Tried doing this at 1080p, seem to crash MeGUI or the encoding stopped because of a video error. Going to try 720p and see how that goes. Seems to do 720p fine.
@magnetite2 Something I didn't really cover in the tutorial (but plan to in the future) is that actual encoding, whether with MeGUI, Staxrip, directly into x264, or anything else, is best saved for later. Running QTGMC is demanding by itself, and your safest bet for stability is to run the deinterlacing and/or upscaling to a lossless intermediate first (Lagarith, UT, Huffyuv, etc.) and then use that file as the source of your encode later, in a separate step. Much less likely to crash that way.
@copycatzen I hope everything works, but don't hesitate to let me know if you have any problems! I'm always ready to help. Granted, this hurricane may knock out my power and/or internet access, but once they're back I'll be on the ball.
@robertcmartens It looks like I am out of luck. I cannot run any avisynth file, even with a simple code "Version()" windows media player does not play it, nor VLC player. Last time I used avisynth was in a XP x32 machine, but now on Windows7 x64 it just doesnt work. Any thoughts?
@copycatzen I've heard plenty of reports of people running 32 bit Avisynth on Windows 7 64 bit successfully; are you sure you're installing it in the right place? I don't have a 64 bit OS to test with, but I believe 32 bit system files (namely, avisynth.dll) are supposed to go in C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64.
@robertcmartens Thank you, I had to uninstall/reinstall VLC and media player classic to get it to work. Now Avisynth is working and I am following your tutorial, I am stuck right at the beginning when trying to open dvupscale.avs in VirtualDub. I get the following error "AVISource: couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc dvsd (C:\UpscaleTutorial\dvupscale.avs, line 5)". I am doing this with your testclip. BTW. SimpleSlugUpscale.avsi and QTGMC-3.32.avsi also go in the avisynth plugin directory?
@copycatzen Yes, both of those go in the plugins directory; they contain script functions which will be autoloaded by Avisynth if placed in that directory.
The decompressor error is not uncommon: you don't have a system-wide DV codec installed. Many media players and video editing programs can open DV because they have their own built-in codec for the format, but Avisynth can't access those codecs. The "Tips" page of the tutorial covers this and has instructions which should help you.
@robertcmartens I had rainbow blocks and turning setMTmode off was the only way around to solve it. Also VirtualDub was crashing constantly. But now I feel like I can start messing with my own files. Thanks!
@copycatzen Yeah, that can happen; proper, stable multithreading incorporated into the official Avisynth project is still some way off, and the third party MT modification can be touchy at the best of times. It's worth trying, since it can increase processing speed dramatically, but if you have problems you may just need to turn it off. Glad it's working otherwise!
@robertcmartens I went over the SimpleSlugUpscale file and could not find what I was looking for. I have a 4:3 SD interlaced file that I want deinterlaced in the same 4:3 ratio but in “HD” (1280x960) and pixel ratio 1:1. There is no preset for that, and could not figure out what part of the code I needed to change to modify a preset. Thanks XD
@copycatzen I tried to keep the presets only to the most common broadcast sizes for brevity's sake, but you shouldn't need to modify them to get what you want; try using SimpleSlugUpscale(outheight=960,DARout=4.0/3.0)
The output PAR defaults to 1:1 when you specify your own width and/or height, so you don't need to type that in. Modifying or adding presets is a bit complicated for a 500 character video comment, but I can always walk you through it by email or Youtube message if you want.
@robertcmartens My source is mpg, I remember that years ago, last time that I used avisynth I had to use dvd2avi and mpeg2dec.dll to open a mpg, is that still the case, or do I have better alternatives now?
@copycatzen Yes, things have changed a bit since those days; Donald Graft's DGDecode will let you load MPEG1/2 files directly into Avisynth, and there's also FFmpegSource2 which loads anything ffmpeg can load. I can't post links in a comment, but Google should let you find what you need.
@Fr3dzSTER Happy to hear it worked out for you! Yeah, it's slow, but that's the price we pay; you can always try a faster QTGMC preset, but there's only so much one can accomplish there, even with multithreading.
When you say it "took a while", however, do you just mean it was time consuming to set up, or were my instructions unclear? If you had a problem understanding my tutorial, I'm open to feedback about possible improvements.
So, these are 360 interlaced lines stretched to 720 progressive? I am surprised that YouTube offers only 240p, 360p and 720p resolutions and does not offer 480p. I think this looks very good but this is no HD. I understand that you have upscaled it to HD for demo purposes, but really it does not seem to look any better that good progressive standard definition video. Not to diminish your results though, which are very impressive. The VX2000 still has a lot to offer.
@EluraUser No offense taken; this most certainly doesn't look like real HD. That, however, was not the point. When producing a project in HD, one will occasionally need to incorporate SD clips (archival material, for example), which by definition require upscaling. With the technique I've used here, you can do a much better job than you can in most NLE and compositing packages.
But for uploading SD to Youtube, no, you likely won't benefit from SimpleSlugUpscale.
@robertcmartens To add just a bit to that thought, it should be noted that according to the video info, Youtube compressed this file at 801kbps, which isn't going to make any video look its best under even ideal conditions. Not to mention that the software I used for this has changed somewhat since this upload, and things look a little better now than they do here.
I suggest people follow the tutorial linked in the description to get a clearer sense of what you can do with this approach.
@robertcmartens What I meant is that your result looks 480p at best, but I understand that you upscaled it to 720p just to demonstrate how an SD clip will look in an HD project. If I were to use your approach for uploading to YouTube, I would choose 480p as my target resolution. I think one can hugely benefit from a great deinterlacer when uploading to YouTube, I am planning to use your experience for upscaling my old DV videos. Thanks a lot!
@EluraUser Many people do not care deinterlacing their videos, even NASA (check out this one at 720p: /watch?v=ONvJ0xXT2xY&hd=1) It is important for people to understand that web videos are progressive and they have to take time to deinterlace their old-school interlaced sources. This is especially important for low-res SD videos. Thanks again for the tutorial. I found your video by searching for "tempgaussmc", good tagging helps.
@EluraUser That's something else; I'd think NASA, of all agencies, would have some tech savvy people overseeing their video related PR content. Strange.
I do my best to make sure my tags fit the content I'm uploading, glad to hear they helped!
@EluraUser Ah, I see, that makes sense. My replies were just to clarify that I'm not advocating unnecessary upscaling.
Although, in relation to Youtube, upscaling may not be a waste; HD dimensions trigger higher bitrates for YT recompression, and the tests I've done show that, at least to my eye, a 720p upscale of an SD clip looks more like the original than a 480p upload of the same material. Higher datarate for the same detail level; not a huge improvement, but noticeable.
Yes, it was ordinary interlaced, 4:3 NTSC DV; I sent you a message via Twitter a few hours ago, but Youtube finally let me edit the video description so I added a link to the original footage here, too.
Tried doing this at 1080p, seem to crash MeGUI or the encoding stopped because of a video error. Going to try 720p and see how that goes. Seems to do 720p fine.
magnetite2 5 months ago
@magnetite2 Something I didn't really cover in the tutorial (but plan to in the future) is that actual encoding, whether with MeGUI, Staxrip, directly into x264, or anything else, is best saved for later. Running QTGMC is demanding by itself, and your safest bet for stability is to run the deinterlacing and/or upscaling to a lossless intermediate first (Lagarith, UT, Huffyuv, etc.) and then use that file as the source of your encode later, in a separate step. Much less likely to crash that way.
robertcmartens 5 months ago
I need to try this later
added to favs
copycatzen 6 months ago
@copycatzen I hope everything works, but don't hesitate to let me know if you have any problems! I'm always ready to help. Granted, this hurricane may knock out my power and/or internet access, but once they're back I'll be on the ball.
robertcmartens 6 months ago
@robertcmartens It looks like I am out of luck. I cannot run any avisynth file, even with a simple code "Version()" windows media player does not play it, nor VLC player. Last time I used avisynth was in a XP x32 machine, but now on Windows7 x64 it just doesnt work. Any thoughts?
copycatzen 6 months ago
@copycatzen I've heard plenty of reports of people running 32 bit Avisynth on Windows 7 64 bit successfully; are you sure you're installing it in the right place? I don't have a 64 bit OS to test with, but I believe 32 bit system files (namely, avisynth.dll) are supposed to go in C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64.
robertcmartens 6 months ago
@robertcmartens Thank you, I had to uninstall/reinstall VLC and media player classic to get it to work. Now Avisynth is working and I am following your tutorial, I am stuck right at the beginning when trying to open dvupscale.avs in VirtualDub. I get the following error "AVISource: couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc dvsd (C:\UpscaleTutorial\dvupscale.avs, line 5)". I am doing this with your testclip. BTW. SimpleSlugUpscale.avsi and QTGMC-3.32.avsi also go in the avisynth plugin directory?
copycatzen 5 months ago
@copycatzen Yes, both of those go in the plugins directory; they contain script functions which will be autoloaded by Avisynth if placed in that directory.
The decompressor error is not uncommon: you don't have a system-wide DV codec installed. Many media players and video editing programs can open DV because they have their own built-in codec for the format, but Avisynth can't access those codecs. The "Tips" page of the tutorial covers this and has instructions which should help you.
robertcmartens 5 months ago
@robertcmartens Thank you, it was in front of me, and I didnt see it
copycatzen 5 months ago
@robertcmartens I had rainbow blocks and turning setMTmode off was the only way around to solve it. Also VirtualDub was crashing constantly. But now I feel like I can start messing with my own files. Thanks!
copycatzen 5 months ago
@copycatzen Yeah, that can happen; proper, stable multithreading incorporated into the official Avisynth project is still some way off, and the third party MT modification can be touchy at the best of times. It's worth trying, since it can increase processing speed dramatically, but if you have problems you may just need to turn it off. Glad it's working otherwise!
robertcmartens 5 months ago
@robertcmartens I went over the SimpleSlugUpscale file and could not find what I was looking for. I have a 4:3 SD interlaced file that I want deinterlaced in the same 4:3 ratio but in “HD” (1280x960) and pixel ratio 1:1. There is no preset for that, and could not figure out what part of the code I needed to change to modify a preset. Thanks XD
copycatzen 5 months ago
@copycatzen I tried to keep the presets only to the most common broadcast sizes for brevity's sake, but you shouldn't need to modify them to get what you want; try using SimpleSlugUpscale(outheight=960,DARout=4.0/3.0)
The output PAR defaults to 1:1 when you specify your own width and/or height, so you don't need to type that in. Modifying or adding presets is a bit complicated for a 500 character video comment, but I can always walk you through it by email or Youtube message if you want.
robertcmartens 5 months ago
@robertcmartens I'll try that without modifying the presets. Thanks a lot
copycatzen 5 months ago
@robertcmartens My source is mpg, I remember that years ago, last time that I used avisynth I had to use dvd2avi and mpeg2dec.dll to open a mpg, is that still the case, or do I have better alternatives now?
copycatzen 5 months ago
@copycatzen Yes, things have changed a bit since those days; Donald Graft's DGDecode will let you load MPEG1/2 files directly into Avisynth, and there's also FFmpegSource2 which loads anything ffmpeg can load. I can't post links in a comment, but Google should let you find what you need.
robertcmartens 5 months ago
WOW! it took a while to get it to work but the results are amazing, glad I found this. the only problem is its sloooooooooww.
Fr3dzSTER 9 months ago
@Fr3dzSTER Happy to hear it worked out for you! Yeah, it's slow, but that's the price we pay; you can always try a faster QTGMC preset, but there's only so much one can accomplish there, even with multithreading.
When you say it "took a while", however, do you just mean it was time consuming to set up, or were my instructions unclear? If you had a problem understanding my tutorial, I'm open to feedback about possible improvements.
robertcmartens 9 months ago
@robertcmartens It was partly working out where to save all the files and plugins etc. but mainly because I found out about avisynth last week.
Fr3dzSTER 9 months ago
So, these are 360 interlaced lines stretched to 720 progressive? I am surprised that YouTube offers only 240p, 360p and 720p resolutions and does not offer 480p. I think this looks very good but this is no HD. I understand that you have upscaled it to HD for demo purposes, but really it does not seem to look any better that good progressive standard definition video. Not to diminish your results though, which are very impressive. The VX2000 still has a lot to offer.
EluraUser 1 year ago
@EluraUser No offense taken; this most certainly doesn't look like real HD. That, however, was not the point. When producing a project in HD, one will occasionally need to incorporate SD clips (archival material, for example), which by definition require upscaling. With the technique I've used here, you can do a much better job than you can in most NLE and compositing packages.
But for uploading SD to Youtube, no, you likely won't benefit from SimpleSlugUpscale.
robertcmartens 1 year ago
@robertcmartens To add just a bit to that thought, it should be noted that according to the video info, Youtube compressed this file at 801kbps, which isn't going to make any video look its best under even ideal conditions. Not to mention that the software I used for this has changed somewhat since this upload, and things look a little better now than they do here.
I suggest people follow the tutorial linked in the description to get a clearer sense of what you can do with this approach.
robertcmartens 1 year ago
@robertcmartens What I meant is that your result looks 480p at best, but I understand that you upscaled it to 720p just to demonstrate how an SD clip will look in an HD project. If I were to use your approach for uploading to YouTube, I would choose 480p as my target resolution. I think one can hugely benefit from a great deinterlacer when uploading to YouTube, I am planning to use your experience for upscaling my old DV videos. Thanks a lot!
EluraUser 1 year ago
@EluraUser Many people do not care deinterlacing their videos, even NASA (check out this one at 720p: /watch?v=ONvJ0xXT2xY&hd=1) It is important for people to understand that web videos are progressive and they have to take time to deinterlace their old-school interlaced sources. This is especially important for low-res SD videos. Thanks again for the tutorial. I found your video by searching for "tempgaussmc", good tagging helps.
EluraUser 1 year ago
@EluraUser That's something else; I'd think NASA, of all agencies, would have some tech savvy people overseeing their video related PR content. Strange.
I do my best to make sure my tags fit the content I'm uploading, glad to hear they helped!
robertcmartens 1 year ago
@EluraUser Ah, I see, that makes sense. My replies were just to clarify that I'm not advocating unnecessary upscaling.
Although, in relation to Youtube, upscaling may not be a waste; HD dimensions trigger higher bitrates for YT recompression, and the tests I've done show that, at least to my eye, a 720p upscale of an SD clip looks more like the original than a 480p upload of the same material. Higher datarate for the same detail level; not a huge improvement, but noticeable.
robertcmartens 1 year ago
source was interlaced?
djolepiv 2 years ago
Yes, it was ordinary interlaced, 4:3 NTSC DV; I sent you a message via Twitter a few hours ago, but Youtube finally let me edit the video description so I added a link to the original footage here, too.
robertcmartens 2 years ago
holly sh*t dude, result is amazing! i must try this!
djolepiv 2 years ago 2