How to resize a picture?

[deter]

Just wondering, recorded a few things from TV using the HD feed or the only feed for that channel. Recorded to normal 720x480. I am sure many of you have seen non HD being broadcast on HD channels and you get bars on the side or a really small picture. What is the best way to inflate the video? Instead of leaving it small, once you start blowing it up in size the quality goes down hill fast.

Part 2, been getting in recordings were people are recording HD to DVD recorders, in full screen. Granted the picture is not HD, but it is pretty good. How are these people getting a full screen picture? Every thing I've ever recorded from HD is Widescreen.

Does anyone have one of those BluRay recorders? That are not really on the market, if so how is it working out for you?

LS note: This is meandering thread, but I answer this first question in post#15.

[sanlyn]

HD recorders are sold in most major countries except the U.S.A. and Canada. Welcome to the land of the free, where Hollywood and the cable lobby dictate how you will live.

If your cable company transmits 4:3 broadcasts and 1280x720 broadcasts as full-screen 16:9 through its HD box, the cable box adds the 4 borders. If you could get an older standard definition digital cable box you'd get 4:3 through that box without borders (wide-screen would be letterboxed), but most cable companies won't rent those older SD boxes any more. Maybe your cable provider will if you convince them that you're still using an older TV that won't accept HDMI or HD input. But it's now verboten to manufacturer new cable boxes with analog outputs.

You crop off the borders and resize them in Avisynth, best way I know. But I record old 4:3 programs with an HD PVR and component video outputs and just accept the full 4:3 image in a 16:9 window with side-only pillars. Or I still have my original SD digital box with s-video analog outputs and two DVD recorders that transmit and record 4:3 material properly.

Anyway, you're not supposed to make recordings of your own. Big brother says that's a no-no that inteferes with their plan to make you pay every time you watch something. What's coming next? You'll someday be charged by the minute for cable box usage. Now you know that the digital revolution wasn't really about picture quality after all.

[deter]

They don't really sell DVD recorders, unless online, never see them in the few electronic stores that are left. Yes you can buy HD recorders have seen them, granted they are like major bootleg machines.

Big Brother can go to Hell. Revelations 13:9 that is what they are building. Thank God, Trump is in office, or we were in serious trouble going down the Mystery Babylon path. You just wait, just always fight against putting an RFID inside of you, that is the death of all, it goes against the scripture and is a big No.

As far as recording TV, why would I have all these VHS and Betamax tapes?

Back to this topic, so you are saying, it is Comcast that is doing this with the Cable boxes. Right now I do have 1 old school TV with HD feed hooked up. For some reason, ESPN broadcasts the HD picture in Full Screen unlike every other that is Letterbox cropped.

Yea they want you to buy their DVR's and leave everything with the cable company. Like I am going to buy a movie from Comcast, so I can watch it all the time with them. I tried everything from hacking the cable box, pulling out the hard drive and trying to access the direct data. They encrypt it all. So once out of the box it is worthless. Trust me I have sent the hard drives to IT Specialists and they can't do anything with them. They just think I am weird. Have pulled DVR's out of more than one cable box and tried them in other cable boxes. They normally use Seagate hard drives by the way. Trust me; just to pull the screws out of a cable box you need to be really good or have special tools. I chiseled them out.

Built my own DVR so to speak have around 10 external hard drives that I plug in to a Seagate media player, really don't even use DVD's or Blue Ray discs just pull them to my hard drives. For XP which you have DVD 4:3 is a great tool, FYI....My main TV doesn't even have cable TV, just my VCR's and Media Player.

I would have never recorded this program, if it was not rare, recorded it from a regular not an HD TV station. Recorded from a Standard Def station that broadcasts in HD, so it is the little picture. Cropped like a midget video on TV. I understand I am going to lose quality out of it, but need to inflate can't watch midget picture TV. What is the script you use?

[lordsmurf]

You're seriously mistaken when it comes to Trump and any kind of communications policy (FCC, First Amendment, etc). But this site is fervently politics-neutral, based on my insistence, so no more comments like that.

Philosophically speaking, the recording issue has always been about money.

- Company A would love it if you had to pay big bucks every single time you saw or heard something, and hates any ability to be self sufficient (aka, ability to record yourself)
- Company B wants to sell lots of recording equipment. It's stupidifying irony when A and B are the same company, as often happens (example: Sony).
- People do not and cannot spend tons of money to re-buy content, nor re-buy recording equipment. They want buy it once, and enjoy it. They feel that buying the TV, the cable/satellite package, being forced to sit through commercials (on most channels) that earns the entertainment industry more money, and the DVD recorder, is already more than enough payment.
- Most politicians, especially the old farts who never figured out how to make the clock stop blinking "12:00", do whatever they're told. Some choose company A, some B, or (even less often) the people they represent, when it comes to picking a side in the battle.

The modern trick is to encrypt the channels, then make decryption illegal (aka DMCA), which will hopefully be gutted as it applies to timeshifting and personal backup. It been moving that direction for the past year.

Our cable provider has boxes with RF out, or HDMI out, but the analog will usually "postage stamp" the native non-widescreen source. My Philips 3575 HDD recorder can record from 16x9 HD source, on unencrypted QAM, but the signal here is encrypted. So I either record postage stamp, or nothing. A few channels are delivered SD 4x3, usually just a few locals on the secondary broadcast feed (Decades, MeTV, Buzzr, etc).

None of the recorders have HDMI in.

I'd be quite happy if I could record 16x9 with the left/right pillars, as I watch on an HDTV anyway.

DVR boxes use custom Linux and formatting, so good luck getting anything off it. They want to make it hard for users. This is a main reason the FCC is currently trying to push open-sourcing of boxes, and they've getting pushback from politicians (especially the elephants in the room). The people have spoken, but corporations and politicians don't want to listen.

HD recording is mostly accomplished by HD capture cards, most of which are discontinued or sold outside the USA. I don't want to go back to the days of needing a computer to record TV, so I'll just do without, or find it by others means (DVD releases, Youtube, etc).

I've not tried TiVo yet, to see if it outputs unencrypted 16x9. That's my best bet right now.

[sanlyn]

I don't have a script, because I don't record the "little window" format. I have an HD PVR that records full screen to a computer, then I edit and transfer the recordings in smart-rendering software onto external hard drives for playback with an OPPO or similar media player. The DVD recorders record 4:3 DVD only from an older SD digital cable box that has no HD output. Those are edited and burned to disc, or transferred to a PC if necessary for tighter editing in smarft-rendeing MPEG2 apps, then authored for DVD otr archived on external drives.

I also use the HD PVR to record copy-once material to a computre from the 4:3 SD cable boc. Those recorings are 720x480 h.264 MPEG4 .ts files. Many are edited and transferred to a hard drive, others are decoded to lossless format, defects are cledaned up, then they are re-encoded to MPEG2 for DVD authoring.

There are lots of ways around these limitations, but you can't do anything with newer boxes. When my CableVision provider no longer allows me to use my current HD box with analog outputs or takes away my old SD box I'll be cutting off my cable service and will just watch PBS off antenna. I already have so many digital movies and TV shows that I'll never live long enough to see all of them anyway. And today's TV programming is getting too stupid to worry about. Anything else worth having is available on DVD or BluRay. And there are always books.

[deter]

sanlyn,

Believe me I don't want to record this crap. Turn on the Golf Channel right now, they are doing all old Tiger Highlights in that same crappy mode.

Anyway the guy who I got these amazing captures from is doing it via direct TV, he is capturing the HD picture in standard definition, I have a few of these also from England it is amazing. I don't mind the 4:3 Letterbox stuff it is better than recording regular TV stations. Some of these full screen captures I got in, have blown me away to be honest.

Next question got a few 352x480 recordings that are 5 1/2 hours on a single DVD, before I begin on this, what is the best way to fix this. I was thinking of using an external TBC, running through my digital tuner than re-recording it to the MS100 to fix some of the Pixelization issues. The damage has already been done, it is now like can you fix this.

Now have taken crappy FLV downloads and fix them a bit. This is my method, I issue them to DVD changing the 640x480 to 720x480. Try to improve the audio cause that is also crappy on those. Than I record them to my JVC VCR. Have tried the SVHS but normal VHS seems to work just as well. It gets rid of all the pixellization and always improves the videos. Again if I could purchase the general masters I would but this stuff is not out on the open market.

These are digital recordings and going back to VHS doesn't do much, going digital to digital is my thought.

Have used Neat Video before to fix these up, but when you get motion in the video, you can really see some of the problems.

Any thoughts?

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

Next question got a few 352x480 recordings that are 5 1/2 hours on a single DVD, before I begin on this, what is the best way to fix this. I was thinking of using an external TBC, running through my digital tuner than re-recording it to the MS100 to fix some of the Pixelization issues. The damage has already been done, it is now like can you fix this.

You don't need a TBC for digital source.
Re-recording lossy to lossy is not the way to go. The bitrate for 5.5 hours is too for making even minimal improvements, it's lower quality than VHS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

Now have taken crappy FLV downloads and fix them a bit. This is my method, I issue them to DVD changing the 640x480 to 720x480. Try to improve the audio cause that is also crappy on those. Than I record them to my JVC VCR. Have tried the SVHS but normal VHS seems to work just as well. It gets rid of all the pixellization and always improves the videos. Again if I could purchase the general masters I would but this stuff is not out on the open market.
These are digital recordings and going back to VHS doesn't do much, going digital to digital is my thought.
Have used Neat Video before to fix these up, but when you get motion in the video, you can really see some of the problems.
Any thoughts?

I don't want to think about the damage you're doing to sources that are poor quality to begin with, and using formats not designed for edits or modification. Either decompress to lossless formats or just leave them as-is. It just occurred to me that you're resizing interlaced and telecined material. Don't. Seriously.

[deter]

The guy who sent me the FLV files, he could not believe how much better they were. You have no idea, VHS can fix pixel problems cause it is recording an analog picture. You would like this, wrote an audio script for the FLV files that does a massive noise drop and helps restore the audio.

I have high end VCR's that improve the picture. Yes the external TBC helps with motion on these videos that is why I use it.

When you are dealing with material that you can not find anywhere in the world, if you can improve the video it is a big bonus.

Here is the master tape of this bootleg recording. (I will tell you in the next post) I am doing everything in this post besides using VHS for this one I used Betamax.

Here is the sample video, it is pure crap, which you cant buy anywhere but on bootleg. See masterfile.mpg

-- merged --

This is my patch, which I built by designing the frames. See ZeppelinMaster.mpg

Patching and mixing 4 different videos, Using Chroma Keying, Mastering Audio, Mixing, Editing, Re-recording to Betamax, using external TBC's, Frame bending, recoding, Mixing & blending audio & video and just being pretty dang creative. Resizing the picture and ect. Using different audio sources, making them match and sync with the video. You must understand this material doesn't exist in the real world....Now it is on the internet, just a clip of it. It is my own creation. This video was never shot for this audio footage.

All I am asking in this post is good creative ideas to help improve some of these recordings, cause I know they can become good. Instead of wasting countless hours trying and creating different methods I want to hear what people say.

I have crappy recordings, nothing I can do about it, trust me I want the Master, some how on this recording Empress Valley on most of it, got a Betamax tape. In the mid part, it is a copy of a copy VHS tape. For years this bootleg was pure s**t, until Empress got a near source tape of it. Even the master tape is destroyed in part, I know this from researching it.

Now the recording I pulled was so freakin good, that I had to downgrade it, to patch the video. I only got clips of it. To patch the audio used the mix from the next night. Blended tangerine in to Going to Cali to get it seamless. The audio from the 24th is destroyed forever, no one has the soundboard of it. To patch the concert had to make it sound just like the 24th.

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

All I am asking in this post is good creative ideas to help improve some of these recordings, cause I know they can become good. Instead of wasting countless hours trying and creating different methods I want to hear what people say

When working with lossless media, re-encoding is necessary only as a final step. Intermediate working files should never re-encoded. Save yourself some work and time.

Looks like an admirable job of noise reduction and audio mixing, and thanks for not over sharpening. No original to compare it to, however. Little remains of any dark detail. Nearly chiaroscuro. What did the "before' versions look like?

[deter]

I have just totally changed direction on this post. It was going nowhere, but still want to know what Lord Smurf says about fixing up some of those 352x480 recordings....Before I even start messing around with them.

Here is another sample of this concert. See BetaVsVHS.mpg

As stated the early part is a really good Betamax recording than it goes in to a copy of a copy VHS, the VHS parts which is about 1 hour, just needs to be improved a bit, the audio is from the soundboard it is not VHS audio it is the same through the entire concert and I am working on mastering that on the side.

In some parts it was missing video or frames would drop to black, I have already blended all of this out, making it like the drops never happened, however never got around to doing the VHS part of this show.

-- merged --

Here is another sample from another bootleg See CroppedPicture.mpg

which the top part of the picture was destroyed with tracking lines and also the bottom. This thing was resized to what, have no idea, it was whatever could be salvaged from the video, it still has some streaks in it. However again this video is not out on the open market and it is cool to have.

I don't have a copy of the source, don't know were it is....

-- merged --

sanlyn, there is no before version.....The before version is the VHS footage....

Stairway the Heaven has the same problem it craps out, and had to be rebuilt.

this is a bootleg from 1975 never released anywhere....Just to get a good video tape of it is amazing......I don't have the Master, just the bootleg EVSD release of it.

Your idea of not going in to a film and fixing it cause of recoding doesn't work. The source was mpeg2. I rather have a fixed up going to Cali than a destroyed VHS.

How can I code a video at the end, were I am making up the video myself, I don't know what the next frame is or how I am going to mix what is next. I have no idea. Just have clips that are being replayed. Like creating fake mouth movement to sync the audio. This is not a real video it was never shot to this song. I am creating a video to a piece of music, blending it in to a film to make it look real. The video and Audio footage was destroyed.

It is not about me or my ego, I could care less, I want the best possible recording out of this, if I have to pay someone $3,000 I would. Since nobody has really ever done a good job with it, I'll try myself.

I see these Bootleg Remaster experts all the time, they normally mess up the audio somehow or even the video if it has video. A few are really good, this one guy is like a bootleg master, he is the only guy I will download his stuff. The rest....Yea....

My software has smart render, so I can recode the mpeg2 over and over and make new edits and get the same video out of it. The only parts recoded are the new edits.

Only showed the opening clips of the Master VHS, you didn't see how bad it gets towards the middle and end of the song.

This is not a project I am working on, last night was just watching this video, this was from like 5 years ago, just never completed it, really didn't care to go through and try to fix up the VHS segments. Do you want to have a go at it. I will send you the master file. If it is any good we will plug it in to the 3 hour + concert.

[sanlyn]

Don't get what? First you say the source was VHS, then you say it was MPEG2. Lets not be confusing, which would be easy to do after trying to keep track of all the destructive formats you go through to end up with what appears to be a denuded and disemboweled "patch". It plays smoothly enough, but there doesn't seem to be much left of what you started with -- depending, of course, on how the source looks but we have no piece of the source.

Just because you don't work with lossless media doesn't mean it's stupid. If you want to take the more primitive and troublesome path, that's your choice. Life is too short for doing it the long way around. But they're your videos, bootleg or not. I don't deal in that area.

If this is supposed to be instructive in some way, you might want to share some of the details of how the project went together or came apart or whatever, so that others can benefit.

[lordsmurf]

Don't snipe at each other. It's not helpful. Be nice.

I see issues in each of the posted clips. I just downloaded them all, took a look. I'll give some more comments later, probably tomorrow. Overall, it's viewable (which is a good place to be!), but has room for improvement. I need to re-read the thread, as I'm not 100% clear on what I'm looking at here. It's bootleg ... and not? A rebuild of an unrecorded event?

[sanlyn]

The last post plays pretty well, which is what I said, I just have issues with how much is missing or what was improved and what was lost, and why. We can't know that because there's no starting point and no detail of the method. Usually we like to know what the source was and what steps were taken to arrive at the destination. Readers don't learn much when most of the information is omitted.

[deter]

The source comes from a Betamax or betacam tape mixed with VHS, that is just my guess.

This is the source video, that I re made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR1eFVVexoM

Here is an remastered attempt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYWi676rOOY

It a bit dark from the source. I don't know why he doubled the frame rate.

I have both the HD release and the SD release they are the same...They just resized the blu ray release that is it.
http://www.guitars101.com/forums/f14...ot-140251.html
http://bootslive.blogspot.com/2011/0...ing-james.html

Video Attributes:
Video Format: DVD "VOB" Format
Video Compression mode: MPEG-2
Format: NTSC
Display Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Resolution: 720 x 480
FPS: 29.97
Ave Bit Rate of Video Stream: 3843 kbps
Interlaced
Bottom Field First
Chaptered and Menued
Audio Attributes:
Audio Coding mode: DVD_LPCM_Audio

These Earl's Court videos from the 24 & 25, are a gem.

This is the greatest Rock and Roll band, besides the Song Remains the Same, you had zero footage of Led Zeppelin, I recall back in 91 they showed like two videos from Knebworth 79, it was the coolest thing ever, than they had clips of Seattle 77 but Earl's Court, who even knew of this. Years later to find the entire concert on YouTube. Empress Valley did a hell of a job on this, the early releases were beyond terrible.

Empress Valley is the mac daddy bootleg company. Everything they put out can be restored. This is not broadcast level stuff, this is some kid putting a tape in the soundboard and running home with the reel. The other Bootleg companies are not even close. Not only does EV release the CD's, but any kind of video. Tarantura bootlegs sell for hundreds and they are not on the same level.

$675 for a used CD set: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Led-Zeppelin...wAAOSw241YZBf5

Very rare do you see the bootleg videos for sale, they do turn up, unless you are in Japan than this stuff is everywhere.

For a collector of this stuff these videos clips are priceless, until Jimmy Page wants to put this on DVD.

I am the only one who has Going to Cali in that form cause I built it and it is not for sale, uploading or even viewing the entire clip. That is what makes it special. Didn't apply filters or changed the actual video. However did replace a damaged segment. Using the method described in this post.

The VHS parts of this concert are poor quality but you have over 2 hours of really good stuff.

This Led Zeppelin video represents everything we are trying to do with video restoration. We want the recordings in the highest possible quality. So we buy the best VCR's, best capture devices, learn as much as possible, add script editing and different methods to fix videos aka Neat Video. We are like VHS bootleggers and we want to be Empress Valley and not Wendy Records or the Swinging Pig.

Even with all that, the recordings are never perfect.

If it is your home movies or every episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood you want them to be the best. Lets say Mr. Rogers Neighborhood is not on DVD and you are a collector of these. You are missing 3 episodes.
- One of them is on YouTube
- One of them was played on TV on an HD network and is cropped on the TV and you need to resize it
- One of them someone online recorded but didn't know how to record and did 7 hours of Mr. Rogers on 1 DVD

Last off on your favorite episode you have about 5 minutes of destroyed video, if you are creative you may be able to fix.

That is what this post is about.

[lordsmurf]

I've cleaned the thread of not-nice comments.

All that does is make posts longer, and rambling, and I don't have patience for useless blah-blah. Like the Dragnet (mis)quote, 'just the facts'. Either you want video help, or you want to pontificate (and get the thread locked). I don't get impatient around here often, but this will do it.

Now then, enough of that nonsense...

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

the "little window" format.

Double matting 4x3 to 16x9 is called "postage stamp" or "windowboxing".

The only way to "fix" this mess is to
- record it
- deinterlace it with a good algorithm like QTGMC
- and then upsize it back to fill the 4x3 frame

If recording SD, it will be soft quality, and that really cannot be fixed. If record SD, resizing it may actually be a down-res to SD, which is fine. You don't want to record HD and up-res it to HD.

^ This probably answer the original first-post question by deter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

Have used Neat Video before

NeatVideo is too overly aggressive at almost everything it does. It's amateur payware compared to freeware Avisynth. Try not to use it. Or find a better Avisynth method, and ween yourself off Neat Video.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

The bitrate for 5.5 hours is too for making even minimal improvements, it's lower quality than VHS.

This is true.

VHS may have lower quality than DVD allows, but that's only true in some areas: resolution chroma, etc. The bitrate of DVD is highly compressed, and depending on content, is often lower than VHS even at the max ~10mbps bitrate. You need to go to 15mbps to have a near-1:1: match for the quality. That's why Blu-ray was a boon for SD video collector, as it has a 15mbps fixed bitrate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

FLV files

FLV is a container. It can hold On2 formats, H.264, and others. "FLV" alone says nothing about the source quality. VP6, for example, looks worse than Xvid. While H.264 can be as good as a Blu-ray, with the right resolution and bitrates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

VHS can fix pixel problems cause it is recording an analog picture.

No.

And I'm sure this is what's getting sanlyn all worked up.

It's been at least 6-7 years since I last heard this half-myth / half rotten idea. It was often from those just starting into restoration, and who also like to experiment with methods. Does digital to VHS, and back to digital from that VHS, "help" clean up noise? Sort of, but not really. You introduce chroma and timing errors, and do not simply soften noise. If you want to remove noise, then do so without VHSm using Avisynth and/or VirtualDub. At the time (2000s), the VHS method was faster than Avisynth, and that was always the backup argument when told this fact. But now, a decade later, it's not true.

15+ years ago, I restored a rare cartoon by going from VHS to digital to VHS and back to digital. But back then, the tech really did not exist to fix that error all-digital. But 3 years later, it did (albeit slow). And 3 more again, it was unofficially released on DVD in Hong Kong. 3 more again, and it was "re-mastered" to official DVD in UK.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

the external TBC helps with motion

No.

A TBC corrects signal timing, nothing more. At most, visually, the TBC-1000 has an ability tocorrect very moderate vertical non-technical (layman) jitter. I have never heard anybody say it fixes motion, nor do I have any idea how that would happen. That reminds me of misinformation found on those cheap devices you see on eBay; snake oil for video.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

My software has smart render

What are you using?

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

This is the source video,

You mean the Youtube video was the master?
Or the pre-Youtube master that this person used as a basis for the Yuotube upload?

If the Youtube video, it is NOT a master.
If the pre-Youtube version, it is (to that person, at least).

I've done a lot of personal projects over the years, as well as professional (documentaries). In both cases, we'd contact the Youtube uploader, to find out where he got it. Too often, the Youtuber just swiped it from elsewhere, and it would often be quite an adventure to track down the source. Very often, we'd reach out to our contacts, and see what others may know.

Only after the best version was available (which was almost never Youtube), would restoration begin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

I don't know why he doubled the frame rate.

One viable deinterlace method involve doubling frame rate. That may be why.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

This is the greatest Rock and Roll band

Oh, I don't know. "One of", sure, but "the" will get disagreements. Cream and Metallica, for example, both have their share a pricey albums. And let's not forget the Beatles, even though I'm not a fan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

until Jimmy Page wants to put this on DVD

I don't think he cares anymore. I really don't. Same for Plant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deter

if you are creative you may be able to fix.

This is true ... but always be aware of better methods that may exist. And be willing to redo it, some years later, if better methods exist. That's why you should keep source!

[deter]

The FLV files were from a german website. On these videos the pixels were moving all over the place, changing colors. For example the grass on the video was a disaster, you couldn't watch it cause of all the moving parts. These were all PAL video. On NTSC TV they look terrible with motion. The external TBC actually helped to sync some of the pixels. It also helped to sync the 25 frames per second to blend the motion to look somewhat normal. Tested every idea possible. Some of the pre-built filters in high end JVC VCR's aka the 7800 or SV1 with the noise reduction helped to clean up the recording, not only that, the pixilation problem was removed from the video.

The source of the Zeppelin recordings is the EVSD Japanese bootleg "In the Court of King James" DVD. That's is what I used not downloaded mp4 YouTube files.

Jimmy Page just re-did every studio album and just released the complete BBC session recordings they keep doing new videos on YouTube. They created some cool effects using the 1970 Royal Albert Hall Concert

https://youtu.be/jrqMdja4eYs

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Quote:

One viable deinterlace method involve doubling frame rate. That may be why.

The YouTube clip in question is all duplicate frames at 50fps. Looks to me like originally
25i PAL was recorded to DVD (or maybe h.264), field-blended (or NTSc to PAL conversion?), fed through denoisers (to make it soft and fuzzy), double-weaved to double the frame rate to 50p with duplicate frames. If you look at motion frames, it's difficult to tell but this might have started life as 23.976 NTSC telecined for 29.97fs. Probably the maker wanted to ensure that his upsampled blurry SD original was "real 720p HD" by doubling up the frames and frame rate, but its 960x720 square-pixel 4:3 frame is invalid for 720p BluRay. On the other hand how this seg went from 25fps in YouTube to 29.97 is apparently left for the ages to divine at a later time.

In the earlier mpg sample this cut is seemingly the same material as the linked YouTube video (? Lacking some info here), duped frames were either dropped or re-interlaced somewhere along the line (reversing the field order from standard PAL TFF to DV BFF) and encoded as interlaced. Or possibly at one point the YouTube or other source was lossy re-encoded as Dv (again, no info on methods given). Either that, or the segment was borrowed elsewhere from an undisclosed source. That segment of the mpg looks better than the horrible YouTube version linked, but darks are still badly crushed -- probably not much can be done about that, because they're clipped in YouTube.

It certainly keeps you guessing, doesn't it? Back to work.....

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Double matting 4x3 to 16x9 is called "postage stamp" or "windowboxing".

The only way to "fix" this mess is to
- record it
- deinterlace it with a good algorithm like QTGMC
- and then upsize it back to fill the 4x3 frame

If recording SD, it will be soft quality, and that really cannot be fixed. If record SD, resizing it may actually be a down-res to SD, which is fine. You don't want to record HD and up-res it to HD.

^ This probably answer the original first-post question by deter.

I somehow overlooked this part of your post. "Windowboxing", yes.

I very quickly had my fill of captures made from this type of cable broadcast out of an HD cable box, so I just built a small HTPC and installed an HD PVR for full-screen recordings. Of the couple of windowboxed recordings I made or have seen that were broadcast as small 4:3 images in big black frames, I had to go through the following:

The broadcast was recorded to a Toshiba RD-X34 DVD recorder at XP setting, which is a one-hour 9000 variable bitrate MPEG at 720x480. The first step is to burn the recording directly to DVD and transfer it to a PC. If the recoding is longer than 1 hour (it usually is) it is split into multiple parts in the recorder's editor, then burned directly to DVD-RW and copied to a PC. The MPEG2 is decompressed to a lossless YV12 Lagarith file with VirtualDub running an Avisynth script using DGindex for the video. If no one has done this before, it consists of two steps: (a) Use DGIndex to make a d2v project file (an index) to the DVD, which also demuxes and saves the audio as a separate AC3 audio file. (b) The typical Avisynth script to decompress the video and remux with audio looks like this:

vid=MPEG2Source("path\to\recording\filename.d2v")
aud=NicAC3Source("path\to\audio\filename.ac3", Channels=2)
AudioDub(vid,aud)

The script will also crop off the windowboxing black borders. What remains is the core image as anamorphic non-square pixels (for either a 4:3 or 16:9 image). What happens next depends on whether the content is interlaced or telecined. PAL movies are generally (but not always) 24ps or 23.976 film speeded up to 25 fps progressive, NTSC film is telecined usually with 3:2 or 2:3 pulldown. Live-broadcast non-film NTSC and PAL are almost always interlaced, top field first.

- Telecined material is inverse-telecined with TIVTC and will be treated as purely progressive video until the encoding step. If any denoising or color correction are required, etc., it is performed before resizing. The video is then resized. These procedures are performed using lossless YV12 media and Lagarith lossless compression.

- Interlaced video is deinterlaced with QTGMC or yadif. If any denoising or color correction are required, etc., it is performed before resizing. The video is then resized, and then re-interlaced in Avisynth. These procedures are performed using lossless YV12 media and Lagarith lossless compression.

The resizer I normally use for upscaling smaller frames to 720x480 or 640x480 is Spline36Resize. Avisynth has many resizers, including plugins for resizing in 16-bit mode.

The lossless media is then encoded. If the video must be intermixed with other source videos or edited to remove material such as commercials, editing is done with lossless media.

If the video is 23.976fps film, 3:2 pulldown is added during the encode for NTSC playback. For PAL film encoding, "EURO" pulldown is added for 25fps playback using the DGPulldown utility.

But this whole process is such a pain in the neck, I haven't done it in quite some time and don't plan to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

NeatVideo is too overly aggressive at almost everything it does. It's amateur payware compared to freeware Avisynth. Try not to use it. Or find a better Avisynth method, and ween yourself off Neat Video.

True. I use it occasionally, and sparingly. Definitely configure it carefully for much less strength than its defaults. I use it only for very specific noise problems and only as a final touch-up when needed. Most of the time Avisynth can handle noise as well as or better than NeatVideo.