Improving Video Quality

[maxgremlin]

Okay, I believe I had come to an end with my Avengers Assemble project but I have come to a snag.

Admittedly, I have made a few mistakes along the way (hey, I'm still learning. What can you do?). I had originally ripped the source material from standard DVD (not Bluray). I used Pgc Demux to convert the video in to m2v files then used Virtual Dub to convert them into Lagarith AVI files at 4:3 aspect ratio (a mistake, I know). I also set my project file to 4:3 aspect ratio.

But I figured, no problem. I'll export the edit as an AVI file, load it into Virtual Dub, change the aspect ratio to 16:9, open a new project file set to the right aspect ratio and boom, problem solved. And it was except for the video quality.

When I burned a DVD and checked it out on my tv, the video was certainly watchable, but it was not as clear or sharp as the source material.

This might not have anything to do with converting the aspect ratio at all but how I ripped the source material in the first place. I've looked at ThrowgnCpr and Gemini's guide to ripping & converting and it is far more elaborate than what I did but they talk about ripping Blu Rays not standard DVD's.

I've been thinking about saving the audio from the original edit and just re-rip the video, key out the clips and sync it with the audio but I'm wondering if their is a better way of ripping the video. Would just following ThrowngnCpr and Gemini's guides work with standard DVD?

Thanks.

maxgremlin

 

[TV's Frink]

There's this guide:
http://www.fanedit.org/forums/showt...iit-s-Basic-Guide-to-Decoding-Video-and-Audio

But honestly, just to get a high quality lagarith avi into my editor, I use step 1 of this older guide:
http://www.fanedit.org/forums/showt...-fanediting-with-Sony-Vegas&p=55635#post55635

 

[hasmak]

Another way to rip; use MakeMKV, http://www.videohelp.com/software/MakeMKV
It will rip your DVD, Extract the streams and muxes them into an mkv container. The streams are extracted as is without any encoding or any loss of quality.
You can demux the audio and video with mkvextract or you can remux into avi, mp4, m4v, or mov container without re-encoding using avidemux or XMediaRecode
All the tools are free and available on videohelp.com

 

[Neosmith]

Another way to rip; use MakeMKV, http://www.videohelp.com/software/MakeMKV
It will rip your DVD, Extract the streams and muxes them into an mkv container. The streams are extracted as is without any encoding or any loss of quality.
You can demux the audio and video with mkvextract or you can remux into avi, mp4, m4v, or mov container without re-encoding using avidemux or XMediaRecode
All the tools are free and available on videohelp.com

Just to clarify, does mkvextract result in ripping or remuxing without loss of quality or data, as opposed to say, handbrake?

 

[addiesin]

Just to clarify, does mkvextract result in ripping or remuxing without loss of quality or data, as opposed to say, handbrake?

No, that program just demuxes (according to the post you quoted). Presumably without loss of quality (but I don't know, I'm literally just going on what's in the quote).

you can remux into avi, mp4, m4v, or mov container without re-encoding using avidemux or XMediaRecode

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

There is no reason to use those extra converter apps, which are going to re-encode the video/audio. As Frink mentioned, step #1 of Boon's guide is a great way to get video streams converted to lossless format from your DVD source. Some of the software boon lists is outdated, but here is an update/quick breakdown of what to do (software used in bold):

1. DVDFab to copy DVD folders to your hard drive (removes copy protection)
2. Use PGCdemux to extract the relevant audio and video streams (see boon's guide for details)
3. Use DGpulldown if you need to change the headers from 29.97 interlaced to 23.976 progressive (again, details in boon's guide)
4. Convert *.M2V video file to lagarith (lossless) *.AVI using Virtualdub

​
Steps 1 and 4 listed here are the same as I cover in my guide for HD video from Blu-ray sources.

 

[hasmak]

Just to clarify, does mkvextract result in ripping or remuxing without loss of quality or data, as opposed to say, handbrake?

Yes
It just removes the protection, extracts the original streams and puts them in an .mkv container.
If your NLE does not accept .mkv as input, you can re-mux the .mkv file into an acceptable container (.mp4, .mov) using XmediaRecode, again without any loss of quality, or demux the .mkv into separate video and audio streams using mkvextract.

Handbrake will encode the streams and there will be some loss of quality

 

[theslime]

There is no reason to use those extra converter apps, which are going to re-encode the video/audio. As Frink mentioned, step #1 of Boon's guide is a great way to get video streams converted to lossless format from your DVD source. Some of the software boon lists is outdated, but here is an update/quick breakdown of what to do (software used in bold):

1. DVDFab to copy DVD folders to your hard drive (removes copy protection)
2. Use PGCdemux to extract the relevant audio and video streams (see boon's guide for details)
3. Use DGpulldown if you need to change the headers from 29.97 interlaced to 23.976 progressive (again, details in boon's guide)
4. Convert *.M2V video file to lagarith (lossless) *.AVI using Virtualdub

​
Steps 1 and 4 listed here are the same as I cover in my guide for HD video from Blu-ray sources.

I find no reason to use DVD Fab when MakeMKV exists. MakeMKV is actively developed, easier to use, works on Linux and OSX as well as Windows, and it's free while in beta. The name confuses people since we're used to compressed MKV streams from pirateland, but it doesn't actually transcode or compress anything, it just extracts the specified title (while removing copy protection) and muxes it into an MKV container you can do whatever you want with. And it skips the unnecessary step of PGCdemux since you get only the titles you want. I see no downsides with this workflow.

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

That sounds fine, but you still need to get the m2v stream out of the MKV container, unless you are using a directshowsource script or something in vdub. It sounds very user friendly, but I'm not sure it actually cuts down on the steps. Unless I am missing something and MakeMKV lets you pull elementary streams directly out of a DVD without dumping them into the MKV container.

 

[ssj]

Interesting discussion, dudes. Cane makemkv be used instead of pavtube for prepping an edit on Mac OS x? Will additional software be necessary for conversion to prores?

 

[hasmak]

That sounds fine, but you still need to get the m2v stream out of the MKV container, unless you are using a directshowsource script or something in vdub. It sounds very user friendly, but I'm not sure it actually cuts down on the steps. Unless I am missing something and MakeMKV lets you pull elementary streams directly out of a DVD without dumping them into the MKV container.

MakeMKV will put all the elementary streams from the disk into the .mkv comtainer, if you want to work with the elementary streams separately you can use mkvextract to demux the .mkv file, in cases of Bluray this will give you the .mts or .m2ts and the .dts streams.
Alternatively, MakeMKV can rip the bluray to create decrypted full disc backup preserving the complete disk structure and all the streams, you can pull the streams from the disk structure as you like.
PS. This also applies to DVDs and will give you the .m2v stream and whatever audio is on the disk.
PPS. Ripping with MakeMKV takes very little time; in case of Bluray this is usually a 3-5 minutes, and demuxing the .mkv takes even less time (only as long as it takes to write the file to disk)

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

MakeMKV will put all the elementary streams from the disk into the .mkv comtainer, if you want to work with the elementary streams separately you can use mkvextract to demux the .mkv file, in cases of Bluray this will give you the .mts or .m2ts and the .dts streams.
Alternatively, MakeMKV can rip the bluray to create decrypted full disc backup preserving the complete disk structure and all the streams, you can pull the streams from the disk structure as you like.
PS. This also applies to DVDs and will give you the .m2v stream and whatever audio is on the disk.
PPS. Ripping with MakeMKV takes very little time; in case of Bluray this is usually a 3-5 minutes, and demuxing the .mkv takes even less time (only as long as it takes to write the file to disk)

That's what I suspected. It sounds like a nice, alternate, piece of software, but it doesn't really reduce the number of steps needed to get the lagarith file from a DVD source. Correct me if I am wrong, but if you were using MakeMKV and wanted to get a lossless AVI from your DVD, you would need to use the following workflow:

1. Use MakeMKV to get video of choice directly from your DVD
2. Use MKVextract to demux the MKV into elementary DVD streams (M2V and AC3)
3. Use DGPulldown to correct the headers from 29.97 interlaced to 23.976 progressive
4. Use Virtualdub to convert the M2V to lagarith AVI

Still 4 steps, so it doesn't really simplify the process. But, it's nice to have additional options, especially if the software continues to get updated, works with various sources (DVD & BD), and works across multiple operating systems.

 

[theslime]

ThrowgnCpr MakeMKV only makes a muxed MKV file. So yeah, sure, you might not save a whole step (unless you're well-versed in MKVtoolnix or frontends like MKVmerge, which will demux the mkv file in a flash, a lot faster than the slightly convoluted process of using PGdemux), but ripping only the title in question will at least take a chunk out of the ripping time (unless DVD Fab rips single titles too). Also, ending up with one file instead of a folder or ISO, you can just demux the end product without extracting from weird folders with tsMuxer or PGdemux. It also bypasses the whole indexing issue if using AviSynth for prepping the source.

I also prefer MakeMKV because I find DVD Fab's interface and Windows-only-ness wrong (in other non-fanediting contexts). Being scriptable and command-line friendly, MakeMKV is really nice for other applications to hook into, like, say, Couch Ripper (which will rip and encode with MakeMKV and HandBrake inside of Kodi) or AutoRippr (which will do similar stuff and it can even be crontab'd, meaning it will rip, encode, name, tag, and add subs every time you put a disc into the drive). Also, MakeMKV as backend lets my Linux Kodi box be 100 percent bluray compatible (which is not possible any other way due to licensing issues). None of this is possible with DVD Fab.

ssj, when it comes to Pavtube, I think it lets you convert to Prores in one operation? If so, you should probably stick with that, because MakeMKV will not convert anything. You could use Pavtube (or any other application) for just the conversion of the MKV output, but there's not really any point to that, unless I'm missing something.

EDIT: For some reason, the last two posts didn't show up for me until after I posted, so there's some repetition in this post. Sorry about that.

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

DVDFab does rip single titles too, but it puts them in a DVD folder. Personally, I like the Fab interface, and I don't find PGCdemux to be convoluted. It helps when authoring a DVD to have a general understanding of DVD structure, so selecting the appropriate IFO is not hard... Avisynth is a great option, and I could have described a workflow above using it, but most people have difficulty with this.

From what I've read so far, this really comes down to personal preference of interface, and compatibility with whatever operating system you are using. MakeMKV sounds like a great option to have in your arsenal of tools, but I don't really see it as much of an improvement over other methods described above - aside from slightly faster ripping times, and not having to keep the entire disc structure on your HDD (I actually prefer to rip the entire disc, as I almost always use several components from it).

 

[TV's Frink]

I love DVDFab but from what I remember the free version no longer does BD ripping, so an alternative is welcome.

 

[TV's Frink]

EDIT: For some reason, the last two posts didn't show up for me until after I posted, so there's some repetition in this post. Sorry about that.

Probably because they were on a new page and you didn't notice. I make that mistake from time to time, thinking I'm responding to the last post but there's another post or two on the next page.

 

[TV's Frink]

Use DGpulldown if you need to change the headers from 29.97 interlaced to 23.976 progressive (again, details in boon's guide)

Two part question:

a) How do you know if you need to do that?
2) What happens if you do it when you don't need to?

I'm asking for a friend.

 

[ThrowgnCpr]

Two part question:

k. two-part response:

a) How do you know if you need to do that?

NTSC DVDs have to be stored as 29.97. If it is a movie, it is going to be filmed at 23.976 but stored as 29.97 on the disc (this is a generalization, but works for this purposes). SO, if you are editing an American movie, you need to do this. It gets a little more complicated if you are working with television shows or foreign films released on region 1 DVDs

2) What happens if you do it when you don't need to?

Reveal message

using that DGPulldown trick? I can't remember, either it won't matter, or your video will look obviously weird

I'm asking for a friend.

 

[TV's Frink]

Oh good, so my "just do it in case" workflow seems to be fine then.

Er...I MEAN MY FRIEND'S WORKFLOW!!!

Reveal message

Whew, that was close, but I think I managed to fool everyone.

 

[ssj]

thanks, theslime. even if makemkv does rip a blu-ray without much ado, the available mac programs that convert m2ts to prores are from. . . pavtube. so i might as well skip the makemkv step.

at least that's what i can gather, as pavtube has done such a good job of carpetbombing the google search engine so that pavtube and "blogs" about pavtube are the top results.