Trying but failing to understand A&E Technical Guide

[Housepiglet]

Hi,

I'm trying to follow through the A&E Guide to getting some good quality clips from a DVD. I've ripped what I want from the DVD with DVD Ripper and I've indexed it with DGI Index, but when it comes to the part of the Guide that goes on to deal with Analysing the DVD footage and sorting out interlacing etc I'm completely lost. I'm wondering whether anyone can perhaps point me to a different guide or maybe tell me what I'm doing wrong.

The current problem concerns interlacing, as that's what the Guide deals with after the ripping/indexing. I know from what I've done that the footage is interlaced and that the Field Order is 'top', but when I go through the Guide to try to work out what to do about that I get lost. I've followed the Guide to 'Making your footage Progressive', and then I've clicked on the 'I Plan to creat AVI Clips' link, and I've further clicked on 'Pure Interlaced Footage', but I can't work out what to put into my .avs file to actually use the TDeint filter. The author suggests TDeint(mode=2, mtnmode=3, blim=100) but because I'm v. new to all this I don't know how to use it. Do I just go to 'Tools/Script Editor' in VirtualDubMod and type it in as a new line?

I know this stuff is complicated and that there's a learning curve, and I'm willing to try to learn it, but it's getting very demoralising

Is there a simpler guide somewhere? I've also read a couple of times that the A&E Guide is now outdated, and so even as I'm trying to follow it I'm wondering whether I should be using something else.

Many thanks for any help.

[Zarxrax]

Check the earlier section of the guide that explains how to use avisynth.

[Housepiglet]

Check the earlier section of the guide that explains how to use avisynth.

Thanks, but I did. I worked through that last weekend, and it hasn't helped with the things that have confused me today.

It's not that I don't know what Avisynth does, but more that I couldn't find any examples in the Guide of what a completed script should finally look like. I did make one for the d/loaded footage I was using last week (I was working with a series finale that had just come out) and I thought it would be easier when I got onto DVDs, but in fact it's been more confusing.

I suspect that many of my questions would sound really stupid to anyone familiar with using this software, but it's all new to me, and I suppose that's why I'm wondering whether there's a more basic guide around. I feel as though I'm trying to jump from the floor straight to step 7 of a 10 step ladder.

[Zarxrax]

Well you basically need a line in your script to open up your video source. That would be the MPEG2Source(... line.
And then you add that tdeint line below it, to deinterlace. Thats pretty much all there is to it.

[Housepiglet]

Well you basically need a line in your script to open up your video source. That would be the MPEG2Source(... line.
And then you add that tdeint line below it, to deinterlace. Thats pretty much all there is to it.

Okay, thanks: that's what I thought it must be but I wasn't sure. Told you it would sound stupid

I'll go and have a go. Thanks again! I appreciate your help