I need help improving the quality of advent children footage

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:17 am

I'm making another amv utilizing AC footage, but for this, I'd really like to know how to get the footage to be as good as possible. I thought I knew exactly how to do that already but after seeing an AC amv done to a song from the Narnia movie, my thoughts on the matter quickly changed.

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... p?v=102761

The footage quality in that amv seems to surpass that of even the dvd at times! Just how the hell was this done? I viewed one of the opinions on the amv and read how the change in resolution had something to do with it. But I didn't quite understand it. (I tried changing the resolution myself on some of my AC footage, but it did not appear to improve a thing.)

So can someone help me out? Is this something I should do during the export process in premiere, or is this something I should do using Vdub and avisynth?

YouTube · Post by **Kionon** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 12:35 am

You're looking at post-processing if you've already started editing, which is indeed done via avisynth and VdubMod. Although there are filters you can apply in premiere, you should probably have pre-processed. If you haven't started editing, then pre-process with avisynth and VdubMod.

Do you have the most recent parts of AMVapp?

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:16 am

^^great. THIS is the stuff I need to know about. =)

You asked if I had the most recent parts of AMVapp. The answer is no. In fact, I don't even know what AMVapp is. Care to enlighten me? Post-processing my footage is something I don't really do. If you could go into extra detail on this or perhaps point me to an faq that could explain what I have to do, I'd really appreciate it.

Btw, I have already started working on the amv but would it be possible to make the changes to the original sources and have premiere simply substitute the old footage for the new? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, but I'd like to make sure.

YouTube · Post by **Kionon** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:21 am

I'd suggest you read my thread Here. This will tell you where to get AMVapp, what comes in it, and what to do with each program. You can consult the other included guides for more details.

Also, see the thread I just started on Post-Processing for an example of what I've been able to do.

As for replacing the footage, yes, you absolutely should be able to do that. Just be careful that your framerates match. If you haven't gotten very far, I'd suggest starting over. It's worth it.

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:27 am

Thank you very much Kionon for the quick and informative replies. I really appreciate it.

YouTube · Post by **Kionon** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:30 am

sayde wrote:Thank you very much Kionon for the quick and informative replies. I really appreciate it.

Oh, no, thank you for asking the right questions and forming an intelligent response. I'm afraid that's rather rare these days. |:

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:48 am

I looked at the thread you directed me too and I seemed to already have obtained many of the programs that come in AMVapp. (But I still downloaded it anyways just to obtain some of the plug-ins I know I must've been missing.

) Thanks for that.

anyways, now that that's over with, I guess I'll go try and find out what commands I need to use with avi synth to get started. I also took a brief look at your new post-processing thread and the comparison pic you posted looks great. It's exactly what I'm aiming for. But I didn't see an explaination on exactly how to use avisynth and vdubmod to do that. This is what I need help with. When it comes to using avisynth...well...lets just say that command based programs aren't my strong points. =P

*goes off to look for avisynth faq's*

YouTube · Post by **Kionon** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:08 am

Absolutely Destiny's thread is the best to start with. And my Post-Processing thread was really to open my horizon about OTHER programs (especially mac). Had I known you required more detail before I made the thread, I would have included what exactly I did.

For pre-processing of the DVD footage, you'll want to use IVTC to get rid of interlacing and deen to temporally smooth. You'll use MPEG-2 source indexed by DGIndex with your avs scripts. Then you can drop those into VirtualDubMod, and choose your filters, such as cropping, HSV, sharpening, further deinterlacing or temporally smoothing... All sorts of fun stuff.

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:22 am

Just out of curiosity, which filters in particular did you use to produce the higher quality version in that comparison pic? I'm most curious to know which filters are generally used to produce a brighter, clearer, picture. For example, I'm not sure what HSV is, but sharpening on the other hand seems like one filter I'd definatelty use.

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:33 am

Just thought I'd let you know that I seem to have found the info I was looking for in Absolute Destiny's how-to guide in the "Improving visual quality and compressibility" section. Funny how even though I've looked at that guide countless amounts of times, I've always looked over it that particular section. *slaps self in the head*

Once again, thanks for all your help.