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:: DVD rebuilder & return of the king... dissapointing results...
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:32 |
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Damn, this is getting ridiculous. :(
I write a "pissed-off" post in reply to one of yours.
By the time I finished posting I notice you have added another reply, where you used a much less argumentative tone.
Now I regret the tone I used in my own post.... :/
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64026402
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:34 |
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Settle down DD. Your taking this to seriously as likely am I.
DVDshrink has a huge following and is taking DVD backups by storm.
DVDrebuilder while not complete is also doing well and has come along way. This is no place for anger.
I am trying to work with you. I honestly thought you had already done another copy with the settings I recommended. I didn't know.
Goosefrabuagh,
Relax, Breath.
Donald
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64026402
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:36 |
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I feel like we're arguing Macs and PCs.
Donald
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Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:36 |
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dd...
I'm the one that mentioned IDE cables...because I didn't understand "mosquito noise" yet. I do now.
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64026402
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:38 |
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Ironically I have a lot of mosquito noise in my house.
WHAAP!. ouch.
Donald
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64026402
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:41 |
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Is anyone else having problems with the banner at the top of the page keeping them from veiwing the page sometimes?
There is one particular banner that is just killing me. I have to turn the blocker on max to get it out of the way.:(
It's been fun but I'm late to pickup the wife.
Later
Donald
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 22. August 2004 @ 14:42
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:41 |
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Sorry guys, I'm simply getting pretty fed-up at being second-guessed, labelled and pushed into a "corner".
Donald, I'll try the 20 setting tonight, while I sleep next to the computer with my earplugs. ;)
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64026402
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:45 |
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Sorry guys, I'm simply getting pretty fed-up at being second-guessed, labelled and pushed into a "corner".
That sounds like my work.(now I'm really late)
Donald
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:47 |
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P.S: Donald, you could try a browser called MyIE2, based on IE engine.
You can block ads on a page or image basis.
In this case, you'd simply have to right-click on the ad and add it to the "Ad-Hunter" blacklist. ;)
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Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 14:49 |
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ddlooping...
Well, I watched this scene in full motion. I can't see the noise, but it is obviously there in the stills with both CCE and Shrink. These stills give no indication what is observable to the causual viewer. I would have to say my take is that noise is noise, and to figure which one has less, or more, when it isn't even visible to the casual observer is rather pointless.
I would also have to say that if there was a RB-CCE pixelation problem, or a freezing problem, that would be worthy of discussion. To inquire how to use filters to eliminate something that isn't normally observable is ludicrous and serves no purpose...especially when Shrink has the same thing. To bring it up only seems to encourage hard feelings. I don't mean to be unkind here, but it's no wonder you think you are being second guessed.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 22. August 2004 @ 14:50
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Staff Member
2 product reviews
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22. August 2004 @ 14:53 |
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@ddlooping:
Good - that's what I've been looking at so I haven't wasted any time ;)
@everyone:
Here's my initial thoughts. First off, the original definitely suffers from encoding artifacts. Despite what many people think because of the generally high quality of DVD video, there are 2 problems that pop up in movies like this (ie long movie with high bitrate requirements). The first is that the bitrate isn't set as high as it could be if the movie was shorter or split across 2 discs. The second is that even the maximum possible bitrate on a DVD with a 5.1 AC3 track and no other audio isn't enough for some scenes. It's hard to catch it on a TV, because normal TVs aren't really displaying the original picture (they show a telecined version) and HDTVs have to upsample because their native resolution is higher than any DVD. Both situations cause some inaccuracies in the picture, even if the video is perfect, and if it's not perfect it's generally not much (if any) worse to the naked eye. This video stream happens to have a max bitrate of 7500kbps (according to the header), which is really kind of pitiful for a high motion DVD. I suspect that it's a result of making sure it fit on a single DVD-9, but whatever the reason, it ensures that some of what CCE sees as signal is actually noise.
The next thing I looked at was the effect of the conversion from YV12 to YUY2 and then back to YV12. Why is this important? Basically, MPEG video uses a compressed colorspace called YV12. It refers to the number of pixels that carry color information. One of the quirks of CCE, however, is that since it's designed specifically as a high end tool, it's not intended to use an MPEG as a source, and therefore it can't read YV12. In order to make it read YV12 encoded video, AviSynth converts it to YUY2, which is still a compressed colorspace, but with twice as many pixels carrying the color information. As you can probably guess, chroma upsampling (increasing the number of pixels with color information) can't be completely accurate. It's basically like converting an MP3 to a WAV file. It's really a series of educated guesses. The result will be something that's almost, but not quite, the same as it would have been without the conversion (like the source the original DVD was encoded from). To summarize, the original DVD is in YV12, AviSynth converts it to YUY2, and CCE changes it back to YV12 while encoding.
The reason I wanted to look at this is simple. It's a valid criticism of any CCE based method that it requires chroma upsampling. It obviously creates a certain amount of error before the encoder even does anything, and it's specific to CCE. As far as I know, every other major MPEG encoder can read YV12. It also slows AviSynth down, since AviSynth 2.5x works in YV12 natively, and the conversion process slows it down, therefore also slowing down CCE.
The difference between the original and the same file converted first to YUY2 and then to YV12, but not encoded to a lower bitrate, isn't noticeable to the naked eye, but AviSynth's SSIM filter does see a difference. When you add lowering the bitrate into the equation, it's not surprising that CCE would give you noise. You can probably eliminate some (or all) of the mosquito noise by changing the Quantization Characteristics (quality_prec) but I'd still recommend using some AviSynth filtering because the flaws are really just amplified from flaws in the source. I'd use at least UnDot, which may not actually help one bit, but unlike other denoisers it shouldn't do any damage either. If that doesn't help (and I suspect it wouldn't) I'd probably try adding Deen as well.
In reality, this is all speculative for me, because I would (and in fact did) split this movie across 2 discs. At a certain point I think it's unreasonable to expect good quality from any program, and since the original doesn't even have perfect quality, I don't expect CCE, Shrink, or anything else short of the hand of God (Don't just stand there gawking like you've never seen the hand of God before!) to do the job well. I'm also biased because I do my personal testing with a Progressive scan DVD player connected to a 65" HDTV, and the defects stand out a lot better than on most people's setups (like mine) so my standards are a little higher.
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 15:04 |
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vurbal, thank you for this detailed report, it is very much appreciated. :)
This is all part of my personal testings and search for better quality backups.
Just like you there is a limit at which I stop using DVD2DVD-R and choose to backup to two discs.
I'm simply trying to find out where this limit now is, until Dual-layer media becomes more affordable. ;)
Doc, there you go again, assuming, lol.
You might not see the noise unless the stream is stopped and the frame zoomed-in, but I do see it very clearly on my LCD monitor during normal play at 1280x1024.
It is quite distracting (to me), even more so than DVD Shrink "smoothing" effect, hence my search for a better CCE setting.
I do agree this might not be an issue for some, but it is "observable" and not ludicrous from my point of "view". ;)
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 22. August 2004 @ 15:05
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 15:17 |
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vurbal, I am a bit concerned about the use of filters.
Sorry to come back to these screen captures, but they will serve as a good way of illustrating my genuine and unrelated-to-DVD Shrink query.
If you look at the CCE capture, you will notice the sword carried by the guy on the right (of the picture) has almost totally disappeared.
In this particular case, wouldn't using filters like UnDot and Deen have an even more detrimental effect?
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Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 15:20 |
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dd...
What I don't understand is that you have minimal noise on the original, but it is there none-the-less. You have noise on Shrink, also. Yet you choose to target RB-CCE by wanting to use filters. This is what you posted directly after your first encode with RB-CCE, and I don't see any assuming going on about this. You can characterize this any way you please, but to me it seemed ludicrous. But that is just my opinion.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 22. August 2004 @ 15:22
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 15:28 |
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Sorry Doc, you're entitled to your opinion and I'm tired of having to justify myself.
So let's leave it at that. ;)
P.S: I'm off to watch a movie. Later all. :)
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 22. August 2004 @ 15:34
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64026402
Senior Member
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22. August 2004 @ 17:34 |
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The quality_prec setting of 20 eliminated virtually all of the artifact seen on CCE,Shrink, and the original DVD artifact.
Unlike ddlooping I saw absolutely no problems on my 18"LCD at 1280x1024. I had to zoom in to the level of the previous pictures.
The original artifact was nearly as evident at that magnification.
Are you saying that you didn't notice the same artifact when the original was running?
I'm not trying to corner you but there seems to be a missing peice to this puzzle. Any chance you monitor is amplifying the effect.
Donald
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Staff Member
2 product reviews
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22. August 2004 @ 17:44 |
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Quote:
If you look at the CCE capture, you will notice the sword carried by the guy on the right (of the picture) has almost totally disappeared.
In this particular case, wouldn't using filters like UnDot and Deen have an even more detrimental effect?
Actually, that's not necessarily the case. Here's the difference. When you just send it to CCE and ask it to encode, you're telling it to make all the decisions for you on what details absolutely need to be kept. Unfortunately, while CCE is great at giving you the highest quality video given the necessary bits to do it with, it will also try to keep whatever details are possible when it doesn't have enough. Unfortunately that can cause problems with places it can't give you enough detail. I suppose I'd say I find CCE's results unpredictable if you don't give it enough bits to work with.
The other thing you need to remember is that you know something that CCE doesn't. You can look at the original and see the noise. CCE, on the other hand, is assuming that everything in the picture is signal, and that there is no noise. The big advantage to this is that you can try to determine what kind of noise there is and try to select an appropriate filter based on that determination. CCE also has built in filters that you can use, but they're not nearly as good as what AviSynth has.
Here's what I would do. Since you've identified the problem area(s) of the movie you can try encoding just that section with some filtering added. Here's some more specific detail from the AviSynth help file on Undot.
Quote:
UnDot is a simple median filter for removing dots, that is stray orphan pixels and mosquito noise. Basically, it just clips each pixel value to stay within min and max of its eight surrounding neigbors.
I don't like using anything else if I don't have to. It's hard to say how much it will help, but as I said, UnDot is very non-destructive. The only real exception to this, in my experience, is sources with noise added for effect, like Saving Private Ryan.
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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23. August 2004 @ 04:29 |
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Donald, I did notice the artefacts in the original and the DVD Shrink backup, but found them less distracting during normal viewing than on the CCE version.
My LCD is an EIZO L565:
http://www.eizo.com/support/discontinued/lcd/l565.asp
I bought it based on several magazines and online reviews, where it always came out on top (mainly for its color reproduction fidelity, its lack of banding, and its great viewing angles).
I have calibrated it using both the "Digital Video Essential" DVD and my graphic card test patterns.
I have recently bought a Samsung Syncmaster 152v, a more recent model than the L565, as a secondary monitor, and the EIZO pisses all over it (well, not literally, lol).
So it could very well be that my monitor is amplifying the effect.
However, I'm glad if it does, as I intend to purchase a 42" plasma screen fairly soon, and my guess is it will be much more revealing than my 32" widescreen TV. :)
@ vurbal,
Thanks for the added information.
I'm in the process of doing the backup using "20" as the quality_prec (I didn't feel like sleeping with earplugs last night, lol).
Depending on the results I will then try the UnDot filter. ;)
I don't know how I would go about just testing it on a section of the title though. :/
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 23. August 2004 @ 04:31
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Staff Member
2 product reviews
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23. August 2004 @ 05:21 |
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Well just for future reference (and hopefully the new results won't require it on ROTK) here's how you encode just one segment. The key is the Rebuilder.ecl file. It contains every ECL for every segment, so all you have to do is copy the appropriate lines out of it to a new file and name that file [whatever].ecl. In order to figure out what lines need copied, you need to know the name of the AVS file for the segment. Then you can use a text editor to find the first line with that name (minus the AVS extension) and you'll know where the section you need to copy is. I'll give you an example.
The first thing you need to do is copy this line from the beginning of the file:
; Cinema Craft Encoder Basic -- Encoder Control List
Make sure that's the first line in your new file. It's technically a comment (as you can see by the next line which is clearly not part of a standard ECL), but CCE reads it to make sure the ECL is for the correct version. Next, use the Find function in your text editor (I use vim but Notepad will work fine for this) to find the first occurence of the name of your AVS file, but without the AVS extension (ie V01000400001005 or whatever it is). Copy everything from the line above that one, which should say [item], to the one before the next line that says [item]. Make sure your new file has an extension of ECL and open it with CCE. That will load all the encoder settings that DVD-RB would use for that segment. Then click the encode button and let CCE do its thing.
It looks a little confusing reading it, so let me know if you have any questions.
Edit: Oh, and don't get my post yesterday wrong. I'm not trying to judge anyone else's preferences for backups, and I can understand wanting to keep things on one disc, but I still think you're all a bunch of whackjobs for the amount of compression you're willing to use on a disc ;) Just kidding of course :)
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 23. August 2004 @ 05:26
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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23. August 2004 @ 05:24 |
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Thanks vurbal, that could indeed be very useful. :)
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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23. August 2004 @ 11:42 |
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Well, I'm sorry to report setting "quality_prec" to 20 did not seem to yeld a different result from using the default 16. :/
vurbal, do you think it'd be worth trying a setting of 30 (or higher), or shall I just skip this step and try the UnDot filter?
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2 product reviews
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23. August 2004 @ 12:19 |
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I'd start with UnDot just to see what it looks like, and then start messing with the quality_prec again. If you extract the lines from Rebuilder.ecl that I mentioned earlier for just that segment, you can change it manually in the new file. For CCE Basic the line actually says pict_qchar=#. If you want to make it even easier, you can just change it within CCE after you load the ECL by double clicking the name of the AVS file. Just look near the lower right corner for the slider that says Flat Part Priority. You can set the number directly by typing it into the text box.
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2 product reviews
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23. August 2004 @ 12:21 |
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If none of that helps, it wouldn't be a bad idea to use Deen. It makes sense for a comparison since what Shrink is doing is smoothing the picture anyway, not unlike a denoiser.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 23. August 2004 @ 12:21
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ddlooping
Senior Member
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23. August 2004 @ 13:36 |
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Ok, I managed to identify the segment I wanted to test with the UnDot filter, and created a new ECL file ("CHARGE.ECL").
Quote:
; Cinema Craft Encoder Basic -- Encoder Control List
; Created by DVD ReBuilder
[item]
title=V01003500002008
aud_out=0
vaf_file=H:\LOTR_ROTK_DVDRB\D2VAVS\V01003500002008.vaf
aud_file=H:\LOTR_ROTK_DVDRB\D2VAVS\V01003500002008.mpa
file_focused=0
packet_size=2048
width=720
height=576
frame_rate_idx=3
cbr_brate=6000
vbr_brate_avg=3435
vbr_brate_min=0
vbr_brate_max=9000
seq_endcode=0
dvd=0
half_width=0
half_height=0
lum_level=0
aspect_ratio=3
gop_m=3
gop_nm=4
gop_hdr=12
seq_hdr=1
all_closed_gop=0
fix_gop_length=0
samples_per_sec=44100
stereo=2
brate_idx=7
crc=1
progressive=0
alternate_scan=1
intra_dc_prec=2
aud_mode=0
tc_ref_frm=0
drop_frame=0
fix_vbv_delay=0
letter_box=0
pulldown_detect=0
offset_line=0
vid_file=H:\LOTR_ROTK_DVDRB\D2VAVS\V01003500002008.m2v
video_type=8
tc_offset=0
remove_vaf=0
pict_type=0
pict_complexity=2
filter_off=1
filter_on=0
pict_qchar=31
name=H:\LOTR_ROTK_DVDRB\D2VAVS\V01003500002008.avs
frame_first=0
frame_last=8054
encode_first=0
encode_last=8054
Question #1: how is it "pict_qchar" is 31, when 20 was set as the quality_prec in DVD-RB?
What should I set it to so that it corresponds to 30 in DVD-RB?
Question #2: how would I go about adding the "UnDot" filter command to the corresponding AVS file?
Quote:
#------------------
# AVS File Created by DVD Rebuilder
# VOBID:02, CELLID:08
#------------------
LoadPlugin("E:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\MPEG2Dec3dg.dll")
mpeg2source("H:\LOTR_ROTK_DVDRB\D2VAVS\V01.D2V",idct=7)
trim(166814,174867)
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)
Thanks in advance. :)
_
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 23. August 2004 @ 13:38
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Staff Member
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23. August 2004 @ 13:51 |
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That's an interesting question. It's possible that Basic uses a different scale, just like SP 2.5 and SP 2.6x use different scales (DVD-RB takes the value for 2.6x and converts to the 2.5 value), but I've never heard anything that would suggest that's the case.
I just looked at a couple of projects I haven't encoded yet, and I'm seeing the same issue. One project was set to the default value of 16, but the ECL was set to 24. The other was set to 20, but the file says 31 so unless CCE Basic is using a different scale, they should be the same. Actually, come to think of it, that may be the 2.6x to 2.5 conversion we're getting.
Edit: I guess I didn't actually answer the other part of your question. After the Trim filter and before the ConvertToYUY2 filter would be where you want to add UnDot. The file would look like this:
Quote:
#------------------
# AVS File Created by DVD Rebuilder
# VOBID:02, CELLID:08
#------------------
LoadPlugin("E:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\MPEG2Dec3dg.dll")
mpeg2source("H:\LOTR_ROTK_DVDRB\D2VAVS\V01.D2V",idct=7)
trim(166814,174867)
UnDot()
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)
Before you add the line, you'll need to make sure you download the UnDot filter and copy the DLL from the archive to E:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\ so it will autoload. You can find the download on this page:
http://www.avisynth.org/warpenterprises/
Edit 2: Apparently CCE Basic does use the same scale as CCE SP 2.5, so the values are fine.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 23. August 2004 @ 15:23
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