What Hybrid settings, procedures work best?
 

I am going to start using Hybrid to work with output of VirtualDub. I have never used Hybrid before and have done a fair amount of reading but I would like advice and guidelines for using Hybrid to convert the AVI output to smaller MP4 files for easy sharing.
I have two Windows machines that I am using. I am using a Windows 7 machine solely for capture old tapes with VirtualDub. I have not networked it or connected to the internet. I would like to leave this machine as a dedicated capture device and take the unedited or unscrubbed AVI files and run them through VirtualDub and Hybried on a powerful Windows 10 machine that I have recently upgraded al components.
I am not sure what else you need to know about my computers so I am hoping to put together a procedure document for my use utilizing any help I can get here.

Try this, a quick monkey-see monkey-do for settings.

The crop will be different per source.

I forgot to ask. Do I have to scrub in VirtualDub first?

Is it ok if i use Hybrid version 2023.12.02.1?

Probably, I'd assume so. Those settings are just from my Win7 version, which is now timelocked, no more updates (though I could maybe beg and bribe selur for one, maybe).

Scrubbing -- aka quick previewing the full video in an editor/NLE, to make sure there are no issues, such as bad playbnack from the VCR, or audio sync issues, amongst others -- is always suggested after any capture. Essentially, actually. Not just suggested. Open in VirtualDub, scrub. During scrub, you may need/want to lop off extra footage (blue screen, snow, unneeded source, etc), and then stream copy save it. Then you're ready for Hybrid.

My quickie guide above doesn't address how to, what buttons to push, but that should be somewhat obvious. The + on the main page is what adds to the queue, and the Jobs tab is where you actually encode with then > play button.

I tried lordsmurf settings, and it broke my hybrid on 2 different computers with the latest version of hybrid, did not do anything when starting the job, just an error.*
Even after restarting hybrid with default settings, I could not get the program to work anymore.*
The only thing that worked was to uninstall and reinstall hybrid, and then even lordsmurf settings worked.
Now, about some settings that I have changed and why.
If I used the profile from lordsmurf, the video would not play on Samsung TV because of the i422 setting, and for me, that is a major drawback, so I changed the AVC profile to High 5.1 8-bit i420, and now the video will play on TV and PC.
Another big problem is that the audio will not be in sync with the video (75 min video without TBC), so my solution to that was to change the container to mkv, the audio to mp3, and most importantly, the termination of the file to .avi, this will force another step, "Adding additional muxing calls, since ffmpeg can't handle raw H.264 video properly" in hybrid, and now the result is perfect syncronized sound with video, even for bad tapes without TBC.
And another sound change is that I selected normalize to -3 db, so the sound will be amplified even if the recording was recorded with lower volume.
And another simpler method for correct aspect ratio is to set input PAR 16 x 15, without any resize, and the player and TV will now display the file correctly (this works for PAL, not sure for NTSC).

Correct, "smart" TVs are a narrow subset of spec allowances. It's not the best quality, but not much choice.

Yes, MKV is better, also my choice. The settings chosen for this OP were tailored to his needs, and that meant MP4. However, audio AAC should be much better for quality at the same bitrate. For MP3, you'd really need 384kbps to match even 160kbps AAC.

My audio is corrected in Sound Forge prior to encoding. That needs to change per-video if not corrected.

PAR is wrong, so odd. Must be a "smart' (dumb) TV issue again.

I have seen this PAR when I loaded a DV PAL file, it's embedded , and 720 x 16/15 results in exactly 768 , and 768 x 576 is exactly 4/3, perfect ratio for PAL.
For NTSC I believe the correct numbers for PAR are 8/9 , 720 x 8/9 results in exactly 640, and 640 x 480 is exactly 4/3, again perfect for NTSC.

So this mode of display will maintain a perfect ratio even if we cut pixels from the edge, and without resizing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_aspect_ratio

says this :

By contrast, a 720 × 576 D-1 PAL image has a SAR of 720/576 = 5:4, but if displayed in a 4:3 display (DAR = 4:3) the PAR is 4/3 : 5/4 = 16:15 ≈ 1.066. This means that the pixels of the PAL picture must be "stretched" by this amount to fit on the 4:3 display.

Non-square pixels.

I have attempted to perform the monkey see monkey do method with the screen shots of the recommended settings for Hybrid and get an error.The error is in "ERROR IN AUDIO CREATION FORMAT PCM IS NOT ALLOWED FOR MP4
I am using Hybrid version 2023.12.02.1 and the screenshots of recommended settings is Hybrid version 2020.09.18.1
There are a few other differences in the screenshots and my options in my version of Hybrid.
I printed off all of the screenshots LS posted and I have meticulously compared my screen with the screenshots.
There are few settings from the screenshots that I are not available in my version of Hybrid?
Any hybrid experts willing to help me process my first video?
Thank you

Set to AAC, not WAV, on the audio tab.

Post your screen shots.

ATTACHED screenshots.
On the third time of of "monkey doing" I may have hit all the right buttons and settings. I will report back after the process is complete.
I do have a quesiton about how the "left right top bottom" crop numbers were determined upon.
Shot 5A has an AUDIO PROFILE of "LS 160k" i do not have any options to select from
more to follow

I just looked at the audio tab.

This is easy fix. :)

Hybrid doesn't auto-change the audio encoding specs after settings have been changed. Look in the right window. Notice it reads "pcm" and "1536". To right of that window (NOT ABOVE!) is a + with arrows about an inch down, and a — an inch down more yet. Hit that — to remove the encode. Then the + do add it back, but with the proper specs now set (AAC 160kbps).

Encode away!

Ugh i have processed several videos through Hybrid. I was happy with the results. Today when I attempt to run a few more videos through it my video is stretched too wide. In the Crop/Resize tap what should i use for Target Resoltion? When I get to that tab and look it is already at 720 x 646. Should i change it to 720 x 486 or 720 x 480?
How do the rest of my setting look? I have used the same setting that were shown in LS screen shot he provided for the Monkey See Monkey Do method.
Lordsmurf how did you determine the settings for Crop?

4:3 = 640x480, or 720x540

Crop is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of settings. If you want to crop overscan to create streaming copies, or even for masking, you must preview the video, and make changes that way. There's a preview function in the lower right, that film strip with an eyeball.

Ok where are some instructions on how to use the cropping function in the preview function ?

-- merged --

I have attached screenshots of MediaInfo results for the two files that look ok.
These results do not match the suggested settings of LS but the resulting videos look fine.

-- merged --

I have performed the Monkey See Monkey do method with the screen shots provided by Lordsmurf. I have attemped many times to save a configuration with those settings and there are several of the settings that fail to save.
On the x264 tab > Frames tab > General Frames Settings > the Maximum number of refernce frames wont stay at "5" it resets to "3"
in that same frame I cannot change the Input Lookahead to "17". When i change it manually it reverts to "21"

On the x264 tab > Rate Control in the Video Buffer Verifier section the Max Fillrate will not stay at 150000 when i save the configuration it reverts to 200000
The sidebox said the following Max fillrate (kbit/s):
(command line match: --vbv-maxrate <integer>)

Side note:
Video Buffering Verifier (VBV) is a buffering model.
Put simply, there is a buffer of a specific size (vbv-bufsize) and that buffer is filled at a specific maximum data rate (vbv-maxrate).

What x264 does with this values it to ensure that the buffer will never underflow, which means there will always be enough data left in the buffer for the decoder to decode the next frame.

If you encode content for streaming, you should set the max fillrate to the average bandwith the user has (- 20% to be on the save side) and the buffer size should be the fill rate times number of seconds which are okay for buffering.

This option does not set a maximum bit rate!

Thoughts?

I don't know why you're getting 720x486, that's wrong for all uses, and the AR will be wrong when viewed. It needs to be 720x540 or 640x480 for the 4:3. Streaming copies should not have the storage resolution of 720x480. You may have a bug? Or wrong something set somewhere?

Other settings, no ideae off-hand, perhaps versioning differences.

You may need to ask selur about this.

So what should the setting be in Vdub for size? you told me 720 by 480
Do i capture in 720 by 480 then in Hybrid change the size to account for the black bars on the side?

Capture is 720x480, archived lossless as 720x480, the native non-viewing resolution.

For viewing, it needs to be a 4:3, and that resize is done in Hybrid.

Part of this may be because Hybrid itself isn't really ideal for crop/mask usage.
- I do mine in Avisynth (AvsPmod for GUI), and then open the .avs file in Hybrid.
- Or I process/restore/mask in VirtualDub as a lossless intermediary (middle file), and then let Hybrid deinterlace and encode that resized file.

It's not the you can't mask/crop in Hybrid, it's just less easy, mostly due to previewer quality.

What black bars? There should be none.

When I use the settings for resizing of 640x480, or 720x540 the Hybrid video output was stretched to 16 by 9. I have attached some screenshots of my settings.

Try output PAR 1:1.

What must be understoood that that nobody understands AR (or crop/mask, for that matter), so it gets references in different ways, sometimes even between versions of the same software. Adobe is really bad about this, probably the worst offender. So when you have AR issues, mess with the AR settings, test it.

Edit -
Okay, use 1:1 for both, or 4:3 for both. I prefer 4x3 to 1x1, so no errors are made in playback AR (well, at least try).

When I set the Output PAR to 1x1 and check the box Convert output to PAR and the box says CUSTOM
The encoding won't even start.
I have had enough for one day I give up

Try to leave at defaults. For testing, disable crop. One step at a time to troubleshoot. ;)

if ffmpeg is used to decode the source try replacing the Hybrid/64bit/ffmpeg.exe witht he attached on.

I cant remember where i found this in this as i have been crawling all over the forum.
I applied these setting to the best of my ability and I at least got the Aspect Ration proper 4by3 now
But my quesiton is do you think am i missing any settings?
Do you want screen shots?
This is wearing me out I have been working on this for days

No, you clearly don't know what it does, so leave that option as it is.
If your source is detected as progressive Hybrid will not deinterlace.
If your source is interlaced and the output encoder is set for interlaced encoding Hybrid will not deinterlace.
If your source wrongly detected, let Hybrid know the correct scan type, by using 'Overwrite scan type to'.

An unprocessed sample of the source is the only thing that makes sense. Screenshots would only make sense if you want advice using an image editor.
can't recommend anything without a sample of the source.


Cu Selur

Selur
Thank you for entering this thread. You are correct I am very new to Virtual Dub and Hybrid. I want to learn it but I have spent soooo much time trying to sort through all the advice and cant figure out what my setting should be. I used a colleciton of screen shots of Hybrid setting provided to me buy LS but I am not getting 4:3 out put from Hybrid. At this time i have 100 VHS and VHSc tapes i have captured using VirtualDub with setting suggested to my Lord Smurf. I understand that each file can require different handling but i am struggling to grasp the basic settings of hybrid at this time. Quick background on me. I used to be one of those hobbyists that did basic capturing with inferior equipment.
I saw the light after running into problems that way. I have invested signifcant money to acquire two different TBC and two different Capture Device and two vcrs from Lord Smurf over the last year. I have also had 2 Windows 7 computer built with input from LS.
I am confident i will figure this out and grasp it but I really need help getting the basic ground work laid. My lack of familiarity with Vdub and Hybrid and the learning curve has really discouraged me but I move forward.
I will go gather the scren shots and attachments and be back with them in a bit.
once again
Thank you
t

-- merged --

HYBRID LS SETTINGS SHOTS.zip
Here are the screen shots of hybrid settings i used and I will have to upload the caps next

-- merged --

84 XMAS TEST VD FPM HYB.mp4
This is the resulting file after running through hybrid

-- merged --

84 XMAS TEST VD FPM V3.zip
Here is an abbreviated avi that i ran though Hybrid using LS settings contained in the Screenshots i share in a previous comment.
advice please?
Thank you

All these samples are not really interessting,... a sample of your source content is needed not something already processed.

84 XMAS TEST VD FPM V3.zip
Is the avi from my capture.
All i did was trim the length shorter and saved as avi in full processing mode.
Would you like to see the direct stream copy version?

yes, that is the only interessting one.

Ok I finally got it figured out. Thank you for your patience.
I have attached a before and after using the setting in hybrid that LS suggested

-- merged --

dammit i am wrong again
my fault
HERE are the correct before and after

< breath in, breath out > :2cents:

Remember to have patience with yourself.

Not everything comes easily/naturally to everybody immediately, and I'm no exception. You're simply discussing something with me that I know extremely well, as is selur (obviously, being the dev of the software being discussed).

So
- patience with us ... check. :)
- patience with yourself ... something to work on. :wink2:

The source here is TFF and interlaced. It needs to be deinterlaced from the 59.94i (29.97fps interlaced) to 59.94p, using QTGMC.

NOTE: He will likely eventually run into situations where 59.94p makes the video worse, jittering due to on-screen counters. And in that cases 29.97p will be required. But one step a time.

You will. :)

I won't interrupt here too much. Still busy here (which you want), and then selur is gratiously helping.

Thanks selur! :D

I also had problems getting 4:3 output when I started using Hybrid. What finally worked was ignoring all the PAR/DAR settings and just using the picture crop function to take 720x480 down to 704x480. Hopefully you've got it figured it by now though.

Also worth noting I mask off overscan and noise in Vdub before the final render in Hybrid

Please forgive me Selur I do not know what this means.

Sorry but I do not know what you mean by this

Thanks but no I don't have this figured out yet. More confused now than before.

I had patience months ago when I started this project. My customer is losing his patience at the length of time this is taking me while I search for help and answers. I have paid and would pay someone to help me finish this project and then I am taking several months off and work on my own projects at my pace when I am not on a deadline. I am seriously considering just giving up on ever figuring this out. I am not stupid I have figure out technical projects before but the time that this has taken is wearing on me.

Schlockmaster would you be willing to provide me more details and or screenshots of your setting and process please?

Selur I have attached a short sample of a vhs tape capture into AVI using reccomended settings in Virtual Dub. I have not modified or edited it in any way.

Please tell me what I need to do in Hybrid to get a 4 by 3 output that is acceptable.

Please and Thank you!

Disregard my last comment. I was in the process of taking screenshots and writing a detailed explanation when I realized 704x480 isn't even 4:3. My end resolution is normally 1440x1080 for Youtube, so the process probably isn't the same as what you're aiming for. My apologies. I would delete my previous post but can't for some reason. Hopefully someone who actually knows what they're talking about can help you. Good luck. :salute:

Small warning: Hybrid is meant for folks who know what they are doing and isn't really meant as a click&pray solution.
Had a quick look at it.

• main problem is the overexposure, but there is not really anything you can do about it (aside from recapturing, assuming the original footage is fine)
• the video is interlaced but has no flags, so one should enable 'Filtering->(De-)Interlace->Telecine->Deinterlace/Telecine Settings->Overwrite input scan type to' and set it to 'top field first'. Also enabling 'Bob' in the 'QTGMC Vapoursynth' settings will result in 59.94fps output.
• looking at the source I also suspect the input PAR which is signaled as 1:1 should be 889:1000, to let Hybrid know this one can set 'Crop/Resize->Base->Pixel aspect Ration (PAR)->Input PAR' to '880x1000'
• to get rid of small glitches (frame 566 when bobbed) one can enable 'Filtering->Vapoursynth->Artifacts->Spotless' and increase the 'Temporal radius' slightly. Note that usually 3 is the max one should probably use on normal content and you want to keep this as low as possible. see: https://imgsli.com/MjQxNzAx this will also remove some noise.
• To lessen the amount of dark halos I would additionally enable 'Filtering->Vapoursynth->DeHalo->DeHalo_alpha' and set the bright strength to zero. see: https://imgsli.com/MjQxNzA4 (notice that this is a rather destructive operation)
• Since you wanted to upload 1440x1080 content which should have a 4:3 MPEG-4 PAR, you would, now
  • let Hybrid know that the output should be MP4 NTSC 4:3 (10/11), by enabling 'Crop/Resize->Base->Pixel aspect Ration (PAR)->Convert output to PAR' and set it to 'MP4 NTSC (10/11)'
  • set 'Crop/Resize->Base->Picture Resize->Target resolution->Width' to '1440'
  • enable 'Crop/Resize->Base->Letterbox' an set 'Crop/Resize->Base->Letterbox->Height' to '1080'
  • you probably also want to get rid of the original black bars by enabling 'Crop/Resize->Base->Picture Crop' and in this case use left=12, top=0, right=14 and bottom=2 (or bottom 4)
• Depending on what you like you now should think about additional denoising/degrain/deblocking. For which, if you have a newer NVIDIA gpu, you could use some machine learning based filters and/or more classic approaches.
  see: https://imgsli.com/MjQxNzEx
  Depending on the material changing filter orders applying filters only on some areas of the picture (i.e. only light or dark or static areas,..) can make a huge difference and often conventional filtering is the better choice than trying some machine based stuff.

Additionally you might want to think about general color grading.
All that said, the main issue I see with this source is the overexposure, so if the capture process can be enhanced that would be my first suggestion. Over or underexposed content simply lacks details on which filters can work on.

Cu Selur

Ps.: just noticed theres a bug in the filter view when crop is used, since crop is then only applied to the filtered view, but it should be applied to both, to keep aspect ratios in the preview correct. (will probably release a new fixed version tomorrow)

"the video is interlaced but has no flags, so one should enable "
it is flagged 'interlaced', but has not scan order flag.

Thank you Selur.
I will study this and attempt it.
It is my goal to learn Hybrid and become proficient with it.
Todd

I was not the person wanting 1440x1080.