Steady-De-Interlace
| Download Plug-in
Version Beta 0.1 (See 'Beta Version?' below) Useage Once you have VirtualDub, AVI Synth and the Steady-De-Interlacer plug-in installed, make an AVI Synth script file, called for example 'Clip.avs' containing something like: clip=AVISource("e:\Video\capture1.avi") or if the fields are reversed use this as the second line: clip.ComplementParity.SeparateFields Where e:\Video\capture1.avi is the interlaced video you want to process. Open this file in VirtualDub and add the Steady-De-Interlace plug-in to the filter list.
|
Installation
To install the plug-in into VitualDub extract the SDI.vdf from the zip file into the PLUGINS folder which is in the same area as the VitualDub executable. Contact Please contact me if you have any problems using the Steady-De-Interlace plug-in, or any sugestions on how it could be improved. |
| Introduction
Steady-De-Interlace is a plug for VirtualDub, one of the best video processing tools I've ever found. As the name suggests, this plug-in is yet another de-interlacing filter, but with the emphasis on quality rather then speed, so I'm sorry but if you have anything much less then a 700MHz machine you will be waiting a very long time for any results. It currently runs approximately a third the speed of a smart de-interlacer, but if you want the quality, the extra time is worth it. Steady-De-Interlace is also an image stabilizer, capable of removing all types of vibration and shaking from the video, perfect for camcorder owners like myself. And it runs twice as fast as the only other video stabilizer I've found. If you want to make your own comparison of speed and quality see the Video Stabilizer web site. Technology The problem with digitizing interlaced video (which is the format for almost all analogue video) is that in order to produce a full size image both fields in the frame are put together. Unless you have specialized hardware, when you display the digital video both fields are displayed at exactly the same time, this is incorrect, a TV or monitor would display one field then the other. This results in many problems which I won't go into here but it has a detrimental effect on everything from image quality and playback speed to mpeg compression. The Steady-De-Interlace filter attempts to correctly re-interlace the fields as they would appear on a TV, this involves separating out the two fields (For the Beta I'm currently using AVI Synth for this which also results in double speed video, which results in the most accurate TV simulation). The video is then analyzed for camera motion and the fields re-interlaced with both fields correctly aligned, foreground moving objects can not be processed like this and so will be based on just a single field (current just a blend is used, that will come out in Beta 0.2). The upshot of this is that not only does the filter de-interlace video but it can also remove any shaking in the video in a kind of steady-cam fashion. Beta Version? You will notice that this plug-in is in it's first beta release, it's not fully useable and the quality and speed will hopefully improve significantly before the release of version 1. This is work in progress, don't expect it to be very user friendly or stable. The following is a list of features to improve and include, in order of priority: Add rotation and zoom to the motion detection algorithm, instead of just horizontal and vertical offsets. This will apply steady-cam style filtering to camera roll and zooming, it will also increase the image quality while either of these are occurring. The steady-cam feature does not yet look forward to see when the camera will be moving next, this means that the image will move around and not be in the center of the output video. The very temporary fix for this is a constant 10% zoom. The plan is to use a look-ahead path for the video to follow and use a dynamic zoom to only zoom in when necessary to ensure the whole output is always covered in video. Use correct re-interlacing; transparency between scan lines and foreground motion filtered to use just one field, currently only a simple blend is used. This may slow down the filter significantly so I may include an option to keep the blend. Allow different methods for input video (See filter panel, they are all there, just grayed out) Allow any size output video. Due to the processing done by this filter the output size has no relation to the input size, it's re-sizing and rotating each frame anyway, so this is the best place to re-size your video to the size you want. Add script support. Optimize code, use assembly where practical. Future I will continue to improve this plug-in and it will remain freeware up to and including version 1. After that... it all depends on if many people are interested in it.
|
Examples Page Shows the problems of interlaced images and the current methods for removing these problems. These methods are then compared with the Steady-De-Interlace method. Useful Links You will need VirtualDub in order to use this plug-in You will need AVI Synth for this first beta as there is no field-splitting in the plug-in (as of yet) it also allows you to create double frame rate video (highest possible quality from this plug-in) tHE fISH's [<><] VirtualDUB filter page One of the most extensive databases of plug-ins for VirtualDub. Luke mainly deals with cartoon videos, but there is a lot of useful information there for general video processing too. Useful Message Boards |