[trygve]

I'm trying to put together some promotional material for several movies and am faced with a lack of usable publicity shots from the production companies (e.g., the director got a pile of closeup shots of himself with the camera, but nothing else). It's not practical to get access to any of the film prints or negatives in time, so I'm left with trying to work with video captures. (grump, grump.)


So, my question is whether I can use some of the software (or hardware, even) for scaling/processing standard-definition video for getting better quality stills--with deinterlacing, motion compensation, noise reduction, etc.--and what would be the best way to go about it.


I've tried installing dscaler, but its "save still image" function captures a 720x480 picture, and using Irfanview to do a screen-capture at a higher resolution merely saves a blank image.


Anyone have some brilliant suggestions out there? I've got a few magazine and poster deadlines in just over a week, so I'm a little pressed for time on this project. If it's relevant, I'm working with source material off DVD, MiniDV, and BetaSP; I don't currently have any high-def input cards (but I'm sure I could get one if needed) and the only hardware scaler I've got on hand is a several-year-old Focus Quadscan. Software-wise I've got Premiere 6.5, Photoshop 7, and though I have Avid Express DV, I haven't finished building the computer for it yet.

 

[TaylorMaC692]

Just a little offtopic, but are you violatiing any intellectual property rights in doing what you speak of? Just want to make sure you don't get into trouble over using someone else's protected content.

 

[trygve]

To the best of my knowlege, I'm not violating any intellectual property rights. I do very carefully screen all movies specifically for trademark and copyright issues before I represent them and verify with the production company (or other rightsholder(s)) that they have all the necessary and appropriate clearances. Even in the event that an intellectual property issue does arise, I would be indemnified by the production company (or other rightsholder(s)).


That's a good question, though. I've had to turn down a lot of movies that were submitted because of trademark and copyright issues. Sometimes the production company has been able to obtain the necessary clearances after-the-fact (though it's always more difficult to do so; whereas, if you do so ahead of time, it's "product placement" and you can get money, free products, and (occasionally) additional promotion for it), or they've had to re-edit or even re-shoot the relevant portions of the film. In most cases, it's fixable, but having to do so adds substantially to the production expense and delays the release schedule.

 

[wjchan]

try http://www.redhawkvision.com/

 

[trygve]

Thanks! I've been giving the demo version a try and it's got some weird quirks, essentially no documentation, and I haven't had results quite as good as they have in their sample gallery so far, but I'll keep trying.


One immediate problem is that they don't ship their orders for a week (and I have a magazine ad and a promotional poster I need to have finished in ten days) and the demo version watermarks the image (no surprise).


Anybody have any other suggestions for what I should try while I'm experimenting with this and determining whether to plunk down $379 for it?

 

[trbarry]

One way is to rip the DVD's and use Virtualdub with Avisynth filters to step through IVTC'd and resized frames one at a time copying those you need to the clipboard and pasting into Irfanview.


For most DVD's you could use Decomb and LanczosResize to get what you want. See the DVD ripping guides at www.doom9.net for how to do all that with freely downloadable tools. There is also a DVD Ripping 101 guide here in this forum if you search.


I used a similar method for this image .


- Tom

 

[wjchan]

Quote:

Originally posted by trygve Thanks! I've been giving the demo version a try and it's got some weird quirks, essentially no documentation, and I haven't had results quite as good as they have in their sample gallery so far, but I'll keep trying.

They have an online help doc on their site, I believe.


--wilson

 

[trygve]

Quote:

Originally posted by trbarry One way is to rip the DVD's and use Virtualdub with Avisynth filters to step through IVTC'd and resized frames one at a time copying those you need to the clipboard and pasting into Irfanview. For most DVD's you could use Decomb and LanczosResize to get what you want. See the DVD ripping guides at doom9.net for how to do all that with freely downloadable tools. There is also a DVD Ripping 101 guide here in this forum if you search. - Tom

Whew! Took me a little while to get all that working (being a complete newbie at all this), but so far in side-by-side comparisons between Decomb/LanczosResize and the RedHawk demo software, the Decomb/Lanczos results have looked better. Many thanks!


So far my test material has all been originally shot on film, but I still have some family-oriented products that were shot on an XL1 and one that was done on the 24p AG-DVX100 (Panasonic liked the quality enough of this film that they're doing press releases about it, which won't hurt my marketing efforts at all). (No HD product that managed to get their deliverables done in time, unfortunately.) So I have a few variables in the type of interlacing that's in the source materials.


Any experience with any of the other deinterlacers, filters, settings, or other tweaks that might give even better results? (I haven't gotten anything yet that looks nearly as clean as your example above.)

 

[trbarry]

For video source substitute TomsMoComp(-1,5,1) for Decomb.


You might also try UnDot() for filtering stray pixels (ringing, mosquito noise) and UnFilter(?,?) for soften/sharpen.


All are available in my downloads section, along with a bunch of others.


If you are feeling adventurous, www.avisynth.org has a zillion filters listed.


- Tom