Hey all,

I have captured an early VHS copy of Saturn 3. I know there is a Bluray that was released (Shout Factory?) but I know we have folks that enjoy the nostalgia of analog. If there is enough interest I'll upload the ISO to my Google Drive so folks can snag it.

Please let me know in this thread.

Cheers!!!!

Let's talk about audio tracks found on common released media, so leave out AAC, MP3, FLAC and others; MPEG multichannel, even if it could be found on DVD, it is really uncommon (I think maybe I have one title with this codec).

So, given the fact the audio mix is the same, as the number of channels and bits used, I think this could be the chart of most common multichannel audio tracks, from best to worst quality:

1. PCM/DTS-HD MA/Dolby TrueHD (all lossless)
   
2. DTS 1509/1536kbps (full rate)
   
3. Dolby Digital 640kbps
   
4. Dolby Digital 448kbps
   
5. Dolby Digital 384kbps
   
6. DTS 755/768kbps (half rate)
   
7. Dolby Digital 320kbps
   

2 scripts here. 1 for 5 pass average. 1 for 3 pass average. I saw no need for two threads about this.

This should allow for averaging captures from the same source or even different sources that are similar in size and alignment. Mileage might vary . I personally use it for making 3 or 5 captures of a laserdisc and averaging it to remove as much noise as possible before moving on to IVTC and DNR. It's up to you to make sure the clips are aligned before feeding them into this function. So make sure to trim beforehand.

What you'll need:

avisynth 2.6
interleave (internal filter)
MVTOOLS2 (2.6.0.5 or similar)
temporalsoften (internal filter)

This is perhaps better than LDDENOISE and it's much faster. This is what I use on laserdiscs nowadays as it seems to be better at removing the analog noise of laserdiscs.

It's quite simple actually and the dependencies are only:

Avisynth 2.6
Temporal Soften (this is an internal filter)
MVTOOLS2 (version 2.6.0.5 or higher)

The only things you really need to tinker with are tradius(temporal radius) and mthresh(motion threshold). Everything else I never change but I put them in as options in case you want to change the blocksize, for example. The only thing I ever adjust actually is mthresh.

mthresh=70 will denoise basically only stationary stuff.
mthresh=120 will denoise slightly moving stuff.
mthresh=180 will denoise moving stuff but not extremely high motion.

Anything over 180(depending on the source) can start to risk loss of detail that, imo, is unacceptable. However, 70-120 denoises A LOT but still looks good.

These numbers above are based on a few sources that I've tested. Every source is different and requires tweaking. Feeding an already denoised clip via auxclip helps mvtools in 2 ways. It will be more precise when calculating motion vectors and prevents mvtools from thinking that noise is motion. This will allow you to use the same settings more or less. What I mean is that, for example, mthresh=140 will give kind of the same results in different clips. I usually use a motion compensated fft3d denoiser for this as it denoises well even when there is motion without artifacting.
FFTMC

Here is the function for TSMC. Download the avsi and place it into your plugins folder.
TSMC

EDIT: I also wanted to add that if anybody has any ideas to make this better feel free to chime in. I'm by no means an avisynth guru and am open to improvement!

A quick how to use avisynth and this denoiser:

1) Go download avisynth 2.6 or avs+ and install it:
https://github.com/pinterf/AviSynthPlus/releases
I recommend going with avs+ as it's regularly maintained by Pinterf and has many newer features.

2) Download mvtools2. Navigate to the avisynth folder in Program Files and extract the mvtools2.dll file into the plugins folder inside the avisynth folder.
https://github.com/pinterf/mvtools/releases
Again, I recommend Pinterf's version as it is more up to date with more features.

3) Go to the TSMC link above and save TSMC.avsi to your avisynth plugins folder.

4) open notepad and write a script to load the video file and denoise it. Here's an example:

Hey guys, I'm looking for someone able to capture/grab two films (hdx) off VUDU for me, could anyone help..?

I don't know if this happens only to me... so I would write here to know if I'm the only one, or there are some other "lucky" ones like me!

Example 1: DVD movie; I was sure I had that title... asked to others in the family, someone remembered it, someone told me I was crazy... I searched a lot between the titles scattered around different rooms in the house - they are few hundreds, after all... nothing... searched in unthinkable places... nothing... so I thoght that maybe I was crazy... few days later, I visited my sister, and she came out with "Do you remember I borrowed THAT movie from you some weeks ago? No? Well, maybe I picked it up without asking you..."  lesson number one: write down every title you lend and borrow, and ask friends and relatives to inform you about them...

Example 2: LD movie: after the last quest, I thought "may be this title at someone's else house? not a laserdisc, for sure!" and "are you sure you have REALLY this title? yes, according to the list I made that is 100% accurate", and also "why don't you put them in SOME order? because I'm lazy and... hey brain, shut up!"

So, I began from the shelf #1, trying to find it just reading the titles of the movies on the spine with the right colors... many shelves after, nothing... maybe the spine color wasn't right... restart, fast reading... an hour later, nothing... OK, probably I missed it, time to read the title one by one, not so fast... well, I found it... at the end... it was near the 3000 point out of 3200... lucky as usual!  lesson number two: put your movies in "some" order; possibly, write a list in a spreadsheet that points each title to a shelf position - it will be easier to spot it between fifty ones instead thousands!

I inverse telecined some DVD's and I have come across some field blended footage. I'm curious if anyone could tell me why some footage would contain blended fields when the th rest is fine?

To give an example. I IVTC'd a disc with six episodes of a cartoon. There was one episode with the intro full of blended fields. The same episode had just a few frames that were blended in one scene. Another episode has several minutes of blended fields in chunks thoughout.

How would this happen duing the mastering of the disc? Has anyone run into this issue before?

I'm going to try and get the PAL version of the disc to see if the same issue is present, but it's a bit frustrating to have to go to the extra effort.

These days I'm toying with Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection; today, in particular, I rewatched the Alien 3 trailer present in the PAL UK LD, that I think it's a rough 35mm scan... ok, it's (heavily) cropped, so only a bit more than half image is present: still, it's very nice, cinematic.. "gritty" in a way...

So, I thought to imitate that look; using the BD as base, I regraded it using the LD as color reference (and contrast, too); then, I tweaked a lot contrast, increased a bit the saturation, and added a coarse grain plate; at the end - apart colors, which I didn't even attempted to touch - result is pretty similar, and quite interesting; colors "pop" up better, and the image is more alive; the price to pay are crushed blacks and clipped whites - most noticeable in very dark shots, and where there are very bright objects or during light flashes.

ALIEN 3 - top BD untouched, bottom "gritty" version:


ALIEN RESURRECTION - top BD untouched, bottom "gritty" version:


and three direct high def comparisons
BD Vs BD regraded: http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/199970
BD Vs "gritty": http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/199971
BD regraded Vs "gritty": http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/199972

Army of Darkness - Open Matte (Upscale Project #3 v1.0)

See project origin here: https://fanrestore.com/thread-1071.html

Video:
The open matte DVD was upscaled with a combination of super-resolution and nnedi with filters to reduce macro-blocking and edge enhancement/halos. The resulting image was further processed and then re-grained with a real grain best matching the BD version. The video was then color corrected with a 35mm LUT and color matched to some 35mm frames and the 35mm trailer scan from book of the dead (www.bookofthedead.ws)

Audio:
1. Dolby Surround PCM 2.0 from the wide screen laserdisc

2. Dolby Digital 5.1 from the open matte DVD.

Pics:




Thanks:
MrBrown: for the open matte DVD
BusterD: for capping the laserdisc

It should be a well known problem, but, to whom is not aware of this, Event Horizon on Blu-ray is stretched vertically - or, rather, squeezed horizontally, I could correct, as it has more image on the sides, in comparison to the old DVD and the LD (SE DVD has the same problem, though). Leaving the height unaltered, obviously the aspect ratio is wrong...

Provisional plan:

• de-stretch the video, diminishing the height and taking the aspect ratio from 2.35:1 to the best value - that, according to someone, should be around 2.42:1, if not higher
  
• regrade it using the old color grading found on LD or first DVD edition as color reference, to get a more colorful version, and, probably, one nearest theatrical version, and get rid of the pink tint problem
  
• add eventually a grain plate when needed
  
• add the DTS Cinema track
  
• add the PCM track from lasedisc, as it seems more punchy and less dry, according to widescreenreview