Wiggly bits after IVTC

Shiroferetto · Post by **Shiroferetto** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:42 pm

Video: Gravitation DVD's NTSC Region 1
Apps: DVD Decrypter, DGIndex, Avisynth, VirtualDubMod
Colorspace: YV12
Scan: Interlaced, Top Field First
Yes: I know I can edit with interlaced video, but I don't like to and it's only delaying the inevitable.

Tried: TFM & TDecimate, TDeint, and anything else recommended in the Guide including prepared code.
Results: Migraine.

No matter how I try to put those interlaced fields together, I wind up with un-smooth motion around parts that weren't even necessarily interlaced. Text is the worst, followed by edges (hairlines, shirt collars), and fine details like a pattern on a sleeve. Wiggling does remain in places when there is no movement.

Doesn't matter what I play it back in, although for some reason VLC is refusing the processed files (Lagarith, AVI, no audio). Some players are worse than others. Your mileage may vary.

What in the *bleeping bleep* is making those lines wiggly and jiggly? MOST of the video looks absolutely SMASHING. Like, brilliant color, crisp lines, smooth and de-noised...

I'm beginning to suspect that it's not the IVTC that's the problem. What comes to mind is a particular scene that had definite interlacing on about 1/6th the screen. The interlaced section looks just fine in spite of rapid movement. Other sections aren't so lucky.

Ideas? Help? I don't particularly care what frame rate the video winds up in. I'm successfully scaling down from 720x480 to 640x480.

LivingFlame · Post by **LivingFlame** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:06 pm

Could you post a screenshot (or random little tidbit of the video) so we can see the problem? I'm having a hard time picturing exactly what you're describing.

And yea, I don't think VLC likes lossless footage too much. I think it has something to do with the exorbitant bit rate of the lossless video stream.

Shiroferetto · Post by **Shiroferetto** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:35 pm

LivingFlame wrote:Could you post a screenshot (or random little tidbit of the video) so we can see the problem?

I shall gift you with stuff:

1. An unprocessed still frame clearly showing the kind of interlacing that Gravitation employs. Notice not everything is interlaced. Pay special attention to the red print on the absolutely huge poster-it's not interlaced. It also only seems to have a problem with vertical pixels, not the horizontal portions. This seems to be true elsewhere, even on curved areas.

2. An un-Avisynth-processed AVI (Lagarith).

3. I whipped up this pre-process script after doing some more searching. (I'll be editing episodes in AVI containers for the sake of mental organization. A large script won't slow me down.):

MPEG2Source("C:\Users\Administrator\DVDMovie\Gravitation2.d2v")
TDeint(mode=2,mtnmode=3,blim=100)
FluxSmoothT(9)
TemporalCleaner(ythresh=5,cthresh=5)
Bicubicresize(640,480)

4. Here's what I got as a result.

Reckon I could just use Deen (and I'll definitely be using it for at least the spatial component) and crank the settings some, but I wanted to try those two temporal smoothers out and see how they did.

You make the call. I think they did okay, myself... but there's another filter or two I want to try and see how much it cleans up.

This has been my frustration with the Gravitation series. I LOVE Gravitation, but I'll be damned if I could get it ripped properly. This is the closest I've gotten!

I'm almost there... right? Right? So I just used downloaded footage previiously to save myself the exact migraine I have right now...

(An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.)

There's another segment of video I can arrange to show if you can't see the wigglies except for the red letters. Due to file size constraints, I had to choose footage carefully. Oh, and yes, the passers-by are supposed to be really blurry in the foreground, even after deinterlacing... ;P You're supposed to be watching Ryuichi freak out in the background.

JaddziaDax · Post by **JaddziaDax** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 8:58 pm

looks like "dot crawl" to me O.o
but i could be wrong

Shiroferetto · Post by **Shiroferetto** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:40 pm

JaddziaDax wrote:looks like "dot crawl" to me O.o
but i could be wrong

I used TIsophote on it, and it REALLY got rid of a lot of the problem. The only place it's still noticible is in the areas it was a huge problem to begin with. The problem: It slowed things way, way, way down... veeerrryyyy slooooow.

So if anyone can recommend a level-set curve smoothing filter that's better/faster/stronger, please let me know! Speeding that up would be really nifty.

I wound up ditching the temporal cleaners for Deen in w3d, and I just increased the strength on it. So now there's the level-set curve smoother, the temporal smoother, and the spatial smoother. Doesn't seem to have washed out the image.

'course, I say this while it's still in VirtualDubMod...

LivingFlame · Post by **LivingFlame** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:48 pm

Wow, that is some super nasty dot crawl going on there. I went through a good variety of filters and TIsophote had the best result I could come up with as well. And be careful not to put too much smoothing on the image. You'll lose detail in some places and it'll cause color banding in some areas with gradients.

Shiroferetto · Post by **Shiroferetto** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:16 pm

LivingFlame wrote:Wow, that is some super nasty dot crawl going on there. I went through a good variety of filters and TIsophote had the best result I could come up with as well. And be careful not to put too much smoothing on the image. You'll lose detail in some places and it'll cause color banding in some areas with gradients.

Yeah. Whatever the hell that is?

Well, let's put it this way... I've been trying to find a way to rip Gravitation for a couple months now...

Anyway, I dunno if it's dot crawl, but if you say so I'll believe it. I DO know that the sheer vertical planes of those letters (and other such locations--ZOMG, you should see the flight board animation...) are messy as hell, but still better than they were.

(Note to self: You forgot to put in the crop function, dumbass. So much for resizing...)

If I could just find something that does what TIsophote does only faster? Then I'd be set.

Thanks for checking out the video. If anyone else wants to give it a shot, by all means...

I still say it looks like a malfunction of the vertical pixel stacking. Is there a way that the two fields can get deinterlaced with a horizontal shear? Kinda like offset audio, only... yanno, fields.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:15 am

If you have source that's really that bad, i'd recommend not editing with the scripts directly and make clips or dump the entire transcoded and filtered video at once.

Shiroferetto · Post by **Shiroferetto** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:55 am

BasharOfTheAges wrote:If you have source that's really that bad, i'd recommend not editing with the scripts directly and make clips or dump the entire transcoded and filtered video at once.

As stated above, I'm intending to use AVI clips instead of .avs, thus the massive pre-processing.

I dunno if you looked at the video or not... It's not intolerable once cleaned up with Deen and TIsophote. (Later I'll post a clip that went through the TIsophote filter.) It will need post-processing as well to get rid of some rainbowing and such. Note that TIsophote (+rest of script) slowed my encoding down to 2.5 times as long as it took previously.

...for a grand total of 5 times the video's original runtime.

The video looks much better inside of Vegas than it does in WMP (VLC won't play it). Still, some crawling around hairlines are visible if you are prone to noticing things.

I believe we've discussed I'm obsessive-compulsive... I notice almost /everything/. I'm like Monk, only cuter.

I would say the footage is useable. Living Flame may feel free to disagree wtih me on it.

I found another level-set curve smoother. However: I can't get any of those "C" filters to work.

Do I need a special C run-time I need to install along with those filters or something? :/ The filter came with .dll's, but VirtualDubMod choked on it and then refused to let me load my video until I rebooted a few times and sacrificed a chicken.

I refer in specific to AVSCurveFlow. I want to try this filter out before deciding which of the two produces better results.

My last, best hope is that the version of the series I've ordered will have a better encoding. If it's worse, I guess I'll just enjoy Gravitation on my widescreen TV downstairs and call it a day. ;D

Naturally, it'll be in 4:3.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:13 pm

Oh, I misunderstood when you said slow.
Just add items to the queue and have them process all at once instead of doing one after another.

Shiroferetto wrote: slowed my encoding down to 2.5 times as long as it took previously. ...for a grand total of 5 times the video's original runtime.

I made clips for one video - didn't dump the whole series or anything... I think it was maybe 20 min of footage. It took 33 hours to process.