QTGMC is still ahead of VEAI. It would be great if VEAI is at least as good.
And deinterlacing really needs to be separated from the AI model, too. It doesn’t make any sense to me that the very distinct process of deinterlacing or detelecining is coupled with an upscale model.
This is why I don’t bother with Dione at all. Maybe it’s a great model, but I get fantastic results with QTGMC, at which point it’s a progressive source. I choose a model based on the characteristics of the video at that point, not whether it happened to be originally interlaced.
Depends on the source. For Star Trek dvds which are garbage, I’m using an avisynth script with QTGMC full repair and some other steps, I can share the details if you want.
For Stargate SG-1, I’m just using plain TFM/TDecimate + spline36resize(width,height*3/2).daa().spline36resize(width,height) to remove artifacts which QTGMC for some reason misses, and it looks fantastic.
The reality is that deinterlacting & inverse telecining is complicated because there are so many different ways that it can be done. It took me tons of trial and error to find processes with avisynth that I was happy with and was optimized for each source I’m playing with. And I am sure that other people working on the exact same DVDs ended up with completely different ones.
It would be awesome if VEAI had a process that was basically a sophisticated UX for constructing an avisynth script with the ability to add/remove steps like grain restore, inverse telecine, artifact removal, sharpening, dot crawl reduction, and so on. I guess something lke what Staxrip is but not ancient (though I’ve never used it, I’ve got my own tooling and process for running these scripts).
Heck, they could even have “presets” and have recipes for common DVD sets people like to upscale.
Something like that is really the only way it’s not going to be a compromise for everything. Each source is just really different and one size doesn’t fit all. In the absence of that, you’ll always get better results using your own process to get progressive video before using VEIA.
I see. Pity I am not familiar with QTGMC so I hoped that VEAI would just simplify deinterlacing. Have you compared QTGMC deinterlacing with what a TV set can do?
Not working for me either it says on all panes “the preview frames have been rendered” but its still the same image, if I switch views to only include them one at a time it works fine.
Also seems to hang up on a frame sometimes where even if you say render from start frame 20000 it always uses another frame, seems stuck.
Have you compared QTGMC deinterlacing with what a TV set can do?
I’ve never tried an A/B comparison of just deinterlacing actually - since I’m also doing lots of other stuff before I want to watch it on a TV. But that would be interesting. And also I imagine depends on the exact DVD player.
I’ve never understood why players generally do a good job of deinterlacing but it’s so hard to get software to do the same thing… I mean whatever magic chip they’re using is just some software process at the end of the day!
There is a couple of notes here I thought I would mention.
I don’t use Dione for “deinterlacing”, rather in progressive mode, as so far, I have yet to find Artemis work as well on Dione to create a natural look to the upscale for star trek. Its not terrible, it just goes a bit too far in making everything a bit too plasticy. That said, it is always different points of view so that may just be my preference.
The other note is I have yet to encounter a star trek DVD that actually requires deinterlacing (PAL or NTSC) as none of Voyager is interlaced. There is a lot of power in QTGMC for deinterlacing, but in almost all cases, it isn’t required unless for using in progressive mode to clean up footage and even then, I tend to find adding it in in various options never seems to have an end result I am happy with.
IVTC on NTSC, however, is the main bane of my existence and I still am not entirely sure I am happy with the current method, but then again, IVTC variable frame rates appears to be one of those things that is hard to do well.
If you don’t know how to edit a .json file, then you will need to re-install the old version of VEAI. Next, find the alq v10 .json file in the models folder (in the same directory as the log files folder) and copy it to the desktop. Now, install the new VEAI version once again and move the v10 .json file from the desktop into the newly created models folder. The model will appear in the application once you re-open it. Make sure model downloads are not turned off.
I don’t use Dione for “deinterlacing”, rather in progressive mode
What is “progressive mode”? I thought Dione was designed for interlaced sources. Are you saying it works fine without it?
The other note is I have yet to encounter a star trek DVD that actually requires deinterlacing
I’m throwing IVTC and “deinterlacing” in the same bucket which I realize isn’t accurate. I’m not deinterlacing star trek, I’m using QTGMC InputType=2 & 3 with repair to fix other problem with the source.
Stargate SG-1 is interlaced, but plain TFM/TDecimate does a 99% perfect job with it and it looks very good with that little cleanup step to remove a handful of interlace artifacts. The problems that QTGMC solves with Star Trek aren’t needed on Stargate and that extra processing just makes it look softer.
Dione Robust and one of the others ( I cannot remember which) that don’t double frame rate are fine with progressive input. The others I know you can edit the json files to make them progressive as well, so you can technically make them all progressive if you want to have extra models to try. At the moment, I made all of them progressive so i can run through them all and experiment alongside Artemis.
Dione seems to sharpen more than Artemis, so sometimes depending on the source Artemis looks more natural, but it tends to feel a little more "“blurred”, dione sharpens everything better, but it also sometimes oversharpens so depending on the source you end up with a bit too many sharpening artifacts.
Half my time seems to be spent trying to balance what I do with the input in Avisynth prior to inputting into TVEAI to see which ones "looks the best. I also noticed that it is really hard to decide until I encode it and play it on the TV.
The two I am usually tossing between is Dione Robust and Artemis Low or Medium depending on input filters. The below is a couple of short examples, noting I have the input tuned to how I like Dione ouput so the Artemis is probably not quite as good as it could be, but shows the differences are not huge - and probably come down to splitting hairs to some people or whatever feels better to that person watching.
Thanks for explaining that. I’m going to give it a try. I’ve been using Artemis MQ for the star trek DVDs and it’s pretty good, but that’s mostly because there’s not a ton of fine detail to begin with. I think it’s terrible on the Stargate DVDs which have lots of texture, so I’ve been using Gaia HQ for those but it’s sooo slow. I’m interested to see how Dione looks in both cases, I just hadn’t bothered before since I thought it would have bad outcome for non-interlaced input! But yeah I agree with you, I’ve been spending most of my time tweaking Avisynth scripts!
I think its definitely worth a go. I don’t think there is a combination I have not tried yet, including mixing two models, 100 passes with one and upscaling with the other etc. Then I get to a point where something looks great and I do it, then two episodes later I am not liking the look of it, so I start tweaking again.
I think in season 1 I have gone from episodes 1 to 16, then backwards from 16 to 5 and am almost back to episode 1 again after I decided around episode 14 I found a better way of doing it
Additionally, somewhere when going backwards around epsiode 10, I tweaked it again, so I think episodes 5-10 are ok, and I may have to go back and do 11-16 again… except episode 14 which I really like its end result. Its a never ending battle.
As an aside, this is the opening title crawl from Season 1, or the worst quality original input. I was really happy with its output in the end and how much I was able to tide up the text, but this was another example of Dione when against some CGI aspects (this time with sound to feel better). Its not perfect - I think perfection feels like the chances of finding a rainbow unicorn in the wild, so it might change again - I just can’t wait for the later seasons to start arriving in the mail so I can try some of the better quality originals to see how it looks (I have all seasons in PAL, but only season 1 in NTSC atm).
Also, Stargate PAL was a real PITA. I should mention, if you were not aware, that there is a new Bluray release for SG1 which actually had them digitally upscale the earlier episodes. I watched some and they have definitely had an improvement - it may be worth a look to compare to TVEAI.
I am doing tests with the “Aliens” movie from DVD but I am not yet too happy with the results. Gaia HQ keeps more detail but takes far too long. Artemies gets rid of the image noise and keeps sharp edges by the lack of surface detail. I also think that earlier versions of Artemies LQ probably had better abilities to keep surface details like grass, tarmac, stones and trees.
Also, Stargate PAL was a real PITA. I should mention, if you were not aware, that there is a new Bluray release for SG1 which actually had them digitally upscale the earlier episodes. I watched some and they have definitely had an improvement - it may be worth a look to compare to TVEAI.
I have seen the new blu-rays, and i prefer the results with my own process. (I’m using NTSC DVDs, though) Though the offical blu-rays are definitely an improvement over the plain DVD in that it’s a lot sharper, there is considerable loss of detail compared to the DVD. Grain and texture has been cleaned significantly. It’s almost as if they’re doing basically the same thing I am, but then used Artemis instead of Gaia to upscale
