Removing split screens from credits

[lordsmurf]

I had 51 episodes without split screens and only 1 episode with. I wanted the set to be completely without split screen credits. All episodes are from S-VHS and captured to 352x480 for DVD, set is gorgeous.

I captured the end credits at 720x480 and then opened the capture file in VirtualDub. I used NULL TRANSFORM filter and cropped off the left half of the image, keeping just the credits. I used the RESIZE filter and resized what was left to 352x480, which was not a change of many pixels.

creditsplitscreen.jpg

I encoded the credits separately, and then merged them to the rest of the episode. I took music from one of the other episodes, as it had no voiceovers.
- To encode, I frameserved out of VirtualDub into TMPGEnc (frameserve out with, save the session as an AVS instead of a VDR, AVISynth must be isntalled, but you don't have to script for it). In TMPGEnc, I covered over the edges with black bars, mostly to keep encode quality, as the edges were offscreen in the overscan.
- The splicing of video and audio files was done in Womble MPEG Video Wizard.

I know some people are strict in not wanting splitscreens. Well, here you go, a way to fix episodes, assuming you have a pure version to compare with (and take music from).

Friends who have seen my X-MEN project know I left some split screens in during the last season for a few episodes, but I added in the end credit music tracks (instead of the obnoxious advertising talk). This goes one step further. Almost wished I'd done it on X-MEN, but c'est la vie. Didn't think of it back then.

As you can see in the sample image above, it's not perfect, but it's still pretty close. The source was still a bit cropped as compared to a normal version. Each of the credits in this show were TRUE credits, not generic ones. Voice actors and all changed per episode. This is why credits were not simply cut off another episode.

[cp32]

14notworthytp8.gif

[markatisu]

I will have to save that one, thats great.

Would that work on the FoxBox/4kids ones since they do split screen the other way (up and down instead of left and right)?

[lordsmurf]

There is also a more complicated version:

While this method may often work, on the Batman Beyond episode I used in the example, it appears they cropped the video, in addition to squishing it up on the left side. So what I ended up with in my example was a video that was slightly too stretched out. The easy solution would have been to pad the left/right sides with black, and not stetch it so much.

But I wanted to be a stickler, and I opened a normal end credits from one of my other 51 episodes, and took a screenshot of a fairly blank screen (or at least one that had info that would be covered up easily) inside of VirtualDub. My intention was to use the middle part of the credits, where all the text was, and put it on top of the other one, and then the background would bleed through, and it would look like a normal full-screen credit.

It was not quite that easy, the two networks (the 1 was a WB airing, the rest were all Cartoon Network) did not center the episodes on screen in the same place, so I had to move the image a little bit in Photoshop. I took the good version and the split impartial version, and viewed them on top of each other in Photoshop, line them up. I also had to darken the CN background image a bit to match the video from the WB airing.

So I had two layers in Premiere: the WB video credits, and the CN background image. The CN image is a single-layer PSD that actually goes on top of the video. This is, again, much like my Premiere work on the X-MEN menus (refer to that guide for a how-to).

WB video:
bbcredits1.jpg

CN image (PSD with transparent middle for the video):

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Final video as shown in Premiere timeline:
bbcredits2.gif

It looks perfect. I spliced the end credit audio to the credits in Womble MPEG Video Wizard, as well as merged the full episode to the credits. It's really quite seemless. You'd never know I did all this work, but that's really the goal, isn't it?

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by markatisu

Would that work on the FoxBox/4kids ones since they do split screen the other way (up and down instead of left and right)?

This is even more complicated. Remember that you've got interlaced video, which does not take as kindly to vertical stretching. You can try it, but it may not work. You may be able to IVTC it first, but it could throw away too much data, and cause jerks. Further than all this is the fact that the video is severely damaged when it is downscaled on the vertical axis, rather than the horizontal one. In effect, it has abusively been deinterlaced on the vertical squish jobs. You would, at best, end up with VCD quality, though it could be filtered to not look so bad, using standard VCD restoration techniques.

Probably not the answer you were hoping for.

[markatisu]

Ha ha I was just wondering if it worked the same way. Most of the time I try to wait till CN/someone else airs the 4kids shows because if anything as you have shown the end credits are easier to work with then 4kids/FOXBOX squash job. Though in some cases thats not possible (Ultimate Muscle/F-Zero)

Thats great work, if you could in the future put up an mpg or something of just the end credits I think it would be neat to see in motion.