How to enhance a blurry section of rendered clip

[RickMen]

I have a project which has a mixture of clips, primarily TOD (PAL HDMV MPEG-2 UFF 1920x1080 16:9 28k bit rate) but a few DV-AVI (DV-AVI 720x576 4:3 3.6k data rate) mixed in here and there. The project settings match the TOD settings. Of course when rendered the DV-AVI sections do not look as sharp as the rest of the rendered clip. I applied the Sharpen FX and while on the Preview there was a minor improvement when rendered it wasn't apparent. Is there some other FX and/or other approach/tool that might improve the quality/sharpness of the DV-AVI?

Update 1: I just noticed there a 2 sharpen FX, I used the 2nd FX (that has levels 1-5).

Update 2: At level 5 video is too grainy. At level 1 I can't spot the difference from no FX

[gewb]

Well, there is Topaz Video AI but it cost $299US.

https://www.topazlabs.com/topaz-video-ai

[lata]

First I would consider my output format, so what are you creating, what do you select from Share?

Converting the 4/3 video to use 16:9 will have some quality issues although we could retain the black borders, removing those is just a matter of zooming in / resizing the frame
I would not apply any other filters or edits, just re-size, then render to my output settings, in my case that would be AVCHD (avch264)

Ok
It has been a while since i edited DV.avi
You may be best to set project to Dv.avi - 16.9
Add the 4/3 to timeline to re-size to 16:9, (you will loose some detail top and bottom) render to Dv.Avi 16:9
Add the 16:9 dv.avi to your main project

Although now converting the 16:9 dv.avi to HD first may be a better option, test each option to compare quality.

[RickMen]

First I would consider my output format, so what are you creating, what do you select from Share?

Share is set to Project settings which I matched the TOD settings when I added my first clip (M2T PAL HDMV MPEG-2 UFF 1920x1080 16:9 28k bit rate).

Screenshot 2023-02-17 083003.png

Converting the 4/3 video to use 16:9 will have some quality issues although we could retain the black borders, removing those is just a matter of zooming in / resizing the frame
I would not apply any other filters or edits, just re-size, then render to my output settings, in my case that would be AVCHD (avch264)

I kept the DV-AVI clips to 4:3 and retained the black borders (I can live with that), in the past (with VS2018, VS2012) I found resizing the 4:3 to 16:9 just amplify the graininess.

I would not apply any other filters

Noted

It has been a while since i edited DV.avi
You may be best to set project to Dv.avi - 16.9
Add the 4/3 to timeline to re-size to 16:9, (you will loose some detail top and bottom) render to Dv.Avi 16:9
Add the 16:9 dv.avi to your main project

Although now converting the 16:9 dv.avi to HD first may be a better option, test each option to compare quality.

I will experiment, thanks.

[RickMen]

btw - I don't fully appreciate the different impact on the rendered project selecting between AVC/H.264 and MPEG-4 or MPEG -2 so that's why I always set Project Properties to match first clip (and first clip I add is always the format that the rest of the clips are in (or majority thereof).

[RickMen]

Well, there is Topaz Video AI but it cost $299US.

https://www.topazlabs.com/topaz-video-ai

Looks interesting. Beyond my budget and probably would have to upgrade my PC.

Have you got it?

[lata]

Hi
Something I have missed when working with DV-Avi video is the Field order
It is most important that we do not change the field order.

For DV-Avi that will be Lower Field First
For your Tod files it is Upper Field first

By rendering to the Tod properties you are changing the DV-AVI order which will impact on quality, straight lines may show as saw-toothed, jagged edges.

Unfortunately the same problem would occur when capturing VHS as those captures would be Lower Field First.
To avoid this the only option I can suggest is to first convert the DV-Avi clips to use Frame Based aka Progressive.

1 / Run a test, start a new project and add your DV-Avi, Render that to your Tod properties, the quality of the new file should be the same as the original DV-Avi. I suspect this will be poor.
2 / Start a new project set Project Properties to Dv-Avi, Now convert the DV-Avi to same properties but using Frame Based, (you will have to create a new template using Lower Field), at this point I would consider also converting to 16:9
3 / Using the new DV-AVI 16:9 render to Tod properties, this should be an improvement on the first test above

As a thought you could consider changing the Tod render properties to use Frame Based aka Progressive which may improve things, of course you will have to manage your render Profiles

[RickMen]

I will experiment.

To avoid this the only option I can suggest is to first convert the DV-Avi clips to use Frame Based aka Progressive.

1 / Run a test, start a new project and add your DV-Avi, Render that to your Tod properties, the quality of the new file should be the same as the original DV-Avi. I suspect this will be poor.

What do you mean by quality?

3 / Using the new DV-AVI 16:9 render to Tod properties, this should be an improvement on the first test above

As a thought you could consider changing the Tod render properties to use Frame Based aka Progressive which may improve things, of course you will have to manage your render Profiles

Do you mean that in step 3 render to TOD properties but using Frame Based instead of UFF?

[Ken Berry]

I'm sure lata will answer himself, though he is probably in bed by now. I thought my own answers might help in the meantime.

Quality just means how well the video appears on screen -- how crisp and well lit and good it might be. DV/AVI at one time used to be regarded as very high quality. I used only DV cameras and loved it, and I kept an old computer which has a Firewire card just in case I will ever need to capture it again. I also have an old Sony DV camera which could accept input of VHS from an analogue VCR or analogue camera, and convert it to digital DV, then export it to computer. The quality at that time was regarded (by me) as very good. But of course times have changed and we now have HD and 4K where quality is very much greater than DV/AVI. I think that is what Trevor meant when he went on to say that he imagined your capture of DV/AVI will be poor when compared to what you are used to with HD or 4K video.

And as for rendering as Frame Based, if your render properties use Frame Based/Progressive on the whole project, this means the DV/AVI will also use Frame Based. And with Frame Based, there is no Upper or Lower Field First. So any potential conflict in the rendering where you have both Upper and Lower Field video would not occur.

(Just to try to explain this a little, video as taken with our cameras is usually taken in two sets of lines. When it is set to take the video Upper Field First, this means that lines 1, 3, 5, 7 etc are taken first, and then followed by lines 2, 4, 6, 8 etc to form a solid image. This of course occurs incredibly fast. When Lower Field First is used then lines 2, 4, 6, 8 etc are taken first and then followed by 1, 3, 5, 7 etc. If you mix these Fields in the one video when the rendered video is set to use only one Field, it will mean that the video using the other field will get out of sync and look a bit wonky or jagged when that video plays in the final video.

(When we say Frame Based, we mean that this two tier video is converted by blending the lines so that it is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 etc all in one frame i.e. the scene being shown is all in a series of full frames. There are no longer any Fields, so blending the two types of original video no longer presents any problems.)

[RickMen]

Hi
Something I have missed when working with DV-Avi video is the Field order
It is most important that we do not change the field order.

For DV-Avi that will be Lower Field First
For your Tod files it is Upper Field first

By rendering to the Tod properties you are changing the DV-AVI order which will impact on quality, straight lines may show as saw-toothed, jagged edges.

Unfortunately the same problem would occur when capturing VHS as those captures would be Lower Field First.
To avoid this the only option I can suggest is to first convert the DV-Avi clips to use Frame Based aka Progressive.

1 / Run a test, start a new project and add your DV-Avi, Render that to your Tod properties, the quality of the new file should be the same as the original DV-Avi. I suspect this will be poor.
2 / Start a new project set Project Properties to Dv-Avi, Now convert the DV-Avi to same properties but using Frame Based, (you will have to create a new template using Lower Field), at this point I would consider also converting to 16:9
3 / Using the new DV-AVI 16:9 render to Tod properties, this should be an improvement on the first test above

As a thought you could consider changing the Tod render properties to use Frame Based aka Progressive which may improve things, of course you will have to manage your render Profiles

Lata, I tested out the above on a 11sec clip (which had moving objects (bus & cars), fence railing in the background and cloudy sky) and it confirmed your argument.

Clip 1 (DV_AVI render to TOD properties) - the motion was not smooth. Black borders around 3 sides and the bottom area had a smaller black border. When I paused I could see straight lines with saw-toothed, jagged edges.

Clip 3 (using rendered clip 2 render to TOD properties Framed Based) - motion was smooth. Had Black borders around 3 sides and the bottom area had a smaller black border. When paused I didn't see any straight lines with saw-toothed, jagged edges.

Quality-wise, I honestly couldn't tell the difference while the clip was playing (I put in down to poor eye sight ) but as mentioned above pausing the clip did bring out the jagged edges. Please note that this comparison was done on a 24 inch PC screen so maybe it would be more noticeable on my 55 inch LCD (next step). I also compared Clip 3 to the original source clip and I couldn't tell the difference in quality other than for the borders.

I will have to check out some of my old TOD projects where I mixed in DV-AVI clips, I never noticed the saw-toothed, jagged edges before! Looks like I will have to change my workflow.

Screenshot 2023-02-21 143851.png

Screenshot 2023-02-21 143120.png

[zaphodikus]

Even without all the concerns with formats, I find the sharpness filter is best at x2.
I use X3 sharpening in limited cases. The x5 always makes anything I'm sharpening up far worse.