Some help salvaging video quality, please.

[Otohiko]

Alright, noob-mode back on.

Scenario: Video of just under 7 min, 1/3 anime, 2/3 game (do not intend an .org upload before you ask). Both sources *not* very good to start with.

Aside from general tips, two more narrow questions:

1) Any advice on compressing low-contrast footage? It's macroblocking hell whenever I try to get some sneaky shadown going on...

2) Any reasonable suggestions on fiters, codecs, settings and so on that I may use to compress 7 minutes of mostly game footage (read: a lot more motion, a lot less nice solid color areas than in anime) into ~30mb - and not have it look like it was in the dishwasher?

(The request itself might sound a bit unreasonable, and it is, but I'm not hoping to win any prizes for good looks)

If you've got any ideas or theories - thanks for your time.

[Scintilla]

<a href="http://www.avisynth.org/warpenterprises ... 3.zip">The Dust plugins</a> (specifically PixieDust) are your friends.

But since they're only for AVISynth 2.0.x, you'll need <a href="http://www.avisynth.org/FileHosting/use ... luginEx</a> in order to use them.
(Stick LoadPluginEx.dll in a separate directory (it can't be auto-loaded) and load it with LoadPlugin; then you can load the Dust package with LoadPlugin like you would any other plugin.)

You might also want to consider tacking on <a href="http://www.avisynth.org/warpenterprises ... TFilter</a>; reducing the higher frequencies does wonders for compressibility, and the side effects probably won't be as noticeable on VG footage as they are on anime.

[Otohiko]

Thanks!

Took me a while to remember how Avisynth works (been almost a year now...), but it looks to be running fine now. I think I get the idea behind PixieDust, but how exactly does DCTfilter work and what sort of values should I look for? (if any outside the suggested (1,1,1,1,1,1,0.5,0))

[Otohiko]

Yes, it looks to have worked well - thanks Scintilla. Just a bit more experimentation.

Is there any filters you would suggest for rainbows/color problems on 3d/live-action-type footage?

[badmartialarts]

There are a lot of derainbowing filters, none of which ever work very well without being massively slow. Bifrost() should be your first check, it's in the new AMVApp I think. Then work your way up the chain, SDDeRainbow() and finally, the big daddy, mfRainbow().

[Otohiko]

I'm not even sure if it's rainbowing, frankly. There just seems to be some color distortion going on, not entirely sure where it comes from.

Ah well. We'll try.

[Otohiko]

Yep, nevermind, the rainbows aren't at source level. It's just the heavy compression that distorts colors somewhat. Too bad I s'pose