[MPlayer-users] Please, I need urgent help with filtering a wedding video

[Rich Felker]

On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 11:28:20AM -0600, Dark Shadow wrote:
> On 8/8/05, Dark Shadow <shadowofdarkness at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 8/8/05, Rich Felker <dalias at aerifal.cx> wrote:
> > > On Mon, Aug 08, 2005 at 10:40:05AM -0600, Dark Shadow wrote:
> > > > So I found out something new about my minidv camcorder. That is the
> > > > fact that I have never used it inside and thatall the footage I have
> > > > taken has been natural light outside which gives absolutely perfect
> > > > quality. Well the problem is I was asked if my sister could use it for
> > > > her wedding and I said okay. Well my camcorder does bad quality at any
> > > > non natural light level (church was in no way dark but still had
> > > > slight problems) and as the scene is darker it gets worse.. The only
> > > > outside parts are perfect quality and require no filters.
> > > >
> > > > I have never used filters since my other footage was perfect so I
> > > > would like some help and what would best make this video clean and
> > > > presentable
> > >
> > > There's no way we can know what to do without seeing a clip, but it's
> > > probably going to be very difficult to clean it up well..
> > >
> > > > I plan on making this into a dvd as such I don't need it deinterlaced
> > > > since I have always preserved the interlacing and had it turn out
> > > > awesome on the tv.
> > >
> > > For converting interlaced content from DV to DVD, be _SURE_ you get
> > > the field order right. If not you will get very stuttery motion. Some
> > > people who don't know about this make such DVDs and assume it's
> > > normal, and of course the results are very painful to watch.
> > >
> > 
> > 
> > I read a tutorial on doom9.org that said all dv camcorders where
> > interlaced bottom field first so that is what I have been using.
> > 
> > 
> > > > Here are 3 examples of the video
> > > > http://members.shaw.ca/darkshadow/ceremony.jpg
> > > > http://members.shaw.ca/darkshadow/reception.jpg
> > > > http://members.shaw.ca/darkshadow/giftopening.jpg
> > >
> > > Ah, here are the samples.. Hmm.. All I can suggest is some fairly
> > > strong denoising, perhaps followed by a good sharpening filter.
> > > Unfortunately mencoder lacks good sharpeners.. :( The second one is
> > > very dark and will be difficult to do much with. If the denoising goes
> > > well enough it might be possible to stretch the contrast, but I
> > > imagine it will horribly amplify noise.
> > >
> > > Here's an idea: try taking those still pics and loading them in gimp,
> > > and see if you can get them to look good as stills. If so, tell us
> > > what gimp filters you use to fix them, and we might be able to suggest
> > > some good filters to do the same on video with mencoder..
> > >
> > 
> > Thanks for the idea I will try that in gimp and also look into the
> > cinepaint option
> > > Rich
> > >
> 
> I have been working and since I could not find a denoise filter in
> gimp I went to video editors. Cinepaint would not compile due to
> errors during the make command so I tried avidemux which would open
> dv2 files but not rawdv so I have to use kino to convert. In the end I
> am using kino to figure out video sections (non linear) then use that
> info in avidemux which has alot of filters.
> 
> I have found that a "mplayer hqdenoise" with tripling all the default
> numbers helps then a "sharpen" with standard settings, helps make the
> ceremony and gift opening good enough quality
> 
> I have not had time to play with a million variations so if anyone
> nows better settings I would like the help. Now I have found I want to
> play with the reception to find a way to lighten it up a bit. without
> losing quality or a filter after the lightening up to fix it (I don't
> worry about encoding timesince this is important footage)
> 
> those filters plus settings of 2 pass dvd(lavc) aimed to fit 2 hours
> into 4 gigs (room for photo slideshow and menu) will give good results
> hopefully

one thing to be aware of: if your video really is interlaced (hard to
tell from the still pics i saw, but i assume it is), you should filter
the two fields separately for best results. otherwise you'll get
bleeding between them, and possibly really bogus behavior when
sharpening if the two fields differ a lot. try something like:

-vf il=d:d,[your cleanup filters here],il=i:i

of course replacing "[your cleanup filters here]" with whichever
filters you want to use.

rich