Studing a good way to improve speed with avisynth, I tested some different path...
New CPU: obvious... but take in account the complete cpubenchmark score, not only the single thread - if, for example, your old dual core CPU has a single thread score of 500 and complete score of 1000, and the new quad core has a single thread score of 1000 and complete score of 4000, it will go four time faster, more or less!
Faster HDD (or better SSD): haven't tried an SSD yet, but I'm pretty sure this will not improve the overall speed.
Avisynth 64bit: could indeed improve speed, but it has quite few compatible plugins...
MT version and other multithread plugins: could work, but sometimes MT crashes, and other plugins didn't work - probably my fault
Parallel encoding: it works well! Follow me...
I tried this path in the latest days; I didn't dare to try it with my poor old dual core, dual threaded CPU, but with the new quad core, eight treaded one, I wanted to give it a try... and, oh boys, it works, very well!
How it works?
Well, just take your script, and "cut" it in several pieces - it seems that four pieces works well here, they run the CPU at around 80%, leaving some breath for surfing and other little things; probably it could work with more pieces, but your mileage can vary.
OK, so I've been thinking for some time, why not make a definitive edition of the Dollars Trilogy with all known official cuts, in English, Italian, French, German, and Spanish (and possibly even Japanese with the voice of the great Yasuo Yamada, the eternal voice of Lupin the Third, if someone can chip in in that regard)?
The way I see it, the goals of this project are:
To gather the five aforementioned languages, plus maybe even the Japanese audio, for all three films in the series (Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), and sync them to the best-looking video tracks for each of them;
To make both subtitles and dubtitles in each language, and sync them as with the audio. There will be at least four subtitle tracks and five dubtitle tracks, with the subtitle tracks all translating the original Italian (I may have the numbers or terminology flip-flopped, though, correct me if I do);
To restore the original opening credits and closing "THE END" screen (plus any other intertitles) for all languages;
To make a multi-audio version from each of the applicable audio tracks, with each audio track being active depending on the native language of each character's performer (e.g. for Fistful: English for Joe; Italian for Ramon Rojo, Doña Consuela and Antonio Baxter, and members of the Rojo gang; German for Marisol, Piripero, Esteban Rojo, and Sheriff John Baxter; and Spanish for Silvanito, Don Benito Rojo, Julián, Juan de Dios, Jesús, the cavalry captain, and members of the Baxter gang);
To make the applicable audio adjustments to each audio track (most notably at the very start of Fistful, where the overture music timing tends to vary between languages; namely, I'd like a unified timing for the overture music on each audio track);
To restore the different cuts for each release;
To find the best versions of scenes deleted from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly excluding those found on releases since 2003;
To make OAR and pan-and-scan versions; and
To restore different credits for certain of the cast and crew.
The cuts for each film will be as follows:
Fistful of Dollars:
Original theatrical cut
UK theatrical cut with restored UA Hexagon logo and credits for Bob Robertson, John Wells and Leo Nichols
Television cut with prologue featuring Harry Dean Stanton and credits for Bob Robertson, Johnny Wels and Dan Savio
For a Few Dollars More:
Original theatrical cut
UK theatrical cut with restored UA Hexagon logo
German theatrical cut
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Rome premiere cut
Original theatrical cut
International theatrical cut with Italian onscreen character designations during the first few scenes and at the end
UK theatrical cut with restored UA Transamerica T prototype logo (my best guess at this time based on its UK premiere date)
German theatrical cut (questionable, depends on if anyone can find the exact details of what was cut)
The sources I intend to use for the video base of each version:
Fistful of Dollars: Italian RHV Blu-ray
For a Few Dollars More: German Tobis Blu-ray
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: American 2014 Fox Blu-ray and/or the upcoming Kino Blu-ray
As I only have the Tobis Blu-ray of FAFDM out of the above, this may take a while, to say the least, while I acquire the remaining visual materials. In the meantime, any help in the creation or else acquisition of clean or upscaled HD footage would be well appreciated! On a side note, I might do a restored English credits sequence more closely matching that of the Italian original for TGTBATU. Also: I'm attaching some notes to follow in the restoration of each credits sequence, based on what I know from snooping around in various parts of the Internet.
I'll update this post as I can think of anything else, or else others suggest visual, aural or supplementary materials.
hi, there's a Shawshank Redemption DVD that is OM, however it has composite rainbow noise. how to filter it out via AVISynth or something similar? please tutorial.
Didn't dare to do this with the old PC - when just one instance would crash, sometime... but now I dare, oh yeah, and I like it!
FIVE - I say 5 VirtualDub instances at the same time (with related AviSynth scripts) - four for a single project, split in four parts, and one for another project, that can't be split easily; and, as the CPU is from 80 to 90%, I think I reach the top... so, I've found the right way to speed up the encoding process!!!
...and meanwhile, I'm surfing the web, and listening to a CD (old dinosaur, I know!)
After having left the computer hardware topic apart for a long time, lately - thanks to the brand new used PC - I found that there is still some interest in me about this... so, I want to share some of my thoughts, mainly focused on using the PC to restore movies - of course, this could also apply to other uses like surf the web, watch movies, make simple audio editing etc. but not playing games; that is another world I don't want to put my nose in...
CPU
In 2017 still many software don't make use of multicore CPUs and, the ones which do that, usually stops at two or four cores; so, IMHO, better to stay with the fastest (in GHz) CPUs - for example, a 4.0GHz as the old Intel i7 4790K or newer i7 7700K at 4.2GHz, even if "only" four cores, are almost always faster than 3.5GHz exa/octa/deca cores; plus, the K versions are overclockable, and a 4.8/5GHz with liquid cooling for daily usage is not that unusual.
I still prefer CPUs without integrated graphics, though. The new Ryzen 1800X seems very interesting, as the Intel X series.
Motherboard
Mine is TUF, and that's great; I expect it to last for a long time; also, with dust covers and forced air circulation over it, it's my preferred version. I'd go with similar features, with the most possible ports and max RAM, according to the chosen CPU.
SSD
Solid state drives still cost 8/10 times the old mechanical drives for the same size; for "mere mortals" like us, I think that 2TB SSDs at around 1000 bucks are not the best option; waiting for their prices to be similar, or better lower than actual HDDs, for the moment the best solution would be a small SSD (120/240GB) for the OS, and one or more big HDDs (1TB and more) for data. Also, they are prone to lose data when not used for a long time - someone wrote that, if put in a fridge, they will retain data for a looong time!
HDD
Still my preferred cost-for-gigabyte storage system, great to retain data for a long time - at a normal room temperature... the speed is way higher than even the most simple encoding task, so no need for SSD speed. Also, I should add that it's possible to get nearly SSD speed (sequential read/write) using multiple HDDs in RAID0; risky, but could be possible to get 10x size and similar speed at the same cost of a single SSD - or same size at 1/10th of the price... perfect for temporary files, I think I would give it a try using three old 250GB HDDs!
Video card
I'm no expert here, but again it seems no many softwares (apart games, of course) would benefit from an high end video card... for "normal" usage, a cheap new one - or an used, older generation but higher quality - that is capable of 4K would do.
Audio card
It seems that this hardware is not that important nowadays; but I think it is for us, in particular for capture, where many integrated audio chips, albeit quite good, do not have digital inputs - needed for laserdisc audio, and not only - and the ADC sometimes is not that good... still better to go with a good quality internal card - I do not like external ones, but maybe it's just a problem of mine - preferably with digital, and RCA analog inputs and outputs.
Video capture card
Old state of the art capture cards, that used to cost several hundred, if not thousand, bucks, now could be found for a tiny fraction of their original price, so I can't see any reason to not buy one; even if you have your faithful DVD recorder, remember that capture lossless and encoding later is always better than capture lossy, even without further conversions...
Monitor
Still don't get it the fact I should pay thousand bucks for a relatively small monitor - albeit capable of high fps and perfect color space representation - when I could get a bigger HDTV with the same color quality, at a lower price; at the end, films are still at 24fps (rounded) and almost none at 48fps... so, I should not need a 144fps monitor.
Fianl speed/price ratio considerations
Take in account I'm still using avisynth for all my projects - even if I must admit I'm open to try new software, now that I have a powerful computer; but this considerations should apply also to other softwares.
The PC I'm using now got a fairly good CPU, a non-overclockable Intel i7 4770 at 3.4GHz/3.9GHz turbo. Not bad. The best compatible CPU with my mobo is the i7 4790K that is 4.0GHz stock, 4.4GHz turbo, and could go up to 4.8GHz and more with overclock. That is a minimum of 11% speed increase, up to more than 20%. That's for about 300 quids, but I would probably get back around 200 selling my actual CPU.
An i7 7700K stays at 4.2GHz/4.5GHz (overclockable at around 5GHz); price is almost the same of the 4790K, but I should also buy a new mobo, so add another 150/200 quids - still, could try to sell mine for half that price. Speed increase would likely be around 25%.
Is that really needed? Spend 300/500 to get a "simple" 25% speed increase, while I could spend around 600 to get a 100% and more? How? Simple, get a second PC with similar features! It's not a crazy idea, after all... I know I can run multiple instances on my actual multicore/multithreading computer - I'm doing it right now - but there is always a limit; having a second PC would double that limit...
Buy an used computer, that has a CPU with six, eight, ten cores, at lower clock, at double the price (if not more) than one similar to mine, because its fancy video card and top-of-the-line SSDs would be not a smart move now.
Buy an used computer with a 4770K/4790K/6700K/7700K, a simple video card, no SSD, would be a better move IMHO.
Just hypothetical at the moment for me, but could be an idea to follow.
I'm fondling the idea of color regrading The Terminator Blu-Ray to theatrical look in the future but I have no idea if there is any kind of 35mm reference around. I have the DVD release, video capture from the Italian laserdisc (thanks to SpoRv), early TV recordings but no idea if the color of any of these are anywhere near its theatrical incarnation.
I remember a color regrade by kk650 from some years ago (and I probably still have it) but I'm not sure if it was based on any kind of visual reference.
Any 35mm frames going around? Are lobby cards a valid source? I think I have a couple of them from 1984.
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2020 UPDATE. This is a 2 years old and very long thread on the topic, so here's a very short summary of what came out of it. Very short summary of a long thread: it appears that the Blu-Ray of The Terminator features what is possibly the most faithful representation of theatrical colors that could have been seen in cinemas in 1984.
Though I'm a relatively new user here and I don't know most of the users here, I want to ask if here are some of you who are living in Europe and have the possibility to scan 35mm film material?
I obtained a 35mm trailer from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and I would greatly make it accessible to our community. And because I have no possibility myself to make a digital scan of this material, I would like to send it to someone here who can be trusted.
I've been trying to preserve some LD tracks with a basic set-up: Pioneer CLD-V850, hooked up to a Toshiba DVD Recorder. Unfortunately, not a bit-perfect workflow, but better than nothing.
Unfortunately, after transferring only three tracks (two of which turned out to be worse than the Blu-Rays), it seems as if I cannot do any more because all subsequent transfers are plagued by a mysterious buzzing noise.
Moshrom's been trying to help me troubleshoot, but so far we haven't been successful. Under his advice, I tried moving the player and recorder in case it was electrical interference from that particular outlet. Unfortunately, I've moved it twice with no luck.
Is it possible that my player is just finally giving up on me?
With the new PC I discovered that I can speed up a lot of tests, so I tried to put my hands again on The Matrix to see if I can solve the problems of the first version.
To whom it may not know it, long story short: the movie in BD has a modified color grading, while the DVD has the same (or, at least, closer) of the theatrical print. In my first attempt, despite the fact I was able to get many shots very close, if not identical, regraded, in many I get artefacts - sometimes just a frame for one shot, but it rendered the whole project a pain in the... neck, and I was forced to use upscaled DVD parts to replace them... not bad solution if it would be for a couple of shots, but it happened in a lot - too much - of them.
Now, I discovered that the main problem doesn't lie in the software, but in the BD, which has a lot of white clipping; in these parts, the color matching software simply says "Hey, what I'm supposed to regrade here? It's just a white (green/blue/red, choose your color) spot, so I'm going crazy!" and replace these with various random artefacts...
So, the solution is to use the BD contrast somehow, to limit the artefacts to the minimum; it works pretty well, even if sometimes the colors are not so close to the DVD as in the previous version, BUT... I also discovered that the DVD has very flat palette, so for example faces have a lot less tones in the DVD than the BD; so now, even if faces are not of the same exact colors of the DVD, they have more details, thanks to more skin color shades.
I picked up an "anthology" of some shots previously ridden with artefacts - they were all located in the bright parts of the image, like lights, fires, explosions etc. - now they are almost all gone, apart few... want to take a look at the new version? LINK - test clip 5min, 5mbps, 229MB size, English and Italian audio (would expire around mid May 2017) - remember: it's a "patchwork" of short shots, you are warned!
![[Image: 5_virtualdub.jpg]](https://s10.postimg.cc/lpzgdy74p/5_virtualdub.jpg)
