Vegas upsampling at DVinfo.net

Simon Wyndham · January 14th, 2005, 08:01 PM

Just been messing around with Vegas after my unsuccessful attempts to get anything sensible out of the Algolith people. Spot was right, they are as awkward as they come! Spot, if you read this, even if they had given you a review copy it wouldn't have worked unless you had an ethernet card! I tried to get the demo because the exchange rate between the US and UK is so good at the moment. But they get you to download another program first to run on the computer you will be installing to. This gives you a number which you enter on their website, which generates a code that you use to install the plugin itself with.

Fine and dandy. Nooooooo. You have to have an thernet card installed into the computer, even if it's not actually connected to anything to generate a keycode! I know they want to protect their rights, but they expect people to PAY for a demo, and then expect you to buy an ehternet card too! I don't have any use for one of those!

Anyway on with the point of this post, which in actual fact is rather small compared to the paragraphs above. I decided to see how good Vegas uprezzing is.

I'm forgetting all thoughts about uprezzing to 1080. There's no point. 720p is on the list of standards, so I thought I'd try it with an existing project on some well lit footage. I was amazed. Course I have no idea what it looks like on an HD monitor, but it looked goof from where I was. On the Best setting lines seemed to be very fine rather than over smoothed as per most scalers. The Good setting was also pretty nice, with the added advantage that on my machine it still played back the full size preview in realtime with another instance of Vegas running in the background rendering Magic Bulleted footage!

Now all we need is a Vegas equivilent of Graeme Nattress to make a proper chroma upsampler too to make the scaling even better (or even port his new uprezzer :-))

The chroma is a problem with the upconverting. I've tried applying the chroma blur filter to the footage, but Vegas seems to scale the image and then apply the filter, and it doesn't seem to be having the effect it normally has.

Simon Wyndham · January 14th, 2005, 08:14 PM

Been looking some more. Very strange. I'm working with PAL 16:9 anamorphic footage. In a full size preview at SD resolution because the picture is unsqueezed horizontally sometimes lines, on a monitor but not on a normal 16:9 TV set, look slightly blocky.

But uprezzing using Vegas to 1280x720 actually improves the picture rather than degrading it! The lines that were blocky are now totally smooth, but not so smooth that they look soft (using the Best setting). Hmm. Shame I haven't actually got a use for it or a HD monitor to look at it on to see what it *really* looks like,

Brian Mitchell Warshawsky · January 15th, 2005, 04:38 PM

Simon,

Have you looked into PhotoZoom Pro (formerly S-Spline Pro)?

If so, how does Algolith compare?

During the good old days of the JVC HDV vs. DVX100 topic, Barry Green posted footage of the same events, shot with each camera.

Originally Vegas was used to up-rez the DVX footage to compare all the footage on an equal plane (or equal resolution). Vegas did not appear to handle this well.

Later, a demo of S-Spline Pro (w/watermark) was used to up-rez the DVX footage and the result was VERY interesting.

FWIW, I eventually picked up a DVX100.

Brian

Simon Wyndham · January 15th, 2005, 05:18 PM

Interesting. I'll look that one up, thanks.

In the end I wasn't able to get Algolith. It's next to impossible to buy anything off them. I don't believe that they actually want customers!

They told me about how they need a hefty copyright scheme to protect their software. But to be honest I think they are losing more money through their blinkered way of selling their product than they ever will through piracy!

I will be expecially interested to see DV uprezzing when a really good chroma upsampler has been applied first such as the one from Digital Filmtools.

Brian Mitchell Warshawsky · January 15th, 2005, 05:52 PM

I was told some time back from DFT that they had no interest in supporting Vegas.

Their 55mm filters would be ideal for Vegas.

Brian

Simon Wyndham · January 15th, 2005, 06:28 PM

Yes, DFT have no interest in Vegas. In actual fact when I contacted them about the possibility they were actually very curt, bordering on rude!

Hmm. Seems to be a running theme here with some companies!

The reply I got from them was along the lines of "if they want plugin support they should damn well use the <insert interface standard name here> like everybody else!"

Vegas does have a chroma smoother, but it's not the same as the de-artefacter of DFT, although it still seems to do a very nice job.

Brian Mitchell Warshawsky · January 15th, 2005, 11:52 PM

Simon,

Have you tried the Zenote plugins? I seem to recall a post stating that these were based on Big FX technology.

They now have a deartifact plugin:

http://www.zenote.com/product/deartifact.asp

Not sure how this works, but the site offers a free demo - and its all for Vegas!

Brian

One more thing: Your DFT experience mirrors my own interactions with them. Too bad, Vegas is so powerful for natively recreating "looks" available only on other platforms!

Simon Wyndham · January 17th, 2005, 10:36 AM

Ths Gods ARE listening after all!

I just tried the Zenote demo and it seems to perform just as well as the DFT one, yet only costs $30. Nice. Thanks for heads up on that one!

Brian Mitchell Warshawsky · January 17th, 2005, 04:57 PM

That's what we're here for.

What exactly does this plugin do?

Brian

Simon Wyndham · January 17th, 2005, 05:15 PM

Well, as you know DV samples colour at a much lower resolution than, say, Digibeta. The result (this differs between NTSC and PAL I believe), is that some colours can look very raggedy.

For example, if you shoot a bright red car, or some red roses, and then look at the colour graduation you will see that it looks very blocky. The same goes for a woman with bright red lipstick. Other colours aren't affected, and on a normal TV while the picture is in motion you won't really notice it. However on a much sharper monitor you will.

And so the deartefacter and the chroma blur plugins come into effect. They reconstruct, or upsample, the chomra data, or smooth it over.

Of course this makes not one iota of difference if your final output is to MiniDV. But to other less compressed formats it would make a difference (especially if you were making something for TV and they wanted it on a digi master).

Having said that, some people have said that they do improve the picture even when output again to DV25.

Brian Mitchell Warshawsky · January 19th, 2005, 07:44 PM

Simon,

There is a virtualdub filter which may deserve further scrutiny (see Below). Does this do the same thing?

Brian

(from Shareware Island):

Name: Video MSU Deblocking VirtualDub plugin - 1.2

Description: Filter is intended for recovering quality of video ripped from DVD (for exmaple, when it contains 4 hours of video data), VideoCD or after decompressing by H.261, H.263, DivX 3, DivX 4, XviD. Filter automatically determines the blockiness's strength on the frame and in the concrete part of it, preserving the maximum of details. Thus, filter will process marginally when on scenes with slow motion, while it will smooth very hard in the case of fast motion in the same film. The main advantige of the filter is that it raise the integral quality in the most widespread PSNR metric in comparison with original film. That is, a film after decompression in comparison with original achieves the lower quality than a film after decompression and deblocking. (But for all that the original film is not used nowise, only decompressed data is used.)

Anmol Mishra · April 3rd, 2008, 08:39 AM

Just wondering if anyone here has a Algosuite license that may be for sale..Or even an expired 14-day trial license with the software..Algolith has stopped selling the software..

Perrone Ford · April 3rd, 2008, 09:27 AM

Would anyone have a step by step on how to do the supersampling? I've been trying to find one for a while, but haven't found one. I know you have to display the video bus, but how do you do that?

January 14th, 2005, 08:01 PM	#1
Simon Wyndham Trustee Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Malvern UK Posts: 1,931	Vegas upsampling Just been messing around with Vegas after my unsuccessful attempts to get anything sensible out of the Algolith people. Spot was right, they are as awkward as they come! Spot, if you read this, even if they had given you a review copy it wouldn't have worked unless you had an ethernet card! I tried to get the demo because the exchange rate between the US and UK is so good at the moment. But they get you to download another program first to run on the computer you will be installing to. This gives you a number which you enter on their website, which generates a code that you use to install the plugin itself with. Fine and dandy. Nooooooo. You have to have an thernet card installed into the computer, even if it's not actually connected to anything to generate a keycode! I know they want to protect their rights, but they expect people to PAY for a demo, and then expect you to buy an ehternet card too! I don't have any use for one of those! Anyway on with the point of this post, which in actual fact is rather small compared to the paragraphs above. I decided to see how good Vegas uprezzing is. I'm forgetting all thoughts about uprezzing to 1080. There's no point. 720p is on the list of standards, so I thought I'd try it with an existing project on some well lit footage. I was amazed. Course I have no idea what it looks like on an HD monitor, but it looked goof from where I was. On the Best setting lines seemed to be very fine rather than over smoothed as per most scalers. The Good setting was also pretty nice, with the added advantage that on my machine it still played back the full size preview in realtime with another instance of Vegas running in the background rendering Magic Bulleted footage! Now all we need is a Vegas equivilent of Graeme Nattress to make a proper chroma upsampler too to make the scaling even better (or even port his new uprezzer :-)) The chroma is a problem with the upconverting. I've tried applying the chroma blur filter to the footage, but Vegas seems to scale the image and then apply the filter, and it doesn't seem to be having the effect it normally has.

January 15th, 2005, 04:38 PM	#3
Brian Mitchell Warshawsky Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Bay Area Posts: 216	S-Spline Pro? Simon, Have you looked into PhotoZoom Pro (formerly S-Spline Pro)? If so, how does Algolith compare? During the good old days of the JVC HDV vs. DVX100 topic, Barry Green posted footage of the same events, shot with each camera. Originally Vegas was used to up-rez the DVX footage to compare all the footage on an equal plane (or equal resolution). Vegas did not appear to handle this well. Later, a demo of S-Spline Pro (w/watermark) was used to up-rez the DVX footage and the result was VERY interesting. FWIW, I eventually picked up a DVX100. Brian

April 3rd, 2008, 08:39 AM	#12
Anmol Mishra Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 401	Algolith Algosuite Just wondering if anyone here has a Algosuite license that may be for sale..Or even an expired 14-day trial license with the software..Algolith has stopped selling the software..

January 14th, 2005, 08:14 PM	#2
Simon Wyndham Trustee Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Malvern UK Posts: 1,931	Been looking some more. Very strange. I'm working with PAL 16:9 anamorphic footage. In a full size preview at SD resolution because the picture is unsqueezed horizontally sometimes lines, on a monitor but not on a normal 16:9 TV set, look slightly blocky. But uprezzing using Vegas to 1280x720 actually improves the picture rather than degrading it! The lines that were blocky are now totally smooth, but not so smooth that they look soft (using the Best setting). Hmm. Shame I haven't actually got a use for it or a HD monitor to look at it on to see what it really looks like,

January 15th, 2005, 05:18 PM	#4
Simon Wyndham Trustee Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Malvern UK Posts: 1,931	Interesting. I'll look that one up, thanks. In the end I wasn't able to get Algolith. It's next to impossible to buy anything off them. I don't believe that they actually want customers! They told me about how they need a hefty copyright scheme to protect their software. But to be honest I think they are losing more money through their blinkered way of selling their product than they ever will through piracy! I will be expecially interested to see DV uprezzing when a really good chroma upsampler has been applied first such as the one from Digital Filmtools.

January 15th, 2005, 05:52 PM	#5
Brian Mitchell Warshawsky Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Bay Area Posts: 216	I was told some time back from DFT that they had no interest in supporting Vegas. Their 55mm filters would be ideal for Vegas. Brian

January 15th, 2005, 06:28 PM	#6
Simon Wyndham Trustee Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Malvern UK Posts: 1,931	Yes, DFT have no interest in Vegas. In actual fact when I contacted them about the possibility they were actually very curt, bordering on rude! Hmm. Seems to be a running theme here with some companies! The reply I got from them was along the lines of "if they want plugin support they should damn well use the <insert interface standard name here> like everybody else!" Vegas does have a chroma smoother, but it's not the same as the de-artefacter of DFT, although it still seems to do a very nice job.

January 15th, 2005, 11:52 PM	#7
Brian Mitchell Warshawsky Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Bay Area Posts: 216	Simon, Have you tried the Zenote plugins? I seem to recall a post stating that these were based on Big FX technology. They now have a deartifact plugin: http://www.zenote.com/product/deartifact.asp Not sure how this works, but the site offers a free demo - and its all for Vegas! Brian One more thing: Your DFT experience mirrors my own interactions with them. Too bad, Vegas is so powerful for natively recreating "looks" available only on other platforms!

January 17th, 2005, 10:36 AM	#8
Simon Wyndham Trustee Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Malvern UK Posts: 1,931	Ths Gods ARE listening after all! I just tried the Zenote demo and it seems to perform just as well as the DFT one, yet only costs $30. Nice. Thanks for heads up on that one!

January 17th, 2005, 04:57 PM	#9
Brian Mitchell Warshawsky Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Bay Area Posts: 216	That's what we're here for. What exactly does this plugin do? Brian

January 17th, 2005, 05:15 PM	#10
Simon Wyndham Trustee Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Malvern UK Posts: 1,931	Well, as you know DV samples colour at a much lower resolution than, say, Digibeta. The result (this differs between NTSC and PAL I believe), is that some colours can look very raggedy. For example, if you shoot a bright red car, or some red roses, and then look at the colour graduation you will see that it looks very blocky. The same goes for a woman with bright red lipstick. Other colours aren't affected, and on a normal TV while the picture is in motion you won't really notice it. However on a much sharper monitor you will. And so the deartefacter and the chroma blur plugins come into effect. They reconstruct, or upsample, the chomra data, or smooth it over. Of course this makes not one iota of difference if your final output is to MiniDV. But to other less compressed formats it would make a difference (especially if you were making something for TV and they wanted it on a digi master). Having said that, some people have said that they do improve the picture even when output again to DV25.

January 19th, 2005, 07:44 PM	#11
Brian Mitchell Warshawsky Major Player Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Bay Area Posts: 216	Simon, There is a virtualdub filter which may deserve further scrutiny (see Below). Does this do the same thing? Brian (from Shareware Island): Name: Video MSU Deblocking VirtualDub plugin - 1.2 Description: Filter is intended for recovering quality of video ripped from DVD (for exmaple, when it contains 4 hours of video data), VideoCD or after decompressing by H.261, H.263, DivX 3, DivX 4, XviD. Filter automatically determines the blockiness's strength on the frame and in the concrete part of it, preserving the maximum of details. Thus, filter will process marginally when on scenes with slow motion, while it will smooth very hard in the case of fast motion in the same film. The main advantige of the filter is that it raise the integral quality in the most widespread PSNR metric in comparison with original film. That is, a film after decompression in comparison with original achieves the lower quality than a film after decompression and deblocking. (But for all that the original film is not used nowise, only decompressed data is used.)

April 3rd, 2008, 09:27 AM	#13
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	Would anyone have a step by step on how to do the supersampling? I've been trying to find one for a while, but haven't found one. I know you have to display the video bus, but how do you do that?