer also mentioned having a better "feed", which I think means a capture with more appropriate black levels. That would likely prevent the red overrun as well as save you some work. But it's best to fix that in YUV first, which is what I did with the other posts and videos.

Back a little later. As usual my home is a madhouse right now.

Last edited by sanlyn; 12-05-2015 at 10:33 AM.
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  #29  
12-05-2015, 05:00 PM
mnewxcv mnewxcv is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sanlyn View Post
Yeah, that's one of the klunky "features" of Virtualdub and a lot of free editors that don't have built-in histograms. Also, ColorTools should be kept at the bottom of VDub's filter chain. The filters in he filter list work from top to bottom. Each filter feeds the next filter in turn. So if you have your histogram as the top filter, it won't show you what the other filters are doing.

You can turn off any filter by unchecking the checkbox on the left of each filter in the list. But I guess you know that already.

The preview in VDub filters shows you what is being input to the filter (i.e., if you have other filters preceding it, it also shows you what those filters did). If you make changes in the filter's preview window, the filter's preview does indeed show what the filter is doing -- but you might notice that the Virtualdub output window itself doesn't change until you save the changes and close the filter. Sometimes you have to move back or ahead 1 frame before the VDub output window shows the changes.

Well, to start, your AVI was converted to RGB. That's not a really big problem in this case, but it does show how the conversion blew some bright red off the histogram. Any YUV image converted to RGB will display that kind of problem--that's why maybe 10 YUV frames or more should be in most samples, as many Avisynth example fixes we might show you won't work with a 1-frame video. But sometimes a single frame is enough to show many kinds of problems. In this case the RGB frame does tell us what the RGB colors are doing in display.

To get a single frame from Virtualdub: Use "Video..." -> "Copy source frame to clipboard". Then open a graphics program (you can use Windows Paint) and paste it from the clipboard into the graphics app. That single image gaphic will be RGB. In Paint you can save the output as jpg or png. JPG is lossy compression. PNG is a bigger file but is lossless compression. JPG will usually suffice, but avoid using it for line art like histograms or animation, because it distorts lines and creates artifacts in solid color areas. On the internet many line-art graphics and logos look cleaner because they're usually PNG or GIF.

The filter that Goldwingfahrer shows in the previous post is VDub's chroma shift filter function from FlaXen. I'll post a demo of that chroma problem in a little while.

Goldwingfahrer mentioned 704 width instead of 720. That's another story, but I noticed your earlier home video AVI had side borders. That's normal for 4:3 input, but if you cropped off the side borders and stretched the image to make it 720, it distorts the image proportions horizontally and will look slightly but visibly stretched when displayed.

Goldwingfahrer also mentioned having a better "feed", which I think means a capture with more appropriate black levels. That would likely prevent the red overrun as well as save you some work. But it's best to fix that in YUV first, which is what I did with the other posts and videos.

Back a little later. As usual my home is a madhouse right now.
thank you, stacking the filters in the correct order was the issue and I would have never figured it out.

I converted it to RGB by accident by using a different computer to do the render, and had not yet installed the correct codec

as for capturing with better black levels, that was with the avt8710 set to not go into the red at any point. From now on I will adjust the levels in virtualdub to get me closer to the boundaries. I just forgot all about those and figured I would have to do it in post. Lesson learned! Same with the 704 vs 720, I punched in to set my levels on the AVT (eliminating the border), and forgot to set it back. It was just a sample capture though, I am much more careful on actual captures. Doing a 2 hour capture as we speak, wish me luck!
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  #30  
12-05-2015, 06:18 PM
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I have the Chroma Shift filter only mentioned because I can use it even with YUY2 material.
I do not always need Avisynth after filtering VDub.

Order of the filters is very important to first color shift and then the other filters.


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  #31  
12-05-2015, 06:20 PM
mnewxcv mnewxcv is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Goldwingfahrer View Post
I have the Chroma Shift filter only mentioned because I can use it even with YUY2 material.
I do not always need Avisynth after filtering VDub.

Order of the filters is very important to first color shift and then the other filters.
thank you very much I am glad you point out such a thing to fix my problem.
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  #32  
12-05-2015, 07:33 PM
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But beware, if the script is in Avisynth

ConvertToRGB32(matrix="Rec601",interlaced=false)

Then one must only use the filter in RGB [VDub]
-------------------------------
Although I also have the filter as sanlyn, but I do not take the audio with.

I write
AviSource("G:\daylight.avi",audio = False)#, pixel_type="YUY2")

can sanlyn perfect English ...
listen to him.
Amen.
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  #33  
12-06-2015, 06:42 AM
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Chroma ghosting is generally the fault of hardware, not the tape. Look to the VCR or capture card. Probably the VCR. But then again, it can be the tape. You have to really test a workflow with lots of tapes, to get a good overall feel for how it's doing.

I capture as best as I can (VCR, TBC, proc amps, detailers), and tweak in software (VirtualDub, Avisynth, Mercalli, etc).

I don't overkill color correction with histograms, because HDTVs and consumer LCDs vary so much. Those value can be tweaked yet again in that hardware. Eyeball it accurate (on your own color calibrated hardware), but it's doesn't need to be perfection.

Histograms are needed if you're not using calibrated equipment.

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  #34  
12-06-2015, 01:14 PM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
Histograms are needed if you're not using calibrated equipment.
True, to a certain extent. Especially if you're experienced and already know what you're doing. IMO If you're just learning color theory and correction, histograms help teach what's going on and aid in developing a skilled eye. Many people can "see" a color problem but can't define it, so they don't really know how to fix it.

The capcm2t.avi can be only partially corrected, and not so very well. The one-frame sample has already been stretched via RGB. Would be easier to fix if levels and saturation could be adjusted first in YUV before doing other work, which is where those problems usually start anyway.

The avi image is below, unchanged. I included some arrows. The upward arrows point to some of the chroma shift (about 4 to 6 pixels to the right). Again, it's more effectively cleaned in YUV. The downward arrow in the lower left corner points to something that might have thrown off your capture histogram: head switching noise can contain very dark and very bright color all by themselves. In this image below, the "black portion" is about RGB 30.


An inexperienced eye might not notice the neon look of some color areas, especially the dark blue shadows. The grass really doesn't look right, the dark wall in the background is Navy blue, and the skins tones are ugly purple. There's also pink discoloration in different parts of the boy's shirt. Things got complicated because the camera seems to be trying to shoot a strongly side-lighted sun, which glares off the plastic (metal?) toy, and tries to make the unlighted shadows too bright. The scene could have been vastly improved originally by using a polarizing filter, but too late for that. There's also some bright red reflection coming off the red parts. Overall, the image has a blue color cast that affects everything. Any RGB histogram and pixel sampler could give exact values, but an experienced user or a good eye would spot all of it right off.

Newcomers also have a problem understanding hoe to make certain corrections. For example, if a video looks too yellow, where is the "yellow" channel color correction? RGB histograms only show R, G, and B. It helps to know that yellow is made from red and green, and that yellow's opposite, balancing color is blue. Many people try to correct an overly green image by adding red, but that just makes it look yellow. Green's opposite is magenta (Red+blue). Some users are confused by YUV corrections; they look for a Green YUV channel, but there isn't one. It takes some doing to learn that green in YUV is addressed by playing with U and V. If you can look at a YUV or RGB histogram while making changes, you get a better idea of what's going on.

You might want to address the problem of dot crawl. Below, a 2X blowup of part of the above image:



Below are two RGB histograms. Both were made with the image border present. Both indicate that luma is in a safe range. However, chroma is over saturated. The left-hand RGB is from the uncorrected image. Note that red and blue are climbing up the walls on the bright side. The right-hand RGB is after converting back to YUV and lowering levels and red and blue saturation -- look at how much bright detail was recovered in the right-hand RGB chart.


The code I used for bottom border, levels and saturation work (in YUY2), plus something for chroma shift that would be more effective with progressive frames or separated fields:
Code:
Crop(0,0,0,-8).AddBorders(0,4,0,4)
ColorYUV(off_y=-14,off_u=-5)
Tweak(coring=false,sat=0.65,dither=true)
Chromashift(C=-4)
ColorYUV uses a luma offset (off_y=-14) to shift all pixel values toward the darker end, and a negative blue offset to shift blue downward in the same way). The Tweak function lowers saturation, and ChromaShift moves chroma 4 pixels to the left.

Either of those images can be corrected to a certain extent. The version shown below is a correction that uses ColorMill only, with no levels correction in YUV. It looks passablel, but bright red is clipped and some YUV work would make a better image to begin with -- and might not even need much correction at all, had it not been for the blue color cast.


Below, a levels and border fix followed by ColorMill and gradation curves in VDub. There are differences from the above, mainly because of the same problems in the RGB original. But I don't find either of them to be very convincing color.


Basically, both corrections are too bright. But just "darkening" would give a very dull image. The attached .zip file cointains two .bcf files. They have the settings I used for the ColorMill-Only version and the Lvels+Vdub version. The VDub filters you need in your VirtuaLDub plugins folder are ColorMill, gradation curves, and ColorTools. Unzip the .zip'd vcf files into a separate folder (your video project folder would be OK. Don't unzip them into your VDub plugins). When you open the video in Virtualdub, use "File..." -> "load processing settings..", navigate to one of the .vcf files, and click OK. The filter(s) will load with the same settings and list order that I used. You can open the filters and examine them to look over the settings used, or change their values in their preview windows and check the affects. Or turn the ColorTools histograms on and off.
Sample_vcfs.zip


Attached Images
File Type: jpg capcmt2-A.jpg (150.2 KB, 71 downloads)
File Type: png RGB before-after levels and sat.png (39.9 KB, 69 downloads)
File Type: jpg capcmt2 2X detail.jpg (72.8 KB, 69 downloads)
File Type: jpg ColorMill only.jpg (95.6 KB, 68 downloads)
File Type: jpg Avisynth plus VDub.jpg (98.2 KB, 68 downloads)
Attached Files
File Type: zip sample_vcfs.zip (1.6 KB, 0 downloads)

Last edited by sanlyn; 12-06-2015 at 01:26 PM.
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  #35  
12-06-2015, 01:20 PM
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Dot crawl is a result of the hardware, and not always of utmost importance to fix. When in motion, it disappear. Not all dot crawl is created equal, or is even horrible. It is what it is. That's just a byproduct of analog video.

I refer to s-video dot crawl, not composite.

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  #36  
12-06-2015, 01:39 PM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
Dot crawl is a result of the hardware, and not always of utmost importance to fix. When in motion, it disappear. Not all dot crawl is created equal, or is even horrible. It is what it is. That's just a byproduct of analog video.

I refer to s-video dot crawl, not composite.
It can be seen here in playback, especially during motion, unless something like Checkmate is used to clean it.
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  #37  
12-10-2015, 12:36 AM
mnewxcv mnewxcv is offline
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here is a capture I am working on. I attached orig and cc(color correction). Please advise on what you would do. This is an old tape of an old film. I have been swamped with finals this week but trying to get this particular tape corrected as best I can to get onto a DVD by Christmas (for the unsuspecting owner of the tape)


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File Type: avi enterlaughingorig.avi (66.90 MB, 4 downloads)
File Type: avi enterlaughingcc.avi (70.18 MB, 1 downloads)
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  #38  
12-10-2015, 04:23 PM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Originally Posted by mnewxcv View Post
here is a capture I am working on. I attached orig and cc(color correction). Please advise on what you would do. This is an old tape of an old film. I have been swamped with finals this week but trying to get this particular tape corrected as best I can to get onto a DVD by Christmas (for the unsuspecting owner of the tape)
Mm. Really bad tape. You might not get many replies on this, as both are huffyuv-MT, which isn't recognized by many media players. Some oddities I saw: (a) both samples are RGB32, which made working with the "original" a hassle, and (b) whatever software you used for your work not only clips darks but hard-clamped them as well and blocked up shadows into grim looking blacks. I don't know how huff-MT is compressing, but when I re-compressed the original to YUY2 with Lagarith I got a file half the size of your sample, and the RGB with the color version was 10MB smaller. That dot crawl is really not good: it's noisy on motion and obscures details. I know the tape isn't so good, but dot crawl that severe makes it worse.

There are three camera shots in the original. The last shot has a totally different color balance -- a nightmare with VHS. I worked the shots separately and joined them to get the non-telecined progressive mp4. Color work isn't as simple as most newcomers think it is, but I don't know how the original looked because of the conversion. Anyway, it'll never look great no matter what anyone does. The girl looks better with white eyes than with orange ones. I did levels in Avisynth and color in VirtualDub. Of course color is largely a personal thingie.

Edit:
Oops, I forgot: Levels in the original you submitted look pretty close to ideal. It's a shame the filtering software spoiled that, but with the original cap intact it's easy to recover.


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File Type: mp4 EnterLaughing_trial_480p.mp4 (2.59 MB, 2 downloads)
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  #39  
12-10-2015, 10:11 PM
mnewxcv mnewxcv is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sanlyn View Post
Mm. Really bad tape. You might not get many replies on this, as both are huffyuv-MT, which isn't recognized by many media players. Some oddities I saw: (a) both samples are RGB32, which made working with the "original" a hassle, and (b) whatever software you used for your work not only clips darks but hard-clamped them as well and blocked up shadows into grim looking blacks. I don't know how huff-MT is compressing, but when I re-compressed the original to YUY2 with Lagarith I got a file half the size of your sample, and the RGB with the color version was 10MB smaller. That dot crawl is really not good: it's noisy on motion and obscures details. I know the tape isn't so good, but dot crawl that severe makes it worse.

There are three camera shots in the original. The last shot has a totally different color balance -- a nightmare with VHS. I worked the shots separately and joined them to get the non-telecined progressive mp4. Color work isn't as simple as most newcomers think it is, but I don't know how the original looked because of the conversion. Anyway, it'll never look great no matter what anyone does. The girl looks better with white eyes than with orange ones. I did levels in Avisynth and color in VirtualDub. Of course color is largely a personal thingie.
I thought I had taken the original from virtualdub but I may have run it through premiere pro. As for dot crawl, is that the fault of the vcr, tbc, or capture device?
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12-11-2015, 10:37 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mnewxcv View Post
I thought I had taken the original from virtualdub but I may have run it through premiere pro. As for dot crawl, is that the fault of the vcr, tbc, or capture device?
Both AVI's were made with VirtualDub according to the free MediaInfo analyzer -- but the "cc" version had gone through something else first (PP?), which clamped the low end pretty hard. I'll demonstrate below.

Try a short capture without the AVT8710. That would be my first dot crawl suspect. If not that, I wouldn't suspect the JVC. The ATI card maybe ? ?

I've reduced these sample images to save a little forum bandwidth. The image below is from the "original". Of course it's been converted to RGB when made, so I had to work with that. The black levels and brights are OK. The color is OK, too, maybe needs a little bright blue but not much.



Below, the same frame from the "CC" version. The YUV histogram shows obvious clamping of darks. Shadow detail is clumped and indistinct, as shown in the histograms. Some dark detail has been wiped out and the image looks unnatural. Brights are OK but look oversharpened, so there's a "clay face" effect and hot specular highlights.


If you worked levels and color in Premiere you have a leg up on most users, because PP has excellent advanced color tools. PP has all the good measuring tools (histograms) you'll ever need, which you have to learn to use when working with odd video like this. PP doesn't resize, deinterlace, or de-telecine as well as Avisynth, which is the primary tool for that sort of work short of spending 4 to 5 figures on pro studio software. There are similar color tools in After Effects, which I used below.

Below, a frame from the original, unchanged. The "cc" correction looks almost like -- unnatural skin tones, a dull image. It's a maverick shot, much harder to work with than the two shots before it. You can eyeball it and see the low contrast range and red color balance. A pixel reader will confirm what you see: the skin tones need blue, the gal's eyes are yellow, lips are dull. Her teeth are a little reddish in a later frame, but that's chroma bleed (wish we could fix those teeth, but the tape is just too contrary).


Below, cleaned up and borders centers in Avisynth. I used VirtualDub for color in the mp4, but here I used After Effects. I really wish it was a better tape, but I have plenty of clunkers myself.


The above image looks sharper, but I used no sharpening on it. Note that you don't need blue in the dark hair, you need it mostly in the midtones and brights. PP's curves filter would be the ideal for that. Could be a bit brighter at the top end, but I ran out of time to tweak forever. I run into a lot of odd color-balanced frames like this in VHS movies. It comes with the territory. And we thought VHS was so great!

It doesn't take long to hang of color work. There are plenty of free Photoshop, Premiere, Vegas, and After Effects tutorial websites dealing specifically with color problems. You don't have to be a pro artist to get the essentials, which are fairly basic.


Attached Images
File Type: png original 8 - YUV - RGB.png (344.1 KB, 78 downloads)
File Type: png CC 8 - YUV - RGB.png (344.6 KB, 78 downloads)
File Type: jpg original 127 536x400.jpg (77.1 KB, 78 downloads)
File Type: jpg Trial Run 103A 536x400.jpg (60.8 KB, 78 downloads)
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