LaserDisc transfer color restoration / enhancement
 

I'm currently working on a fan edit of Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii. One of the sources for this project is a LaserDisc transfer. I'm also working with the official DVD. Basically, what I'm planning on doing is laying the DVD footage over the LD footage during certain parts of the film, as the DVD footage underwent some cropping.

The LaserDisc footage is interlaced, so I went ahead and deinterlaced it with AviSynth. I also did some noise reduction with Smart Smoother.

So after doing that, this is what I ended up with:
http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/2526/82607204.png

Attachment 1491

Now here's a screen cap from the DVD (which I'll be resizing):
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/5/dvdyh.png

Attachment 1492

As you can see, the color is off. So I'm going to have to do some color restoration/enhancement. Are there any good VirtualDub filters any of you would recommend in this case? lordsmurf suggested using ColorMill, but I'm not sure which parameters need to be adjusted.

Just to repeat my advice to you in private, I would use one of the following two methods:

1. VirtualDub with the Color Mill plugin.
2. Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 or CS5.

Both of those are very powerful color correction options. Adobe Premiere is more accurate, and has a wider leve of color adjustments, compare to VirtualDub. Of course, Vdub is freeware, while Premiere Pro is at least $500 or more! (I don't know if Premiere Elements has as many color options -- I need to look sometime.)

This is really a pretty easy project. So that's some good news for you. :)

You can do much better than that - try the colorlikeplugin for avisynth. It will match colors perfectly, and automatically. Here's a thread about it:
http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-157304.html

I can also find the perfect geometric match for you - that can be automatic as well. I've always wanted to try this type of matching problem. but I have to finish rebuilding my desktop first :)

I did the first step of this, I've matched the colors and matches the geometry by hand - it's looking pretty good. I had the geometry issues solved before but I can't find my source file. Then I went on a quest to organize my files, and then I started working on the problem of changing a histogram into a tweak command that could colormatch two videos.
I've determined that it can be done, and I know two algorithms to try.
It's actually fairly complicated; matching two histograms as far as I see it is like image registration (see wikipedia), and requires an FFT to solve it. Or else just try every combination until one fits :(
Btw, some people said that histogram matching fails sometimes - it seems obvious to me that you should convert your videos to Lab colorspace first, so you're matching hsv values.

Ok, done.
I'm not sure it's worthwhile. These are the problems:
-There is a noticeable change in sharpness at the border
-The laser version has gaps in the histogram due to matching it to the DVD contrast, which will show as banding

The good news:
-Videos can be automatically matched geometrically, but there may be some frames where the matching fails
-The banding can be reduced with various filters depending on the video - if contrast adjustment is constant this can be turned into a simple levels command
-Matching sharpness is easier by blurring the dvd than trying to upscale the laser

To really complete this I'd need some video clips, especially of say, two proposed scenes.

Attached is a sample. I know the borders are fairly obvious, but this is very basic - I know I can do better.

Thanks for the effort, jmac698, I appreciate it.

The project has been put on hold, though.

So I completed the project recently.

It's currently available at Demonoid, under the name "Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii - Restored 1974 Cut."
Here're some pictures displaying the color correction I was able to achieve with the LaserDisc footage:

Attachment 1998

Attachment 1999

Attachment 2000

Attachment 2001

Attachment 2002

Attachment 2003

Attachment 2004

Attachment 2005

Attachment 2006

Attachment 2007

PNG versions:

• http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/3425/comp1v.png
• http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/5714/comp2w.png
• http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/4233/comp3.png
• http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/8599/comp4.png
• http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2879/comp5q.png
• http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/9726/comp6.png
• http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/5827/comp7.png
• http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/715/comp8.png
• http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/1133/comp9.png
• http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/4946/comp10.png

uploading attachments.
 

I don't think site management wants you hotlinking your image files...
Please see the third "How To.."
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news...ly-upload.html

Yes, definitely try to attach images to the forum, so that nothing is lost long-term. Those image hosting services cannot be trusted for archiving sample images, photos, etc. Some of the our threads from pre-2006 have tons of broken image links, because of that, thereby making those threads useless now.

I've attached the images to the forum in your post, supervehicle.

Anyway, back to topic...

Which is before?
Which is after?

The images on the left have been color accuracy, but have lost some of their color depth.
The images on the right have muddy off-white WB (white balance), but have a wide color gamut as you'd expect from film.

Be careful not to over-correct video.

Apparently those are all from laserdisc, colormatched to dvd. The dvd version is much more cropped.