Video Files - playing, editing, metacommentary |OT|

the-pi-guy · Oct 04, 2024, 03:49 PM

I had been posting this stuff in the TV show thread mostly, but there wasn't a good reason for it.

I'm not generally making video file edits myself, but I have been using software for upscaling, creating subtitles, fixing image quality issues.

Handbrake - "open-source tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs." Will re-encode, will also do some other things like deinterlacing, detelecine, etc.

Video2x - Video Upscaler, example:

Spirited Away Demo

MKV Tool Nix - mkv editors, to do some different things. Create MKV files, Add subtitles to files, split by chapter.

Lossless cut - Makes it really easy to cut videos. Limited by cuts on key frames.

Vibe - Creates subtitle files.

the-pi-guy · Oct 04, 2024, 04:05 PM

Video2x is ridiculously slow, but I like that it doesn't particularly affect the image quality. When I use Topaz, it a lot of times tries to clean up colors and other issues. Sometimes that is desirable, but sometimes it isn't my desired outcome.

I would expect it to take a couple of days, if someone ran through a full length movie on decently high end hardware.

I have a number of older shows that I'm working on fixing:

- Courage the Cowardly Dog - first season is interlaced
- Dexter's Laboratory - half the show is interlaced
- Family Guy is apparently telecined
- Foster's Home is somewhat interlaced
- Futurama - might be telecine (which is similar)
- Pinky and the Brain - interlaced

Both telecine and interlacing causes this kind of image artifacting.

They're slightly different.

Telecine tends to be 3-2 pull down, so it kind of has progressive frame scanning, and then it will have 2 frames that are basically interlaced together.

I was struggling with this a bit. Deinterlacing on handbrake hasn't been giving me the result I was hoping for. I had been looking into other methods for deinterlacing, but none of them have been particularly helpful. Doesn't particularly seem to fix the artifacting.

For interlaced video, you can also see on the side of the video, where there's a strange fuzziness because it's alternating lines. Deinterlacing seems to mostly take that away, but it doesn't do the best job at fixing the animation fuzziness.

But last night, I was testing denoising on top of deinterlacing, and that seemed very promising.

kitler53 · Oct 04, 2024, 08:46 PM

oh man,.. the number of hours i spent in handbrake making digital copies of all my dvd only to find out they looked like shame is depressing. this is like the only use case so far where i can say.. AI provides tangible value to people.

i wonder if this is something someone could do in real time. like pop a dvd into my ps5 (pro) and get 4k output. that would be amazing actually.

the-pi-guy · Oct 04, 2024, 09:02 PM

Quote from: kitler53 on Oct 04, 2024, 08:46 PMoh man,.. the number of hours i spent in handbrake making digital copies of all my dvd only to find out they looked like shame is depressing. this is like the only use case so far where i can say.. AI provides tangible value to people.

i wonder if this is something someone could do in real time. like pop a dvd into my ps5 (pro) and get 4k output. that would be amazing actually.

If you're using handbrake, you might also have been reencoding the DVDs, and could have lost quality that way. MakeMKV will create a file directly from the DVD itself.

I think Topaz is the closest to that kind of speed; but there's still a long ways to go. I was upscaling some Malcolm in the Middle from 480i to 1080p, and it was roughly doing it in real time. I think it was like 25 minutes to upscale a 23 minute video.

Upscaling to 4k though, was I think more like several hours.

kitler53 · Oct 04, 2024, 10:54 PM

Quote from: the-Pi-guy on Oct 04, 2024, 09:02 PMIf you're using handbrake, you might also have been reencoding the DVDs, and could have lost quality that way. MakeMKV will create a file directly from the DVD itself.

I think Topaz is the closest to that kind of speed; but there's still a long ways to go. I was upscaling some Malcolm in the Middle from 480i to 1080p, and it was roughly doing it in real time. I think it was like 25 minutes to upscale a 23 minute video.

Upscaling to 4k though, was I think more like several hours.

i mean,.. right now i'm not using anything. it was ages ago that i digitized my dvds. i can't remember exactly when i did it but i remember watching them via plugging an external drive into my ps3. i got the project done but i'm not so sure i was doing it "right". digitizing my CDs was soo much more staight forward.

the-pi-guy · Oct 04, 2024, 11:28 PM

Also if anyone has an alternative name for this thread, let me know. I wasn't sure what exactly captured what I was wanting to talk about.

Quote from: kitler53 on Oct 04, 2024, 10:54 PMi mean,.. right now i'm not using anything. it was ages ago that i digitized my dvds. i can't remember exactly when i did it but i remember watching them via plugging an external drive into my ps3. i got the project done but i'm not so sure i was doing it "right". digitizing my CDs was soo much more staight forward.

Sorry, I wasn't meaning "right now". I was speaking more hypothetically.

CDs are still easier, and there's lots of official legal ways to handle CDs. MakeMKV is pretty easy though. A lot easier than Handbrake.

the-pi-guy · Oct 12, 2024, 05:28 AM

Nnedi looks better to me than some of the other deinterlacers. Going to try it out.

Got batch deinterlacing going. So that's pretty awesome.

darkknightkryta · Oct 16, 2024, 02:07 PM

@kitler53 For older DVDs, I suggest just using MakeMKV and then de-telecine with Handbrake. Depending on if there's grain or what not, leave the bitrate between 16-18. If there's grain, you can use 16, but you need the grain setting on. If not, you'll have to go down to 14 to keep a 1-1 look. Biggest thing is the de-telecine, de-interlace rarely works well. I had to redo my entire Batman The Animated Series because of all the aliasing that the de-interlacing caused. Also, set Chroma Smooth option on. Set it to medium and medium. It will reduce chroma artifacts, help blend frames that the de-telecine misses.

On another note: X-men the Animated Series has terrible telecine/interlacing issues. I'm sure they converted everything to PALfor their tape masters and then converted it back to NTSC for their DVDs. There's nothing I can do to fix the frames. I did managed to use Topaz A.I.'s de-telecine well. It caught all the frames that Handbrake tends to miss, but the show is in such a terrible state, there are blurred/blended frames that are stuck in the original source. I'm not sure if there's a pass through option though, so unless you want to HD your work, you'll probably have to use Handbrake.

Quote from: the-Pi-guy on Oct 12, 2024, 05:28 AMNnedi looks better to me than some of the other deinterlacers. Going to try it out.

Got batch deinterlacing going. So that's pretty awesome.

De-telecine. Don't De-interlace.

the-pi-guy · Oct 22, 2024, 02:45 AM

I had to re-encode Rugrats. Which I've never had to do before.

There was some oddities with the black bars. The videos are supposed to be 4:3, they were encoded in 16:9 with black bars on the sides.

The oddity is when you watched it in 4:3, the videos would basically have double black bars.

Quote from: darkknightkryta on Oct 16, 2024, 02:07 PMDe-telecine. Don't De-interlace.

My script does both.

They're different issues though.

My Family Guy DVDs need to be de-telecined.

I'm not sure what to do with A Pup Named Scooby-Doo though. It has some bad artifacting.

darkknightkryta · Oct 22, 2024, 01:34 PM

Quote from: the-Pi-guy on Oct 22, 2024, 02:45 AMI had to re-encode Rugrats. Which I've never had to do before.

There was some oddities with the black bars. The videos are supposed to be 4:3, they were encoded in 16:9 with black bars on the sides.

The oddity is when you watched it in 4:3, the videos would basically have double black bars.
My script does both.

They're different issues though.

My Family Guy DVDs need to be de-telecined.

I'm not sure what to do with A Pup Named Scooby-Doo though. It has some bad artifacting.

Don't do both. The de-interlace will take over the de-telecine and give you nasty aliasing. But yes, they're different things and sometimes you have to de-interlace instead of de-telecine.

What kind of artifacts? Cause it might be the de-interlacing not getting all the frames and the previous frame is mixed with the next frame. It's why I'm not for de-interlacing unless you have to. But if you must for A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, use the blend de-interlace. Avidemux has it. I think for Handbrake it would be Yadif?

the-pi-guy · Oct 22, 2024, 01:36 PM

Quote from: darkknightkryta on Oct 22, 2024, 01:34 PMDon't do both. The de-interlace will take over the de-telecine and give you nasty aliasing. But yes, they're different things and sometimes you have to de-interlace instead of de-telecine.

Sorry I don't mean it does both at the same time.

I have it set up to ask for a few different options such as deinterlacing and detelecining.

Quote from: darkknightkryta on Oct 22, 2024, 01:34 PMWhat kind of artifacts? Cause it might be the de-interlacing not getting all the frames and the previous frame is mixed with the next frame. It's why I'm not for de-interlacing unless you have to.

Like really bad interlacing artifacts. A lot worse than anything else I have.

I would prefer to get everything in a progressive format, so that I can run it through Video2x. Which counter intuitively makes the interlacing artifacts worse.

I know that Topaz would be better, and handle the interlacing better, but I'm not there yet.

darkknightkryta · Oct 22, 2024, 01:41 PM

Quote from: the-Pi-guy on Oct 22, 2024, 01:36 PMSorry I don't mean it does both at the same time.

I have it set up to ask for a few different options such as deinterlacing and detelecining.
Like really bad interlacing artifacts. A lot worse than anything else I have.

I would prefer to get everything in a progressive format, so that I can run it through Video2x. Which counter intuitively makes the interlacing artifacts worse.

I know that Topaz would be better, and handle the interlacing better, but I'm not there yet.

In Handbrake, try to de-telecine, but set the chroma smoothing option to medium and medium. I find it helps catch some frame that you would have to de-interlace to get otherwise. If that doesn't work, try Avidemux. There's a de-interlacer that gives you a bunch of options. The blend one will get it, but you might be stuck with aliasing.

For Topaz, their de-interlacers aren't good. Their de-telcine? That's the best I've seen. I've actually decided to do a raw rip for backups for DVDs and just feed it into Topaz for the upscale and de-detelcine.

the-pi-guy · Oct 25, 2024, 02:37 AM

Apparently the Video2x version that is official is 4.8.1, and is 4 years old.

The current prerelease version is 6.0.

It is substantially closer to Topaz in terms of what it is doing.
- Like 2 orders of magnitude faster than 4.8.1
- doesn't separate the video into individual frames, instead immediately creates a file.
- And it noticeably does more cleanup, which may not be what i want it to do....

But it also seems pretty unfinished. Can't specify where to save the file or a number of things that were present in 4.8. Way fewer options. The progress bar doesn't appear to work...

Legend · Oct 25, 2024, 09:01 PM

Interesting to think about how much harder everything could have been in the modern digital age.

Thinking about an alternate history tech timeline where TVs used a spiral scan instead of a raster scan.

The lore is that Farnsworth had the insight that led to raster scan while thinking about farm furrows, but it seems like the continuous smooth variability of a spiral pattern…
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) October 21, 2024

the-pi-guy · Oct 26, 2024, 02:55 AM

Upscaled some Powerpuff Girls

We'll see if these discord images will work...

Spoiler for Hidden:

The newer one, I think does a substantially better job, and like I said something like 30x faster. I am upscaling entire seasons in the amount of time, it would take to upscale like an episode or two.

I do see some oddities with the Rowdyruff boys, where it tries to invent some detail.

But frankly even the hallucination oddities, I feel like are less noticeable than how out of focus and aliased the previous image was....

This is pushing pretty close to real time upscaling from 640x480 to 2880x1920.

These systems work on 2x scaling, so I'll have to downscale afterwards to 1080p.