[Carlos E. martinez]

Before I carefully read all the articles you recommended and see the tutorials, I would like to know something.

There are two different jobs that I want to do with Vegas.

1) Use all the tools that might help make an SD film into something that “resembles” an HD video.

2) Regrade a film that looks much worst in its HD release than it did in its DVD version.

On the first case I don’t think Vectorscope or Waveform will be much help, even if a better color grading, perhaps a bit more saturated, would help “cheat on the look”.

On the second case, my instinct tells me taking the color away will help “align” the contrasts better between both versions. I don’t know if there’s a way to show you frames here, side by side, to see how detail in the shadows is much less in the HD version than on the DVD. The look is much “gloomy” on the HD version, and it seems there’s no absolute black or absolute white on the whole film.

If there could be way to compare grays grades, that is contrast ratio, between both version might be a good way to start. For that I guess the waveform would be the right tool, right?

[Carlos E. martinez]

Incredible help and valuable information you are giving me. Thanks a lot!

I have edited myself quite a few things in Avid, but not as continuously as I wish. Every time I start a new project I have to refresh the most basic things you can imagine. It’s pretty discouraging, it’s not quite like riding a bicycle!

Anyway, I come from film editing times: Prevost, Steenbeck and all that. So my mind was probably shaped differently, edfiting wise, from younger people that started in computer editing times. You tend to evaluate every frame in a different way. The frame makes a difference.

It’s probably like learning cinematography. You should start with black & white, and then go to colo. Because you learn about contrast and tone grades much solidly in black & white.

The only thing I do not regret from moviola times is the mechanical part, which was very primitive. It improved a bit with first video editing times, when film was transferred to video tape and edited there. Then the final tuning was still on the moviola, but you could try things less destructively than on the mechanical monster. Who went through that certainly knows what I’m talking about.

Now, one question that is not strictly related to this question, but in the end it is. What can i use to tune color, contrast and phase on a LED TV or on video projector? Are there any patterns available that I can put on video file and use to adjust things up?

My Optoma projector is a bit off in skin color, which you can see clearly when there’s a brilliant red light on the screen. And sometimes old films look weird on some skin tones. It happens less on modern films and series, I wonder why.

[Carlos E. martinez]

OK, how about this plan, and how can I go about it?

I have a reference video version, from the DVD of this film, which I think I prefer over the Bluray version, in contrast, color and else.

Of course the BD version has more resolution, so I would like to correct it to look as much as possible to the DVD version.

Would taking a frame from the DVD version and and a frame from the HD version, and processing them side by side, be a more “accurate” way to proceed?

How can I go about it, particularly with the instruments I may use within Vegas? Is there a waveform monitor or a vectorscope in Vegas 15?

[Carlos E. martinez]

Hi Francois,

Thanks for your suggestions.

Which order would use for the filters to act?

[Carlos E. martinez]

Besides Sharpen, which other filters I could use that would subtly enhance the SD image to make it “look like HD”?

Sometimes slightly increasing the contrast also helps. Perhaps there are other filters I can add.

I know many find that ridiculous or impossible, as you can’t create details that are not there, but I remember my Avisynth times, when I used different combination of filters that improved poorly captured or avi videos and the end result looked quite good.

[Carlos E. martinez]

No, I saw this at a time when I didn’t even have a BD player yet., only this DVD player with HDMI output and upscale processing.

My TV back then was a 720p Panasonic plasma type, with HDMI and VGA inputs.

So I could look at 720p files that I downloaded, mostly series, and also compare the DVD analog and HDMI outputs for the same movies.

I’m sure the Panasonic did not provide any upscaling.

BD players did, and next year I did bought one, one of the best I ever had, and LG, that could also play MKV files and also be used as a media player, where I started my network.

To my surprise, the upscaling of the DVD video player was better than the one on the LG. I still have that player, hopefully still working, to finally see how to clone the upscale tricks it used using software.

[Carlos E. martinez]

Practical trick hint.

How do I do to increase the screen size and see how a certain filter affects the image, turning it on and off?

How do I open the filter settings with the larger screen?

[Carlos E. martinez]

OK, good news.

After several processings that involved MKVmerge, Audacity, MKVmerge again and Videocoder, I ended up with 1080p file with pcm tracks.

That I could import perfectly from Vegas.

Also identified the enlargening screen icon and it works too.

Now let’s see what we can do to make SD files look or cheat to look like HD, using the available filters.

To start with let me tell you that I only believed this could be possible when I saw a DVD player I have, with HDMI output, could do by hardware processing any DVD image and have it really look like HD.

I even considered getting an HDMI capture box, and process SD videos through it. But I wonder how much can be achieved by software doing what.

Perhaps I should get an HDMI capture box and compare the results of hardware and software processing.

If you have any ideas please do express them.

[Carlos E. martinez]

Hi, George.

Thanks. No problem to copy here the Mediainfo data for that avi file. Here they are:

General
Complete name : G:\The Three Musketeers.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format profile : OpenDML
File size : 2.19 GiB
Duration : 2 h 0 min
Overall bit rate : 2 589 kb/s
Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.3 | https://www.virtualdub-fr.org || (build 2550/release)
Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2550/release

Video
ID : 0
Format : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5
Format settings : BVOP2
Format settings, BVOP : 2
Format settings, QPel : No
Format settings, GMC : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)
Codec ID : DX50
Codec ID/Hint : DivX 5
Duration : 2 h 0 min
Bit rate : 2 187 kb/s
Width : 704 pixels
Height : 528 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.235
Stream size : 1.85 GiB (84%)
Writing library : XviD 65

Audio #1
ID : 1
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : 2000
Duration : 2 h 0 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 166 MiB (7%)
Alignment : Split accross interleaves
Interleave, duration : 40 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 500 ms
Service kind : Complete Main

Audio #2
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : 2000
Duration : 2 h 0 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 166 MiB (7%)
Alignment : Split accross interleaves
Interleave, duration : 40 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 500 ms
Service kind : Complete Main

I did try importing from other avi files to Vegas, and the same happened. Video fine, no audio.

And yes, I also used Videocoder (same as Handbrake) to convert the file to mp4, and then import it. What I did get: a no video, audio only mp4 file.

As I was there with the “video only” import I had done from the avi file, I applied the “Sharpen light” filter, only this time I rendered it to AVCHD 1440 x 1080 50i, instead of mp4, because the file was 25p. As a result I got an excellent looking m2ts file, x6 times larger, with no audio, of course.

I did demux the audio from avi file with Audacity. Then put that audio track on the timeline, and it needed to be readjusted for sync, delaying the audio track.

Too much work for what I intend to do, with this and other SD videos I have, which were never released in BD. Which is applying corrections that would make the video “look like HD”.

What puzzled me was this test conversion I did, because it seems not only “sharpen” was applied, but a whole bunch of adjustments which I did not set.

In any case, this files would need reconverting and it has no audio. I have to get the audio tracks when importing.

[Carlos E. martinez]

Can you select not to install the player and the web components?

I use Windows Defender and Spybot SD for AV and malware, respectively.

Best QT version for Avid MC 8.6.3?