Cleaning up Outlaw Star

[Cannonaire]

Hey everyone. For my second AMV project I'm making an experiment vid using Outlaw Star (not to be released most likely) to play around with things like lip sync and effects, but afterward I'm going to make a real video using the same ripped footage. I've gotten my clips to look pretty good, but there is some really annoying dot crawl still, most noticeable around lips, which is a big problem as learning lip syncing is one of the goals. If anyone has experience cleaning up this anime, your help/opinions would be appreciated.

I only just learned to use AviSynth a few days ago, but it helped tremendously for cleaning up the source material for my first AMV (Final Fantasy 9, not released quite yet). I've tried using Checkmate(), Tcomb(), and Dedot() according to the post-production guide here: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... l#dotcrawl
None of these really worked for the dot crawl I'm seeing unless you cranked them way up (like using 999 on Checkmate), but that obviously causes more problems than it solves.
If anyone else has ripped Outlaw Star footage, you can see the dot crawl specifically on ***first episode spoiler*** Hilda's lips when she's talking to Jim on the phone in disguise. ***end spoiler***. It's kind of slight in this example, but it persists throughout the series, better or worse in different scenes.

Here is my script for the moment, and it does a pretty good job for everything else, but I'm not opposed to changing it, even completely. I'm new, so all good advice is welcome. Thanks in advance.

mpeg2source("J:\video_rip\outlawstar\ep1a.d2v",cpu=6)
#checkmate(24)
AMVIVTC(mode=1)
Crop(8, 0, -8, -0)
LanczosResize(624, 480)
DeRainbow(10)
Toon()

[Scintilla]

You could give my own solution, LUTDeCrawl, a try (though if TComb, Checkmate, AND DeDot couldn't fix it, I'm not optimistic that mine will either).

Aside from that, I wouldn't know what more specifically to suggest without seeing a clip of your source (for most things a few screenshots will do, but as you know, dot crawl has to be examined in the context of full motion).

[Cannonaire]

Thanks for the response. A bit later I'll find some web hosting and take a few screencaps, and try out your solution.

[Kariudo]

What were your settings for Tcomb?
I was able to clean up some pretty epic dotcrawl using it

[Cannonaire]

That's incredible dot crawl removal.
To be honest, I spent about a half hour fiddling around with it but couldn't tell the difference between different settings. Not much documentation that I could find, but from the looks of it that filter would really help me out. Would you be able to help me? I'll see if I can get those screens up sooner rather than later.

[Kariudo]

It's a relatively simple filter to tweak once you know what to do. The readme.txt file that comes with tcomb is pretty good at explaining it.

BASIC SETUP/USAGE:


Setting up TComb is pretty simple. The only values that would ever really need adjusting
are fthreshL/fthreshC, othreshL/othreshC, and mode.

Set mode to 0 if you want to do dot crawl removal only, set it to 1 if you want to
do rainbow removal only, or set it to 2 to do both.

Dot Crawl Removal Tweaking (fthreshL/othreshL):

To find good values for fthreshL/othreshL, start with the following line:

tcomb(mode=0,fthreshL=255,othreshL=255)

Now, keep othreshL at 255 but set fthreshL down to 1. Keep increasing fthreshL
in steps of 1 to 2 until you find the point at which all dot crawl is removed.
Remember that value. Next, set fthreshL back to 255, and set othreshL to 1.
Now, increase othreshL in steps of 1 or 2 until you find the point at which all
dot crawl is removed. You've now got values for fthreshL/othreshL.

Rainbowing Removal Tweaking (fthreshC/othreshC):

To find good values for fthreshC/othreshC, start with the following line:

tcomb(mode=1,fthreshC=255,othreshC=255)

Now, keep othreshC at 255 but set fthreshC down to 1. Keep increasing fthreshC
in steps of 1 to 2 until you find the point at which all (or most) rainbowing is
removed. Remember that value. Next, set fthreshC back to 255, and set othreshC
to 1. Now, increase othreshC in steps of 1 or 2 until you find the point at which
all (or most) rainbowing is removed. You've now got values for fthreshC/othreshC.

Once you've got values for mode, fthreshL/fthreshC, and othreshL/othreshC, add the
necessary tcomb() line into your script and run through part of it. If you see any
artifacts try lowering your fthresh/othresh values.

I ended up using fthreshl=12, othreshl=19 (defaults are 4 and 5 respectively) for fumoffu. I highly doubt that you'll need to go that high though. The documentation says a good range is between 4 - 7 and 4 - 8. The main thing you have to watch out for is really nasty looking artifacts (you'll know it if and when you see it), but if you stay around 12 or less it shouldn't be much of a problem.

[Cannonaire]

Good instructions. I tried it out, but no good results. I can get a single frame at a time to look good, but in general I've only succeeded in adding worse artifacts with TComb.

[Cannonaire]

Here's an example of the dot crawl I'm seeing. It's fairly minor at first glance in this image, except it gets really noticable in motion. It is also worse in other scenes, and to make matters worse one of the entire points for using this footage was to use it for lip syncing. Ripped from the Outlaw Star Perfect Collection Box Set.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Zoom 200%(different frame):


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Kariudo]

hmm, are you using mode=0?
mode=2 would also work, but that also includes de-rainbowing (which it doesn't look like you need).
if you're using mode=1 it won't do too much for you.

Also, TComb works on interlaced footage, so make sure you put it before Telecide(), TFM(), animeIVTC() or whatever else you may use to make your footage progressive.

There is a chance that the dot crawl was there before the footage was telecined (in which case there isn't much that can be done) but I haven't heard of a case where this happened (yet).

[Cannonaire]

I've tried mode 0 and 2. Also, I do have it before the interlacing, but it's not really helping. Maybe this is the first case you've seen where it's in the source before it was interlaced? That would really suck. Thanks for all the help though, I'll see what i can do with it. Here's my script as it is currently:

Code: Select all

mpeg2source("J:\video_rip\outlawstar\ep1a.d2v",cpu=6)
#checkmate(24)
Tcomb(mode=0,fthreshl=3, othreshl=8)
AMVIVTC(mode=1)
Crop(8, 0, -8, -0)
LanczosResize(624, 480)
#DeRainbow(10)
#Toon()

It's a shame, cause with the other stuff (commented out in the code) the video looks great aside from the dot crawl.