Laserdisc Noise

[Colek]

If you could make tutorial on that, I would be really grateful. I have 2 uncut laserdiscs and 2 uncut DVDs and would want to get best out of them. Photoshop has great autoalign that I use fot DrDre's CCT

[jerryshadoe]

Wait a minute.... you use Photoshop?? Is there some automated, "batch" way of doing this or do you have to autoalign each individual frame? Because that would get really tedious...

Let me know, because if there is a way for me to incorporate an "auto alignment" into the method, then I would slightly modify the tutorial I will write up. Like I mentioned earlier, there is more than one way of reaching the desired result and I'm always happy to learn something that makes the process easier

[Colek]

Wait a minute.... you use Photoshop?? Is there some automated, "batch" way of doing this or do you have to autoalign each individual frame? Because that would get really tedious...

Let me know, because if there is a way for me to incorporate an "auto alignment" into the method, then I would slightly modify the tutorial I will write up. Like I mentioned earlier, there is more than one way of reaching the desired result and I'm always happy to learn something that makes the process easier

You can easily make script that would autoalign and crop everything, but I never used it for like, whole movie Only for frames that I use in DrDre's CCT (so about 100 total for movie).

But yeah, I automated it and it makes everything from one folder to second folder already processed without any attention given to it.

[PDB]

You know I thought about using Photoshop's layer aligning tool. How well does it work?

(Besides Photoshop, I was also trying this in Nuke but could never figure how to align it properly)

That could solve a few problem shots I'm having.

[Colek]

Photoshop does awesome job, I couldn't find anything else to perfectly align two shots. Download trial and check it your yourself

[AntcuFaalb]

The first step is to identify where the noise is coming from.

1. If it's baked into the source, then you have to rely on good DNR.
   
2. If it's the result of bad comb filtering, then you should consider investing in a better comb filter.
   
3. If it's added by the player, then going the TooT route will help if you don't want to invest in something like an LD-S2.
   

It's usually a combination of all three.

To look into #3 choose a simple frame (preferably a red test pattern on an LD like GGV1069), put your player into still-step mode on that frame, and capture the still sequence. If you see lots of noise between frames, then your player is unfortunately one of the noisy ones.

To look into #2 simply see how well your capture chain does on the Snell&Wilcox Zone Plate test pattern on the Video Essentials LD.

If you've ruled-out #3 and #2 by using an amazing player like the Pioneer LD-S2 and an amazing 3D comb filter like the Analog Devices ADV7842, then your problem is likely caused by #1. Search to see if a better master is available. If not, then use an excellent DNR algorithm like the one in the F_DeNoise node in FurnaceCore for Nuke.

It's best to attack this from all angles. Also, of course, make sure your LD player is in alignment.

[PDB]

Thanks for the pointers AntcuFaalb. I'm going to try your advice concerning seeing whether my player is adding noise first and move from there. Cheers.

[IcePrick]

I have a question about this.

I made a comparison between the composite and S-video outputs on my LD player. I found that the composite capture was considerably noisier than the S-video one. The S-video capture produced a cleaner, less noisy image, but instead introduced horrific dot crawl.

Composite
[Image: composite1.png]

S-video
[Image: svideo1.png]

Composite
[Image: composite2.png]

S-video
[Image: svideo2.png]

Composite
[Image: composite3.png]

S-video
[Image: svideo3.png]

Example of S-video dot crawl
[Image: svideo4.png]

So, is this purely an issue with the comb filter? It's surprising that there's such a big difference in the amount of noise. Is there something else causing this, like the connectors or something?

[AntcuFaalb]

So, is this purely an issue with the comb filter? It's surprising that there's such a big difference in the amount of noise. Is there something else causing this, like the connectors or something?

Is this with an internal capture card or an external one? Which A→D chip does the capture card use? What kind of comb filter does it use?

[IcePrick]

So, is this purely an issue with the comb filter? It's surprising that there's such a big difference in the amount of noise. Is there something else causing this, like the connectors or something?

Is this with an internal capture card or an external one? Which A→D chip does the capture card use? What kind of comb filter does it use?

It's an external capture card, the Startech USB3HDCAP. I have no idea what type of A→D chip or comb filter it uses.

I did try connecting the player via composite to my TV, and it gave similarly noisy results (though, it's hard to determine if it's the same amount of noise).