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  #1  
02-17-2010, 12:47 PM
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When making DVD's with the computer what should the Bit Rate be to produced the best picture...
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02-17-2010, 01:09 PM
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NOTE: This is a new topic, so moved it to a new thread...

Maximize the space used on the disc -- using a bitrate calculator -- while sticking to accepted limits on length and resolution:
  • 720x480 on single layer disc - 1-2 hours max
  • 352x480 on single layer disc - 3-4 hours max
time x bitrate = file size
resolution / bitrate = allocation
high allocation = quality

Content can affect quality, because the content determines what a good allocation is:
  • Cartoons can use less bit rate than live action.
  • A recording of an interview panel needs less bitrate than a movie.
  • The detail in a baseball game or wrestling crowd -- mixed with high action -- requires very high bitrate, near-max.
I don't use calculators, to be honest. I've been doing this so long, I can guess a bitrate for a certain length and content, and be within 200MB at most. To be safe, I cut on the low side -- reencoding because a project is 25MB too large in a nuisance, a waste of time.

Need a calculator?

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  #3  
02-17-2010, 01:19 PM
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As we spoke of before, too high of a bit rate creates blocks in the screen.

Most of my Videos are 3 to 5 hours, having to compile several DVD's or using Duel Layer Disks.

With software you can set a Bit Rate number. Since many of these DVD's will be split over a number of disks what is the best number to use.

You said before using 320x480 has the best allocation of Bit Rate. Wondering what that number is vs the SP mode and XP mode...

Audio I am using a sample rate 48000 and bit rate of 224

Would like to make the final DVD's as long as possible, however if they have to be 1 hour an 40 minutes vs 2 hours, it is not a big deal....
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02-17-2010, 01:33 PM
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Yes, for DVD-Video, spiking above the limits of what a DVD decoder chipset wants (in a DVD player or DVD recorder) can present itself in various ways:
  • freezing
  • blocks
  • stuttering
It's similar to bad media -- a similar "data error" situation.

Technically, the ceiling for DVD-Video is either 10.08Mbps or 9.8Mpbs (depending on the audio format), but 9.5Mbps per second is generally where I shoot for. However, some players are built like crap, and the decoders get confused in the mid-upper 8Mbps range. So that 9Mbps is played back with errors. --- Replace the player.

352x480 allows for better allocation when compared to 720x480, and when specifying a max file size. For 3 hours on one disc, 352x480 will look better than 720x480, in terms of less compression noise.

Things are all relative to one another. Set the constants, then work out variables. The disc is the constant, the other two are the variables (res + bitrate). And different combinations of res+bitrate can have consequences (i.e., not enough bitrate, not as good a picture).

Not 320x480 -- not a valid resolution.

Audio must be 48kHz for DVD (48,000 Hz) and 224kbps is an okay bitrate. Personally, I usually stick to 256k. Anything in the 192-384k range is fine. 192 is closet to "telephone quality" while 384 is closer to "transparent" quality, with 256 being a good compromise of size/quality.

Depending on the content, 100 minutes and 120 minutes could have major quality differences --- or none at all.

"Good quality" means there is enough bitrate per pixel to hide the blocks or pre-blocks (mosquito noise), understanding that more motion or noise in the video will want more bit rate. The length x bitrate is what creates the file size.

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  #5  
02-21-2010, 11:05 AM
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Ok,

I just tried this,

Recorded 6 disks to XP (720x480), than put them on the computer. They were recorded with very little to none mosquito noise. I did my edits, removed the commerials. The video itself is 5 hours 54 minutes. It needs to be broken up over a few DVD's.

Burned the 1st DVD to 2 hour mode and those mosquito blocks showed back up in the video. They are not horrible, but a lot worse than the original recording. I have been maxing out the encoding to 15 which states to be the best quality...

The video has to be re-coded since it has recieved massive edits.

What do I need to do?

Here are the setting in the program....Right now I am testing out (352x480)

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02-21-2010, 07:43 PM
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Your medium value is way too low for super-bit bitrate allocation.
Refer to the bitrate graphs at bottom of http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/vid...rd-capture.htm

For 352x480
4500-5000= superbit
3700-4400 = good bitrate
3000-3600 = good, but starting to compress
2500-2900 = compressed
under 2400 = so compressed it looks like crap

When I say "compressed", understand I refer to the appearance of compression artifacts. Obviously, all MPEG-2 is compressed video. (Technically speaking, most digital video is compressed in some way, even many "uncompressed" formats.)

"Video encoder quality" doesn't mean much. That's such a stupid setting. Leave it at just above mid-point. On a 15-scale, that'd be around 8 or 10.

Minimum bitrate is too high, it takes away from the VBR's ability to be "variable" (V). Set it at half the optimum max -- 2000 for 352x480, 4000 for 720x480.

Your max is too high, it wastes. Set it at 5000, or 6000 just to be safe. It won't ever go as high as 8000 on 352x480 @ sub-5000 avg, so no point flagging it that way in the MPEG headers.

Don't trust the program to do aspect ratio "auto" -- set it to 4:3 yourself. You can trust "auto" on the math (matrix, GOP length, etc) -- but even the best pro software is a bit stupid at other settings, like field order and aspect.

Video from a DVD recorder is always top field first. Your NLE project and final encode settings much match that.

I suggest 256kbps audio.

You don't need to close GOP, unless using authorware that insist on it (not a common issue anymore).

I want to see the advanced settings.

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02-21-2010, 08:11 PM
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I only did one disk so far it was 720x480. With S-Video it looks ok, however with the HDMI, is where I see the blocks...


The sound was set at 256 and for some reason the sound is different than the source disk. It has more hiss. This minute I am flipping back and forth on the TV from the source DVD and the created one.

Didn't not know to use Top Field first....Every video I have done has been bottom field or for online stuff progessive....wow !!!

I'll test out those settings above and report back...

The good news is, I think we are pretty close to finally getting a pretty good end product.....

advanced.jpg


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02-21-2010, 08:18 PM
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"Your medium value is way too low for super-bit bitrate allocation."

What should these values be for 720x480?
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02-21-2010, 08:20 PM
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Try to put you images inline, see instructions at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...ages-1529.html --- it uses the drop-down paperclip to show image in a post instead of having to click on image links.

Higher fidelity of sound can allow more frequencies to pass -- including the higher register with hiss. This is one reason I restore most all audio quickly in SoundForge, Audacity or Goldwave real quick.

Progressive has no fields, so it default to bottom when making interlaced output.

This is an older MainConcept, based off the 1.4/1.5 engines, few less options to tweak. Don't worry about advanced tab, just leave that stuff alone, looks okay.

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02-21-2010, 08:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deter View Post
"Your medium value is way too low for super-bit bitrate allocation."
What should these values be for 720x480?
Again, refer to the chart at http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/vid...rd-capture.htm

For 720x480
8100-9000= superbit
5700-8000 = good bitrate
5000-5600 = good, but starting to compress
4000-4900 = compressed
under 3900 = so compressed it looks like crap

And again... When I say "compressed", understand I refer to the appearance of compression artifacts. Obviously, all MPEG-2 is compressed video.

Or closely thereabouts.

I usually shoot for 5500-6000 avg, but will set max to 9200.
Min is 4000

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  #11  
02-21-2010, 08:47 PM
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Because my videos are so long....Should I use Duel Layer Verbatim disks for this project? With those Bitrates the disks are only like 1hour and 32 minutes.

When I watch these, I don't feel like swapping disks all the time.....

On a normal DVD, I was trying to make them 2 hours...

This video is 5 hours +, I wanted to use like 3 disks...not 4

However if I use your 352x480 method I could put all of this data on 1 duel layer disk...

I really need to think about this.....

Question once you record something to 352x480 if you later upscale to 720x480 would their be issues in the video.

I am going to keep the VCR tapes but at some point in time they are going to go bad.....

Last edited by deter; 02-21-2010 at 08:50 PM.
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02-21-2010, 09:54 PM
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See -- now you're at the fun part!! Decision making time. That's definitely a sign of learning, as you now know enough to have to decide on a course of next action.

Upscaling in software would possibly look bad, as the 352~720 does not translate well. (352~704 is an exact double, however, so it's fine most of the time.) There's really no reason to upscale 352 to 720, as you won't gain any quality -- indeed, you'd lose quality from another re-encode between compressed formats.

Remember that a DVD+R DL is not an exact double of a single-layer disc. It's about 4GB extra, not 4.38GB extra. You also need to manually set the layer break, so plan your chapters accordingly. You MUST have a chapter at a layer break -- and there may be a slight pause on some DVD players. (Or worse, a skip! My Philips DVD recorder sometimes skips a half second on layer breaks found on retail discs. I think it's the way it was authored.) I use PgcEdit + ImgBurn for layer breaks.

I keep many VHS tapes here, too -- just in case. In the early days, I did a lot of personal "test projects" with TV shows. When done, I threw away the tapes, thinking that's all that could be done. Many years later, I was wrong -- there were new filters that could address the old issue. Luckily, most everything I did worst at has now been official released to DVD, so I threw out most of the homemade DVDs. They're sharing a landfill with the tapes somewhere. (I know, I know -- best to recycle, but nowhere around here recycles tapes.)

Tapes don't really "go bad" as boogeyman myth would have you believe. Most damage is done by being played, or by a "hungry" VCR that "eats" the tape. Poor storage can affect it too, when tapes are stored in attics, garages, or bad temperate/humid conditions. Tapes on the shelf in a home or office are fine for many, many years. You have time to carefully and slowly archive them properly to DVD. I always tell folks there's no reason to rush.

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02-27-2010, 10:38 PM
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It takes me a while to finally test out some of these settings.

Here is what I did:

Recorded to XP on DVD-RW

Move it to the PC, editted the video and sent it back to DVD. This was all done in Movie Edit Pro 15

I burned the DVD to 1h 32 minutes (720x480)

Set the min Bit to 4000
Mid Bit 6100
Max 9200

I still get the macro blocks using the HDMI hook up...

S-Video you can't see it....

One last point of note:

Besides the 'drop outs' you get with the old betamax recordings (which is a major issue) the overall picture is a night and day difference from VHS. It is not even close. You don't even need a TBC, and the videos have basically no chroma noise.

However never recorded with an S-VHS machine, but they came out after Betamax was already dead.

The DVD that I just did was a Beta tape recorded back in 1994, it looks like a program you would watch on normal Cable TV. That is how good the picture is on this video.

Last edited by deter; 02-27-2010 at 10:43 PM.
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02-28-2010, 02:01 AM
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Ok, Just tested out a few store purchased DVD's and was looking for Marcoblocks in the videos.

For some reasons the blocks are hiden very well with in the video. Of course they are in the video, cause that is how the video is made up..

What is the best method to blending out these blocks to get a smooth picture.

On my recordings to XP and FR180, I am getting not very viewable smoothed out blocks, however re-coding the video to 1h 32 minutes with the bit rates above still get the full blown blocks....

Last edited by deter; 02-28-2010 at 02:04 AM.
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02-28-2010, 02:15 AM
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It almost seems like store bought DVD's have an artificial noise running in the picture to blend out these blocks. It is moving through the picture up&down. Now I understand that the VHS format has a lot of noise in the video, when captured the noise runs in to the other blocks at weird patterns so the blocks are more visible.
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02-28-2010, 03:57 PM
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Ok, this is where help is needed......

As stated before have been recording these on XP mode to the MV5. (Very little to no Macro Blocks) The picture is really good !!

Next step is to edit the video than re-code back to DVD. When taking the XP recorded video and blending all the parts together want to make the DVD's longer. However want the video to retain the very little to not noticeable marcoblocks.

Right now tested out creating DVD to 1hour and 32minutes using Movie Edit and Sony DVD arch, on both videos they have macroblocks and the Sony DVD ach even compressed the soundtrack to a lower quality level.

The next step is to test out an editted fr180 file and to re-code to DVD in 3 hour mode. Than test out the XP 1 hour mode. See what the differences are.

If XP mode works with no macroblocks the next step is buying a blu-ray burner for the PC and making really long videos on blu-ray disks. However at this time, don't even own a blu-ray player....No idea how these videos will look on a blu-ray player.

My problem is: Every one of these recording are 2 hour and 30 minutes to 6 hours and 30 minutes in time.

One last thing of note: When using the panasonic recorder the videos look better after they have been editted and put back on DVD. Using the MV5, all the videos have lower quality and the pitcure is dulled about 5 to 10%. The dull picture is the reason why I am saying lower quality.

Last edited by deter; 02-28-2010 at 04:01 PM.
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02-28-2010, 08:47 PM
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Having a hard time keeping up with you.

Your DVD player may be upscaling poorly, visible via HDMI. The s-video version is upscaled purely by the HDTV and is better done. This is very typical.

Your observations about Betamax tapes is not really because Beta was better than VHS, but more about the recording modes and equipment in use. Most everybody used a Sony branded Beta deck, with good Beta tapes, and in the fast-play recording mode. It just doesn't compare against a consumer budget-grade VCR (even "name brand" junk, sometimes ALSO from Sony!), with cheap VHS tapes, and longer play modes. Or maybe you did record SP, but it was done with a VCR attuned to SLP recording quality. Many VCRs from the 90s and 2000s also did this really crappy false sharpening "detail enhancement" (sometimes with an on/off switch, sometimes not) that made tapes look worse, enhancing the grain. I have SP mode recorded VHS tapes, made on a VHS or S-VHS deck, with high grade broadcast/archival-grade tapes, and it's hard to tell when the tape is playing, vs a satellite/cable channel on the same TV set.

Studios use top grade sources, be it film, or wide-tape broadcast masters (D1, Digital Betacam, etc). The video is cleaner, and therefore has less noise to affect MPEG encoding. Those encodes are also done on high-end hardware and/or software, with multi-pass VBR. It's hard to compare high-end pro sources to low-end consumer sources -- even when using some of the same hardware/software to work with.

There are block-blending techniques, such as using the MSU Deblock filter in Avisynth or VirtualDub. But it often just softens the whole video. But alas, sometimes that is the lesser of evils --- softness should win out over blocks.

I don't think Sony Vegas has a "smart render" when it does not encode unedited portions of the video. It's probably re-encoding to a new MPEG. Quality of this depends on your settings, as well as the strength of the encoder engine. Vegas uses a really good variation of the MainConcept SDK, but it's still a bit inferior to MainConcept Reference itself.

I currently don't suggest Blu-ray authoring. Maybe in the future, after having more time to vet the tech. Indeed, it's tempting to author a really long SD quality MPEG-2 on a single disc, but DVD-Video "ain't broke" so I've not rushed to "fix it".

Some Blu-ray players also do a lousy job of DVD or SD-quality (standard definition) playback. I don't know which model does which off-hand, but I keep reading about it, all the way from consumer gripes up to professional industry video mags.

If you're going to edit and re-encode these videos, you can always tweak the color quality in VirtualDub. Import clean JVC MPEG, tweak colors, cut out unwanted parts, save out to intermediary HuffYUV lossless AVI format. Then encode that in an MPEG encoding, author with your favorite authoring app.

You have a lot of options.

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02-28-2010, 09:40 PM
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Not using Vegas for anything at this time

Here is what is happening...Using "Smart Render" to encode

Record to XP on the MV5 -----) very little if none Macro Blocks with the HDMI setup....

Use the bit rate settings above and re-issue to DVD ----) Macro Blocks show up...at 1 hour and 32 minute DVD's

When the DVD goes to the PC it doesn't have those blocks.....When it gets put back on DVD it has those blocks.....

Going to keep testing until I find the answer...So far my guess it may be the software (Movie Edit) that is doing this, and may need better software to issue DVD's......The testing is still in progress....

In the fall tested out a Sony Blu ray player for a week and took it back to the store. It played DVD's really good.....Had an issue with a bunch of Blu Ray disk that had cut off aspect ratios, I purchased the player to watch those disks, so everything was than returned to the store......I didn't need another player at $400, I want an HD recorder so I decided to wait.....

Maybe my goals are set to high, I want to do professional level restore work to these videos. I just watched a special on how someone fixed up a betamax recording and put it out on dvd. Using the B&W tape and the beta tape to make a high quality print.
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02-28-2010, 09:50 PM
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This was how they restored the old NTSC betamax recording for Doctor Who..

Quote:
'Doctor Who and the Silurians' and 'The Sea Devils'

This release is probably our most technically challenging restoration project to date, bringing together just about all of the unique techniques and processes we have developed over the last few years.

'Doctor Who and the Silurians' was the first Doctor Who story to be made on colour videotape, the previous story 'Spearhead from Space' being made entirely on 16mm colour film. Unfortunately none of the videotapes survive, with only 16mm monochrome film recording negatives being retained by the BBC Film and Videotape Library. Domestic off-air colour NTSC Betamax recordings, made during mid-seventies US transmissions do exist however, and we previously combined these with the film recording prints way back in 1992 to create broadcastable colour copies- see the article here. Technology and our own skills have moved on a long way in the past decade and a half however and so for this DVD release it was decided to go right back to the raw elements and rebuild the episodes from the ground up. This would include application of the VidFIRE process to attempt to recreate as closely as possible the studio video look of the original transmission.

Although the basic principles of the restoration would need to be similar to the 1992 recolouring work, as usual we returned to the best available sources. This meant using the 16mm FR camera negatives (rather than prints taken from them, as previously used), which in keeping with many from that time were recorded for BBC Enterprises at the time of transmission (effectively a recording of what the viewer would see at home, albeit a feed direct from the transmission suite, not "off-air" as such). This is interesting insofar as it shows just how many tape dropouts and visual disturbances would have been part of the original, authentic viewing experience in 1970. For the colour source, it was decided to use the Betacam SP recording made in 1992, on the basis that the passage of a further 15 years and the scarcity of professional standard NTSC Betamax recorders would make it extremely unlikely that a better playback could be obtained now.

There were several possible ways of approaching the restoration, but which to do? Combine monochrome and colour, then clean-up? Clean up the monochrome and colour individually and then combine? VidFIRE the monochrome alone, or once the colour had been added? Grade the monochrome and colour elements before or after the clean-up?

In the end, to maximise flexibility, it was decided to start with a one-light ungraded Spirit transfer of the film, and a DVNRed, "ball-park graded" colour videotape copy for the basic clean up. This work was undertaken by Jonathan Wood at BBC Resources, then the tapes handed on to our cleanup team at SVS in Manchester. They tackled the video defects in the usual way, with frame-by-frame deblobbing on each episode. Although this meant that 14 episodes had to be worked on in this way, it meant that the peculiar problems inherent to the different source formats could be tackled independently.

After clean-up, the monochrome film was VidFIREd giving a 50 field per second interlaced picture. The colour Betamax conversion was overlaid, with some episodes (or sections of episodes where different tape sources were used) shifted by 20 milliseconds to maintain field sync (which wasn't a problem when the previous version was produced in 25 frame per second film mode).

Tests were done to see if the high resolution film could be warped to match the (more) correct geometry of the VT, but was unsuccessful due to the very low resolution of the colour tape. Therefore, as in 1992, the colour was warped to match the (fairly minimal) distortion on the film recording. This was done predominantly in After Effects, with final tweaking done at the final overlay stage in Shake (to overlay the chroma from the videotape onto the luminance of the film in YUV colour space).

The final combined episodes were then returned to Jonathan Wood for a fine grade, and subsequently returned to SVS for a final check/clean-up pass and audio layback. Mark Ayres had already fully remastered the audio, using the off-air videotapes as his source material, during his work on the BBC Audio release of the same stories for the 'Monsters on Earth' CD release. Most of his work for this project involved matching up the remastered sound with the new pictures.

Some sections required special attention. The end of episode five and start of episode six were missing from the two available NTSC recordings, and had been computer coloured in 1992 by American Film Technologie. One option was to obtain a new computer colourisation of this section, but given that the surrounding sections are comparatively ropey (certainly compared with the rest of the story) it was felt that if this section was too good, it might only highlight the weakness of nearby colour – and there would not be the budget to recolour another five to ten minutes of material. Therefore the previous work was retouched, adding extra colour at the edges (as usual, there is more image visible in the new transfers) and regrading the section to correct a few small errors in the original colour palette.

Another missing section on the colour tape was the start of episode three, where the Silurian approaches the Doctor. In 1992 this was patched by slowing down a previous shot, but this rather stuck out like a sore thumb. Instead, the scene was manually coloured and motion-tracked back onto the original.

Opening titles and closing credits were remade from the 35mm background films as usual.


'The Sea Devils' posed an entirely different set of problems. Although D3 broadcast copies of the PAL transmission masters for the last three episodes exist, the lowest-generation masters for the first three episodes are NTSC standards conversions made in the mid-seventies for BBC Enterprises. These required processing using the Reverse Standards Conversion process developed for us by BBC R&D. See the articles on 'The Claws of Axos' and 'Inferno' for background details of RSC and the post-processing techniques we developed for producing the best results from this sort of material.

As usual with RSC, there is considerable noise in the image, along with cyclical "twittering" on horizontal edges from the original conversion process, which is problematic to remove. Any faults in the original recording are magnified, as well as the added problems from multiple analogue generations and standards conversion. The usual laborious frame-by-frame clean-up was performed, removing many dropouts, fixing tape off-locks and other picture distortions and disturbances. Many badly corrupted frames had to be completely replaced.

Although the overall grading of the episodes helped the look of the episodes, the film inserts suffered from marked twin lens luminance flicker and colour differences, so Furnace was used to match the level of the "bad" field to the "good" field in each film pair.

Episode five, although PAL, is badly scratched from around the 10 minute mark to the end. While the previous repair is very good, some of the fix lines are visible and distracting when crossing areas of very fine detail (such as people’s eyes, or hair, or Sea Devils' vests) so in places these areas were retouched from clean frames on the damaged original tape.


After such complicated restoration work, it was a relief to work on a story as comparatively simple as 'Warriors of the Deep', the first Doctor Who story to be made on the 1" videotape format. Although 1" was technically inferior to the 2" quad format it replaced in certain areas (particularly video noise and multi-generation picture degradation), it was a revelation for production, allowing such previously unheard of effects such as slo-mo, still frame and reverse play. It also allowed the editor to view pictures in shuttle and to jog to and mark edit points frame accurately. For the remastering of this story, we started with the D3 videotape copies of the original 1" transmission masters, which were transform decoded and graded by Jonathan Wood before being passed up to SVS for manual cleanup as usual. Often derided for being overlit, the high lighting levels here help to control the video noise, so the resulting pictures were of good quality.
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02-28-2010, 09:51 PM
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Are you watching the JVC as it records? (And therefore NOT watching the actual encoded signal.)

Are you watching the DVD -- after it's recorded, before edited on the computer -- on the JVC or another player?

Are you using the same DVD player or recorder to watch the videos? Remember that the JVC DVD recorder has de-block filters on playback, too -- it's not just on recording!

If another player, does that player have deblock filters? If so, are they on?

Does the HDTV have deblock filters available? Some do, like my nice Sony set. Others do not.

You'll probably be waiting in vain for a high-definition recorder, similar to a DVD recorder. Because of all the greedy studios and anti-piracy zealots, such products may never exist. You'll need to go with a computer route for that, like a Blackmagic card or something higher-end (Matrox, Aja, others).

Download a demo of Womble MPEG Video Wizard, use it. More at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...-vcr-1880.html

The only other way to further avoid blocks is lossless/uncompressed AVI capture, with pre-filtering, followed by multi-pass VBR encoding. That takes much longer, and the "better quality" can range from a lot better to not much difference. Consumer sources are just noisy.

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