Automated DV Uprezzing

[Rob Hester]

Does anyone have any solutions to contribute? I am sure the keeners around here have seen the s-pline pro footage...wow

but, even if I was going to purchase it, the program needs frames and thats just unrealistic even for 5mins of video...unless we can find some way to automate the process

i guess it would be a good time to ask anyone found any alternatives as well?

thanks for your time,
Rob

[Brandt Wilson]

Hi Rob,

S-Spline has an option to batch process any number of frames. Essentially, you export your timeline as an image sequence compatible with s-spline, then run s-spline against that image sequence into a new directory.

Re-import the newly uprezzed images into your NLE as an image sequence and render a new movie file.

If you have the drive space, i would avoid using any compression on both passes.

I tested the process on a demo copy at work...I can't do batch processing using the demo, but a frame took about 7 seconds to rez up to HD resolution. Including opening and saving the image, take that up to maybe 11 seconds per frame. Might be faster.

So 11 secs per frame x 30 fps x 60 seconds x 5 mins is, what, 5.5 hours? Did I do that math correctly? So run the batches overnight.

[Barry Green]

S-Spline doesn't batch process, but S-Spline Pro does.

They're also going to be coming out with a video processing program that will likely do exactly what you want.

[Rob Lohman]

With TARGA and TIFF files you can use non-destructive compression
if both sides support it. Smaller files without quality loss. Might
help if uncompressed is a bit too much.

[Brandt Wilson]

Barry, you're right, that distinction would make a big difference when someone went to buy the software.

Rob, I couldn't find any information on what their intention for video processing would be. Did they give you a timeline?

Also, the following link was provided in an uprez post in the MX list:
http://www.aequantum.com/kiddo.htm

I find the bulk of uprezzed images to increase dramatically in contrast and video sharpness, as in the sharpness that we all try to turn down on their cameras.

Has anyone found a method for smoothing this abberation without running a destructive gaussian blur on the image?

Another possibility is Fred Miranda's Stair Interpolation Pro, which runs $20. I haven't tried it, but it might be worth a look.
http://www.fredmiranda.com/shopping/SIpro

[Rob Hester]

that other one looked interesting too...i was hoping there would be some sort of video-friendly program for this sort of thing though

what about virtualdub? any plugins like this? there are tons....i myself havn't come across any...but even still, is this sort of thing tough to program? probably :S

thanks again
Rob

[Andreas Fernbrant]

I tried it out, running it with the B-Spline option. (The S-Spline gave to much sharpness) It works better on some particular images.

I uppresed the video to 1880 and run it back down to PAL. (720)
and I could not see any diffrence between the native and the upprezzed material downconverted again.

I thought perhaps I could give my video a little more fake detail by doing this, but there was no diffrence..

Good Idea if it would work though...

[Frank Ladner]

Andreas: I have ran some tests on frames in Photoshop, using the technique of small increment bicubic interpolation. While the uprezzed frame looks good, after sizing it back down to 720x480, I can see no real difference between it and the original.

However, it does have advantages. Run your grain filters or sharpeners (assuming the footage was captured without electronic sharpening to begin with) on the big footage and then drop it back down in size. This would look better than just running the filters on the 720x480 frame.

The guys that transfer DV to film are bound to be using some sort of interpolation process similar to what we're talking about.

Anyone know?


,Frank

[Federico Prieto]

Here is a new plug-in for After Effects and Digital Fusion:

http://www.algolith.com/products/algorithms/CAS/

Content Adaptive Scaling (CAS)

Description:

An autonomous and high quality Image Content Adaptive UP/Down Scaling (CAS) is proposed for any image scaling or pixel sampling rate conversion. Algolith's CAS is designed with emphasis for giving natural picture sharpness, minimal edge ringing and self-adjustment of filter coefficients for an arbitrary given Up and Down ratio.

[Rob Lohman]

Frederico: thanks for posting, but I chopped the main part of
since anyone can read it at the site you gave. It's also usually
not allowed to just copy whole pieces. A snippet to get people
interested is ok and if they want more information they can
follow the link.

[Graeme Nattress]

I'm working on a DV <-> SD <-> HD up/down-sampler (with intelligent chroma upsampling for DV sources). What do you like / dislike about S-Spline? What features should be in my program. Bare in mind I probably won't have anything ready till the end of the year - I'm still in early development.

Graeme

[Rob Hester]

the ability to adjust sharpness, and just geared towards video...avi output instead of having to externally convert to bmp and then back again

I am very excited to hear this! Keep up the good work!!
Rob

[Graeme Nattress]

I'm a mac developer, so at the moment it's written in Cocoa, Quicktime, C, and OpenGL. If the results are good I'll get it ported to a PC platform.

At the moment, I'm working on still frame tiffs to test out the algorithms, but the finished product will be totally geared towards video. I already have a great de-interlacer and DV de-artifacter (intelligent chroma upsampler) as part of my filters for FCP, so I'll but improving on these for inclusion into the new stand-alone application. I'm also looking at sharpening (again, a new algorithm) and noise reduction.

I'll try and keep people informed of progress and show some test frames when I'm ready....

Graeme

[Brandt Wilson]

As usual, you are working on something that is on everyone's minds.

My view on S-Spline is that it overly sharpens the image when it is resized. In my earlier post in this thread, I linked to two images of a cat that someone had done, and the resized image looked much sharper. Looks like the contrast is boosted and whites are blown out a bit. A caveat in the caption says that it was compressed for the web, but I wouldn't expect that to affect contrast in the way that it does.

I think a colorspace conversion is a good idea for this resize as well.

[Graeme Nattress]

At the moment, I'm not adding sharpening - this method doesn't need it! But I'll want to add it as an option. Also, I'm not effecting the colour balance at all - it remains neutral, but again, I could put in full RGB curves if that's needed....

Graeme