Recorded DVD to AVI & Back to DVD
 

Just wondering what is the best method for using Virtual Dub

Basically have mpeg2 files from the JVC DVD recorder now it needs to be cleaned in Virtual Dub.....

1) One of the Problems is the interlacing damage to the video.

AVI is Bottom Field First Correct?

Do u just load in the ripped DVD or convert it to bottom field first?

Do you do your videos edits before or after you create the AVI?

Is it smart to edit an AVI file or just edit the mpeg2 file, and when is the best time to edit the video?


2) Going from AVI back to mpeg is causing motion problems. (Could be just something stupid that I am messing up)

You want the motion to be the same as the source DVD however it is understood heavy filters are been used on the videos...aka Neat Video..

User VirtualDub 1.6 MPEG2 edition. Save the MPEG to a HuffYUV intermediary file, with no changes made. We want to retain proper chroma interlacing. There's an issue currently with VirtualDub non-MPEG edition improperly mucking up the chroma interlace (but oddly the luma is fine).

Then load that HuffYUV AVI in the current version 1.9x VirtualDub to take advantage of the past 5 years worth of VirtualDub advancements.

There is some potential that this step is not necessary, but those tests are pending. Better safe than sorry, for now.

AVI does not have field order flags. MPEG does.
The device creates the field order. DV is bottom field first. Almost everything else is top field, including every DVD recorder I've ever seen (and that's quite a few!)

As per earlier in the post, we'll do it afterwards right now.

This could be due to VirtualDub errors. Or maybe it's just the filters you've used. Or the import/encoding settings when you turned it back into an MPEG. Some filters are only good on progressive (non-interlaced) source. Not all of them say "progressive only", however. Most filters, to be perfectly blunt, have horrible documentation (if any). VirtualDub isn't great, and Avisynth is even worse.

Heavy filtering temporally can affect quality, especially if the filter is treating the video as if it were progressive source.

Have Virtual Dub 1.98 it loads the mpeg2 files. However don't have 1.6

The main filter which is being used is NeatVideo, not sure if I have an old ver of the program. On another post u should me some examples of NeatVideo so I went out and got it...I have a demo copy which has 2 fields but the reg ver doesn't have that.

Couldn't get Huff to install on this Machine, tried for hours it didn't work....VISTA

However downloaded & installed the Lagarith Codex

Well, VirtualDub 1.98 might load the files, but the chroma isn't loaded properly. That's the issue. Some of our initial research shows that this may not be important in a MPEG > AVI > MPEG workflow, but the tests need to be run one more time for final verification. The AVI will be "wrong" but the MPEG encoder seems to sort it back out again. It's something specific about MPEG coding.

On a MPEG > AVI > something else workflow, it's detrimental to output quality.

Did you try the HuffYUV install information on this site? There's a forum topic that covers it.

You'll need to investigate NeatVideo, and see why your registered version doesn't have the full features as it should.

Was not sure what ver of Neat Video to use. Just installed the one with the double fields. Is that the one I should be using?

Yes followed and downloaded the Huff for Vista from this site. Couldn't get it to work...Put the files in the correct folders and it never installed...Lagarith installed in 2 seconds......

Anything wrong with Lagarith Codex? According to their website they say it is better than Huff....

Have Huff Installed on an XP machine but the hard drive is only 160 gigs? To process videos it is a lot slower...Have external hard drives to save the videos..

FYI, Yesterday ran a video through VD and the only thing that was done was color settings using other filters and the motion problems were still in that video.

Don't know did a few test videos and some of them worked fine, however the length was much shorter...

Using VD was something I was trying to avoid, however as you have seen on a few of my videos they need to be cleaned.

Yeah, I have no doubt Lagarith thinks it's better than HuffYUV. But it's not. It's more or less the same in terms of quality, as both are lossless, but HuffYUV makes larger files and is faster to encode/decode. Lagarith is smaller and takes longer to decode, making it slower for latter generation processing.

But if that's all that works for you, then it's fine.

I've not had need to use NeatVideo in a couple of months now. Unfortunately, that system is tied up and unavailable for testing right now. I don't dare mess with it, for fear of losing work on a major ongoing project. Going from memory, you need the ability to process two fields if it's interlaced, yes.