VirtualDub - advice on the filter settings
 

Over the last two weeks have been testing this program out. Some of the results have been pretty good. Once the video gets converted back to DVD the VHS captured video almost looking studio like. However it s not were I want it.

Messed around with the Deinterlacing, on the computer the video looks ok, but on the DVD the motion is different than normal.

It takes a long time to filter videos in virtualdub and than back to DVD, so testing different settings would take months of months of work. Since you have worked with this program, I am asking for advise on a standard setup with the filters.

My question is this:

The Videos I am using in Virtual Dub, are pretty good quality converted from the AG1980. Just trying to fix up the picture remove some noise and get a cleaner image. I recorded them to DVD than rip the files to the PC using VOB2MPG v3. Next I load up the files in VirtualDub, create some massive file than send it to sony Vegas and back to DVD.

Any advise on the filter settings for sports broadcasts will help big time. (I downloaded the 2d Cleaner & Noise reduction Filters)

The two picture below are not filtered they are the ripped mpeg images. This is pretty close to the image on most of the videos that don't have major problems.

Attachment 592

Attachment 593

Yeah, you don't want to deinterlace unless absolutely necessary. Indeed, it messes with motion because it's essentially throwing away 50% of you video/motion data. Only a very few restore methods requires deinterlaced/progressive video footage.

Statiic noise reduction can help, but it tends to soften the image. I use it only when grain is excessive, which yours doesn't seem to be.

For many cleaning needs, temporal cleaner works nicely. Drop all of the preset numbers by half. For example, here's what I'd start with:

Attachment 608

Up it fro 6/2 towards 8/4. The higher those settings, the more blur you'll see in motion. And the more noise that gets removed. It can also caused banding/posterizing (compression of the color palette) if set too high.

I find that filter works really well at removing noise, often not requiring anything else.

I don't see much use from 2D cleaner.

being from VHS sources, our output from the VCR+TBC is already pretty good. At this point, you'll want to watch what you do. It's easy to make people look "plastic" from too much smoothing.

For color correction, the basic hue/saturation/intensity and/or levels filters work great.

I don't see anything here that screams "use colormilll" or anything more advanced.

These videos are not really bad -- be sure you're not overly comparing them to moden HD footage. It's easy to get tunnel vision on this.

Here is an example of just horrible noise.

Can this be fixed? What setting do you need to use?

This one has a bad broadcast signal.

Thank you so much, I think I got it on the deinterlace, for the streaming video I use this method, you almost have to to get rid of the double image. I read to use the Bob method for this. For all my DVD stuff I never deinterlace any of the material. I think that is correct. I think am getting really close.

Those settings really helped on that video, and streaming the deinterlace looks fine, at least it looks better than than the double image. I hope this is correct.

Those two videos above are extreme issues however they are very common on many of these tapes.

One last thing, on AVI files I tend to see a lot more of the double image, than I seen on mpeg2, however on wma I can hardly see the double image

I opened the videos in VirtualDub, and ran some "quick" tests (it still took at least 20 minutes or more). I've attached my VCF files for you to look at.

The VCF files are opened by using the version of VirtualDub attached to this forum at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...-pre-1727.html

and then go to FILE > LOAD PROCESSING SETTINGS and pick the VCF file that you've downloaded to your hard drive.

On both files, I

• masked the overscan, which helps both in filtering time/accuracy, as well as MPEG bitrate allocation. The image comes out looking better with this junk hidden by the black matte frame. It's done by using the cropping function on top of resize, with resize set to pad/letterbox out to 720x480
• ran the temporal cleaner, with low settings (see VCFs)
• and made a second version that used NeatVideo, to show what that software can do (as a VirtualDub plugin). The luminance noise NR was reduced to only 35% instead of the overly-high 60% default setting.

On the HorribleNoise.mpg file, I

• ran the NDF noise reduction filter
• ran deflicker, to help reduce the flicker caused by the noise

On the BadCableSignal.mpg file, I

• ran denoise, to help kill some of that herringbone/linear noise
• added some saturation on the NeatVideo version (all of the videos probably could use some color boost), via the standard hue/saturation/intensity filter

See attached files.

These were just quick tests to show what was possible, and using only VirtualDub. With tweaking of the existing filters used, or possibly some other filters, you can probably up the quality a little more perfect. That would require more testing, of course.

Hope that helps. :)

I think it is time for you to turn professional because your skills are amazing...

When you get a chance to get to the tape of the 93 British that I sent, if you can do like a 2 minute video clip of before and after. It is for streaming video...

Just write out general steps of what you did, don't give away the secrets. I will use it to market your services. In the form of a blog type of internet marketing. If I can get people to see, what you can do, I can sell your service. What do I get? I get more tapes from people, and I get copies of restored video, which is one of my goals of this project to increase the collection. What do you get? More Customers, and more tapes......

Well, thanks. :)

That's the medium-term goal. Already doing quite a bit, but could definitely use more business. The down economy has been harsh.

Long-term goal is to get into forensic media, starting on that degree (yes, another degree!) this year. Already worked with P.I.'s and police on footage, but want to do that full-time down the road. Full-timers need the special criminology and evidence training, in addition to the video/photo/imaging experience.