New Sharpening Function from Didée -'SeeSaw'

[Dark Alchemist]

Didee:

orig = DirectShowSource("yyy.mpg")
x = mcnr_simple2(orig,frames=3,thY=24,thC=20,thY2=-1,thC2=-1,removdirt=true,LPrad=2.0,LPlosens=1,LPhisens=5)
SeeSaw(orig,denoised=x,NRlimit=15,bias=32,Smode=11,Szp=25,Sdamp=20,sootheT=-49,sootheS=86)

The error I get

That is telling me something is borked so I was asking where I would find SCSelect to satisify it.

[Didée]

@ anton_foy

"Do you think tomorrow it will rain?"

I'm sure as anything that it'll rain tomorrow ... *where* it will rain, that's the question.

(Sorry, but you asked the "better" question )


The biggest strenght of LimitedSharpen - the limiting - is also a shortcoming: it prevents enhancement of detail beyond the local [min,max] range. (But Lmode=3 breaks that rule.)

SeeSaw aims at sharpening beyond the local extrama, to achieve more detail enhancement. In exchange, the limiting method used in SeeSaw is more likely to fail if the original source already shows haloing, may it be even so slight.
(However there's a commented line in the script that might help for that )


@ Dark Alchemist

SCSelect does not occur in my scripts, neither SeeSaw nor MCNR_simple. I don't even know what it is (edit: it is part of RemoveGrain - post link)
Do a search where in any of the involved scripts this SCSelect function is called, and figure why. If it's not needed, deactivate it.

[Dark Alchemist]

I did Didee on the two scripts but maybe one of them is calling other scripts? I never got that until I tried the scripts for this. I did a search and no SCSelect in either so I wonder where that thing could be at? Hmmmmm.

edit: Really weird. I removed my entire plugins folder and restarted avsynth editor and still I get that error using this. You would think I would get an error about missing plugins instead.

edit #2: I just uninstalled and reinstalled 2.5.6 so now to see what is going on.


On a fresh install only adding the two packages that this requires I get "mvanalyze function can't be found". So, I added the mvtools package and it wants the removedirt package.

So, I added the removedirt.avsi and POW SCSelect.

function RemoveDirt(clip input, bool "_grey", int "repmode") 
{
    _grey=default(_grey, false)
	repmode=default(repmode, 16)
	clmode=17
	clensed=Clense(input, grey=_grey, cache=4)
	sbegin = ForwardClense(input, grey=_grey, cache=-1)
	send = BackwardClense(input, grey=_grey, cache=-1)
	alt=Repair(SCSelect(input, sbegin, send, clensed, debug=true), input, mode=repmode, modeU = _grey ? -1 : repmode ) 
	restore=Repair(clensed, input, mode=repmode, modeU = _grey ? -1 : repmode)
	corrected=RestoreMotionBlocks(clensed, restore, neighbour=input, alternative=alt, gmthreshold=70, dist=1, dmode=2, debug=false, noise=10, noisy=12, grey=_grey)
	return RemoveGrain(corrected, mode=clmode, modeU = _grey ? -1 : clmode )
}

[JoeBG]

@ Didée

As a member from german doom9 and as a member from movie2digital I opened a german discusiion about this topic http://technik.movie2digital.de/thre...020#post304020

[Dark Alchemist]

Well, it is now safe to say that the new removedirt was the problem. When I went back to the old dll way (the author no longer does it the dll way) SeeSaw works.

Thanks again everyone.

[Didée]

Yeee, now I see it, too. You used the (new) scripted version of RemoveDirt for usage within MCNR_simple, and that one obviously requires SCSelect(). Looking at the function's header of MCNR_simple, you see that it expects the (old) DLL version. (The new one might work just as well, but I never tested that.)
Sidenote: In MCNR_simple, "removdirt=true" is meant for sources with rather strong noise/grain/dirt. For the average DVD or DVB rip, "removdirt=false" should suffice.


@ JoeBG

It's really nice that you introduce my scripts to folks on other German forums, too, which is a big help for those who are not familiar with the English language. Thank you for that.

[rant]
However I *did* see all that babbling and whining "Didée is an abnigator at explaining & even he himself admits that" Alas, I have to disappoint you - in single letters: b.u.l.l.s.h.i.t! Like it or not, but what I'm hearing rather frequently is, in contrary, "man, you should have become a teacher" ... but then, in every class there are some pupils where the teacher stands without a chance -- at least not without loosing sight of those pupils learning at normal speed. That's why things like private lessions have been invented.
So, please do not misinterpret my lack of time for private lessons as inability of explaining... In elementary school, a teacher has to assure all pupils can follow. At university, it's the teacher who is setting the pace, and it's up to the student to somehow follow him.

Mind you, I visited both institutions - so this was a description out of practice. Welcome to the real world.
[/rant]

[Dark Alchemist]

Didee, yep. I could not find the dll version until today so it works but the original author says the new scripted version is better than the dll version so I wonder if all of this should be upgraded to work with the new way?

It is now considered deprecated and was already hard for me to find the old dll so maybe soon the dll will just go poof.

[psme]

Thanks Didée again for the new toys! I just tried this:

a = last

b=a.SPresso()

SeeSaw(a,b, NRlimit=6, NRlimit2=7, Sstr=1.5, Slimit=5, Spower=5, SdampLo=6, Szp=16)

Setup:
WinXP Pro, P4 506, non-HT, 2.66G overclocked to 3.8G (190x20), 1G DDR380 ram, ATI Radeon 9500, ZoomPlayer 4.x, DScaler5 decoder, FFDShow, Avisynth 2.56.

For real-time DVD playback, I think I have around 80% framerate on good flag 24fps film source.

Consider with only decent to great DVD source, is there anyway to slightly speed up the process to get full real-time framerate?

Btw, the stuttering playback already looks great!

regards,

Li On

[Pookie]

RemoveGrain can be loaded with optimized Dlls depending on your Processor. Download CPU-Z from http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php On the first page it will tell you if you have SSE, SSE2, and/or SSE3 capabilities. If you do, then load

RemoveGrainSSE2 or RemoveGrainSSE3 instead of RemoveGrain in your script. Doing this should significantly increase performance. I suspect your system supports SSE2 or better.

Another option is just to use

b=a.RemoveGrain(mode=11) for a smooth looking image or (mode=25) for a sharp looking one. Also try DegrainMedian(mode=2) - very fast and it renders a really nice image in SeeSaw.

[Dark Alchemist]

I noticed on the SeeSaw-3d-CGX.avi clip that the colors are off and/or the saturation needs to be turned backed up a little as some of the chars started to turn white.

[Pookie]

Dark - Try it with a different denoiser and see if the colors change.

[dbzgundam]

Hmm, seems to work well for me! While I don't think the filter is great as a sharpener on its own, I certainly like to use it to preserve or restore sharpness in video that I lose in filtering.

The best results I could gather was that on live action it works best if sharpened first, and then filtered; on animation it seems better to filter first, and then restore that subliminal sharpness with SeeSaw (Anyone here who encodes anime will probably know that though it's not significant, there is a VERY small loss of sharpness after filtering and warpsharping isn't exactly the best way to get it back!). Thanks a lot, Didée!

[Dark Alchemist]

Originally Posted by Pookie

You bet. As a 'detail enhancer', the SeeSaw function seems well suited for clarifying already decent looking video. A friend who saw the examples likened it to "putting the fuzz back on the peach". So, a blocky source is going to look like a pronounced blocky target. Here are the settings I used on the above examples:

a = last

b=a.degrainmedian(mode=2).VagueDenoiser(threshold=0.8, method=1, nsteps=6, chromaT=0.8)

SeeSaw(a,b, NRlimit=6, NRlimit2=7, Sstr=1.5, Slimit=5, Spower=5, Sdamp=6, Szp=16)


Here's an example of a noisier source, using FFT3Dfilter in place of DegrainMedian and VagueDenoiser. This one has been pushed to demonstrate the effect. There's a huge amount of chroma cleaning/stripping applied (look at the eyes), but the target looks clean and sharp.

ftp://tempclips%40avisynth%2Eorg:QfJ...Saw-3d-CGX.avi

This is the one I noticed the horrible color shifting/fading in and the one I posted the difference with.

So you say use something different than your example here? I like how sharp everything is but I wish I could figure out how to save the color/chroma values.

[Didée]

@ Dark Alchemist
You don't need to figure out anything. SeeSaw just takes the chroma from the "denoised" clip for the output. It doesn't do any own processing of chroma (except for limiting the difference [original-denoised] to not go beyond NRlimit).
So:
If the "denoised" clip has intact chroma, so will have the output.
If the "denoised" clip has overprocessed chroma, so will have the output.

Easy as that.


@ psme
Some minor speedups could be possible, but surely nothing that will lift you from 80% RT to 100% RT (perhaps 85%, estimated). Plus I don't worry too much about "realtime" processing generally. If user's CPU cuts it, fine. If not, user has to get a more beefy CPU ...
Also don't forget that sharpen(1) runs very fast

[Dark Alchemist]

Fair enough but why did that clip have the washed out and faded colors? I tried a simple saturation addition but that wasn't quite right.

[XadoX]

can SeeSaw also resize like LimitedSharpen?

[Pookie]

I think the color difference is due to my use of FFT3dFilter(plane=3), which cleans luma AND chroma.



If you use a filter that cleans only luma, or back off on the chroma cleaning strength, I suspect you won't see the color change on the target. At least I'm guessing that's the case. Here's FFT3DFilter Using Plane=0 (clean luma only).

[DeepDVD]

I played around with additional sharpening with LimitedSharpenFaster and got strange broken lines on picture parts with fast keychange:



My Script:

a=last
b=mcnr_simple2(frames=3,thY=24,thC=20,thY2=-1,thC2=-1,removdirt=true,LPrad=2.0,LPlosens=1,LPhisens=5).LimitedSharpenFaster(ss_x=2.5,ss_y=2.5,strength=100,smode=4)
SeeSaw(a,b,NRlimit=17,bias=18,Smode=11,Szp=18,SdampLo=20)

It doesn't matter if I put LSF before, in, or behind SeeSaw. The lines are always the same. The Source is DVD.

[Pookie]

What happens when you take MCNR out of the picture ? Dunno if that's the issue, but I don't seem to get the dotted lines, as noted below.

[DeepDVD]

It's strange. I tried every combination. LSF in the SeeSaw-function (any place there), extern (before and after the function). With or without MCNR, with FFT3 as an other denoiser. The only thing that change, is the color of the broken lines. Sometimes they are white (as in the sample on upper place), sometimes they are black. To get rid of 'em I have to disable LSF, no other way to solve for now. Maybe I got a wrong script? It's allways in scenes the whole picture moves.

Here's my whole one:

LoadPlugIn("F:\Functions\mt_masktools.dll")
LoadPlugIn("F:\fft3dfilter.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\aWarpsharp.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\asharp.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\SSETools.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\RemoveGrainS.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\RepairS.dll")
LoadPlugIn("F:\Functions\MVTools.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\GordianKnot\DGMPGDec\dgdecode.dll")
LoadPlugIn("F:\Functions\RemoveDirt\RemoveDirt.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\AviSynth 2.5\plugin\MaskTools155.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\undot.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\deen.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\unfilter.dll")
LoadPlugIn("C:\Programme\Avisynth 2.5\Plugin\warpsharp.dll")
LoadPlugIn("F:\Functions\LimitedSupport_03Dec05.dll")
Mpeg2Source("F:\VIDEO_TS\test.d2v")
crop(0,72,-0,-72)
Import("F:\Functions\LimitedSharpenFaster.avsi")
Import("F:\Functions\DeHalo_alpha.avs")
Import("F:\Functions\SeeSaw.avs")
Import("F:\Functions\MCNR_simple2.avs")
LimitedSharpenFaster(ss_x=2.5,ss_y=2.25,strength=30,smode=4)
a=last
#b=fft3dfilter(plane=0)
b=mcnr_simple2(frames=3,thY=24,thC=20,thY2=-1,thC2=-1,removdirt=true,LPrad=2.0,LPlosens=1,LPhisens=5).DeHalo_alpha()
SeeSaw(a,b,NRlimit=17,bias=18,Smode=11,Szp=18,SdampLo=20)
temporalsoften(2,2,3,23,2)
AddBorders(0,72,0,72)

Before i forget: DeHalo doesn't play any role. It's LSF only, the rest is OK.