Color Correcting the Dragon Box - 3 Part Spectacular

[Ashura]

Thanks guys! This is my 600th post, and it feels like a party. Thanks for the kind comments; I honestly wasn't sure if anyone would even bother reading this long thing.

-I think I should point out that this is just the color-correction portion. To encode to mp4, currently (until I update the guide) you need to save it as a raw avi and run it through an encoder like handbrake. It's easy to save out clips from this to avi and use in AMVs if you want, though. I'm going to try to write an addenum to the guide showing you you can turn your vcf file into an avs file that applies all the corrections.

-Marc: This isn't as process-intensive as you'd think. It takes about a half hour to an an hour to encode an episode in x264, and scrubbing the color corrections through AVIsynth into Virtualdub can be done on the fly. Most current-gen desktop PCs with a couple of gigs of ran can handle this with no issue; in terms of tools this is not an intensive process. There should especially be no issue if people want to use this to fix the video colors for AMVs by pulling clips out, etc. Definitely, though, it's not for the faint of heart.

-People generally use Transcoding to refer to on-the-fly lossy conversion for immediate playback on other devices. Generally Transcoded files are junked immediately after they're played or kept for quick access on media servers. The key is that it's re-encoded fast enough for the other device to keep up with it in close to real-time. 'Re-encoding' I suppose is a better term for what people are doing in Handbrake. In fact, I would say transcoding could be more detrimental to a computer in ways, because if you watch a movie repeatedly on a media server that doesn't cache and constantly transcodes, it's just re-encoding the file a lot.

-jpdbzrulz4sure: I think you have a good basis, though the colors seem a bit more subdued than they should? Keep experimenting!

Your corrections look just a bit bright, to me... look at the shot of Trunks swimming. It almost looks like the whites are crushed there. That said, this is a quite in-depth guide and I'm impressed by your work.

There's no actual brightness change commited; though. The yellows are just returned closer to the grey values to what they were originally, especially since you work by pulling the highest color value from the group.

I am so impressed. Ashura do you have formal education and training in this stuff? Like, is it part of your profession? Or is this your side hobby? Either way, you can produce these remarkable results... I think it was a very big eye opener, and the picture you chose to showcase as the title example: Trunks in his time machine, one can clearly see what a big difference the correction makes.

I do a whole slew of graphic design related stuff professionally, so I would say I have a good grasp on color theory and knowing that world helped me figure this out. I also do quite a bit of video related stuff for my job, but I'm not a telecine colorist nor a trained expert or anything. All this stuff I figured out on my own by necessity for work or from being just a bit OCD.

Part of me also wanted to challenge the idea that floats around here that you can't do professional level work with consumer level tools.

The other thing is that, I've seen people complain so much about the colors of the Dragonbox here without actually looking into what's actually wrong with them. Talking about that instead of just complaining, and trying to see what it would take to fix them is something I figured might be a a more interesting topic than a lot of the complaint topics Jawdrahb was mentioning.

[MarcFBR]

-Marc: This isn't as process-intensive as you'd think. It takes about a half hour to an an hour to encode an episode in x264, and scrubbing the color corrections through AVIsynth into Virtualdub can be done on the fly. Most current-gen desktop PCs with a couple of gigs of ran can handle this with no issue; in terms of tools this is not an intensive process. There should especially be no issue if people want to use this to fix the video colors for AMVs by pulling clips out, etc. Definitely, though, it's not for the faint of heart.

That goes under the assumption that the person is setting encoding settings properly. Plenty of people who may try to tweak their Dragon Box's to files with an AVC codec that have been filtered have a very good chance of having settings wrong. I simply wanted to make it clear to people that if they depend on a singular machine, this may not be something they wish to attempt. Especially if they try and set a batch for multiple episodes at a time, I could easily imagine someone burning out the system. (Although in general I'd say have a quad core is more helpful than more RAM...) But yeah, for quick clips, they should be fine. I'd still say they should tread lightly though if they don't know what they are doing...

People generally use Transcoding to refer to on-the-fly lossy conversion for immediate playback on other devices. Generally Transcoded files are junked immediately after they're played or kept for quick access on media servers. The key is that it's re-encoded fast enough for the other device to keep up with it in close to real-time. 'Re-encoding' I suppose is a better term for what people are doing in Handbrake. In fact, I would say transcoding could be more detrimental to a computer in ways, because if you watch a movie repeatedly on a media server that doesn't cache and constantly transcodes, it's just re-encoding the file a lot.

That's generally the newer use of transcoding yes. I'd say a decent chunk of modern transcoding (if not the majority) that people do is converting for devices, or to 'back up' a DVD though. In those situations, someone should transcode using Handbrake or other programs, as they don't have the technical know-how to setup a proper encode (and frankly, it's quicker and easier, and most people won't notice the difference.)

Part of me also wanted to challenge the idea that floats around here that you can't do professional level work with consumer level tools.

I disagree on this point completely. Mostly because many of the tools you listed generally aren't 'consumer level' tools. They are more specialized tools that many of which are free.

(I'll skip over Photoshop since I don't believe you meant that one.)

VirtualDub most definitely is not a consumer tool. It was a tool a college student made for his own needs. It isn't the friendliest program until you figure out how to use it, consumer programs related to video tend to do much more hand holding or making things obvious.

Avisynth would give most consumers a heart attack looking at it.

HC Encoder looks scary as hell to me, and I know what all that stuff means, it'd give a normal person a heart attack. (I originally wrote up an explanation for DGIndex, but realized you didn't link to it, but rather a different program...)

I may have also misunderstood you and may have meant 'consumer level' as in "affordable, you don't need to sell a kidney to get them."


And there are a few very good commercial DVD encodes made with the tools you list, or other similar tools (Project A-Ko being the best example, pulling something decent out of a laserdisk master.)

Always nice to discuss this sort of stuff with you though, both publicly and privately.

[jpdbzrulz4sure]

-jpdbzrulz4sure: I think you have a good basis, though the colors seem a bit more subdued than they should? Keep experimenting!

Yes sir!

EDIT: Here's one I did a few days ago.


The way I color-corrected the shots in my video was simply by adjusting the hues of the cyan, yellow and red channels (also increasing the lightness a little bit in the cyan channel), then removing the color cast (I find that, for some reason, holding off on removing the color cast until after adjusting the hues and such sometimes helps prevent artifacting).

For the above shot, I did all that, but I also experimented with saturation and color curves.

The program I use is Adobe Photoshop Elements, by the way.

[Metalwario64]

(I find that, for some reason, holding off on removing the color cast until after adjusting the hues and such sometimes help prevent artifacting).

I've noticed the same thing for the pink color cast episodes.

Also, I was planning on trying this one day, even if just for the movies or a few episodes, but now that I know that there's a risk you can destroy your computer, I'm completely afraid to.

[Ashura]

That goes under the assumption that the person is setting encoding settings properly. Plenty of people who may try to tweak their Dragon Box's to files with an AVC codec that have been filtered have a very good chance of having settings wrong. I simply wanted to make it clear to people that if they depend on a singular machine, this may not be something they wish to attempt. Especially if they try and set a batch for multiple episodes at a time, I could easily imagine someone burning out the system.

Yeah, I don't know how much something this simple would burn out a machine; I think it's negligible since most people aren't going to be doing 100s of episodes here. I've also run machines to death with this kind of stuff and never destroyed a machine. I will agree with the sentiment, though, that you should always be careful with what you're doing and how much you push your hardware. If you break your computer, it's not my fault... but I don't think people experimenting are going to try to do the entire series.

Most decent computers are built to handle this stuff, and I don't want to discourage people from creating and learning here. I don't think the level of stuff people in this thread, ones getting Vegas to do little videos, etc. will break people's computers to be honest.

Also, I would have to say, quality vs. time investment with Handbrake is a lot better today than it was back in yesteryear. The results of CRF are quite good, even if I still go for variable bitrate and slow-ass encoding myself.

That's generally the newer use of transcoding yes. I'd say a decent chunk of modern transcoding (if not the majority) that people do is converting for devices, or to 'back up' a DVD though.

I meant more that, when people use the term transcoding today... the term has evolved past its original stated meaning (digital-to-digital encoding) to refer more to the on-the-fly definition. Even if you're transcoding, you're still always encoding... the converse isn't true (since you can source from analogue). Anyway, I think colloquially the term has evolved past its original meaning is all I'm saying.

VirtualDub most definitely is not a consumer tool. It was a tool a college student made for his own needs. It isn't the friendliest program until you figure out how to use it, consumer programs related to video tend to do much more hand holding or making things obvious.

I have to dispute this; Virtualdub became popular due to how easy it was to open, clip, filter, and encode video without opening a huge, memory hogging track editor. It inspired me to get a capture card back when I was 15 years old because of how easy it was to use and how well it works. It was the inroads into me learning how to do track editing and do After Effects in general. I would say something like After Effects has an actual steep learning curve.

Avisynth is quite powerful and useful, but still, I'd generally say it's nowhere near a consumer tool.

Ok, so, this one I can agree with; you got me here. It takes some learning and experimenting to make it work right. Even still, when used JUST as a frameserver like it is here, it's pretty simple to follow, I think.

Technically speaking, I could've written this guide to use something like Virtualdubmod to directly open vobs, but it doesn't handle the frames/fields of the Dbox properly. Also, I want to eventually made an addendum to the guide explaining how to plug in your color correction directly into the avs script, like so: http://www.twistygadget.com/stuff/db/ccguide/DBE06.avs

This particular script does all the correction on the fly to classic Dragon Ball episode 06 that you can feed right into handbrake. I would cover this in an advanced section, pretty much.

I may have also misunderstood you and may have meant 'consumer level' as in "affordable, you don't need to sell a kidney to get them."

This is a little bit of my point; anyone can pick this stuff out and mess around with it and learn. There's always going to be a learning curve to new software, and I also think these tools aren't as hard to pick up as some people might think. Save for Avisynth... which I admit can be extremely frustrating to figure out. Maybe I just have have a foolish amount of faith in people!

I think anyone here using the guide, though, can at the very least learn a thing or two about how these programs work and begin to better their skills. Or to play devil's advocate on myself... if they can't figure it out, at least they'll understand what the professionals are up against when they do this kind of stuff.

And there are a few very good commercial DVD encodes made with the tools you list, or other similar tools (Project A-Ko being the best example, pulling something decent out of a laserdisk master.)

Yes, exactly! I think it's just interesting how people assume you can only do professional level work with tools that cost 1000s of dollars. I authored a commercial DVD / Blu-Ray recently using a lot of these tools and x264 myself, actually.

Always nice to discuss this sort of stuff with you though, both publicly and privately.

Course! Likewise!

[MarcFBR]

People should definitely experiment, but they also need to know their machine. Many people have laptops that heat up quickly or have bad airflow, they may have pets which will cause it's own heat issues in the machine. I mostly mean that if you do 'full on' encoding as opposed to transcoding (I use transcoding purely to describe the 'quicker' encoding method that Handbrake and media streamers use) you need to be fully aware how your machine acts under pressure and make sure it works properly. I know more than few people who have burned out machines (with one friend of mine who is an expert at this stuff having burned out, in his words 'only 2' computers.)

I have to dispute this; Virtualdub became popular due to how easy it was to open, clip, filter, and encode video without opening a huge, memory hogging track editor. It inspired me to get a capture card back when I was 15 years old because of how easy it was to use and how well it works. It was the inroads into me learning how to do track editing and do After Effects in general. I would say something like After Effects has an actual steep learning curve.

I'd still disagree here. It became popular because it was free, and it became popular with people who generally were tech inclined in the first place. More consumer level stuff would be more akin to the crap Muvee sells, the very nice editor Microsoft will give anyone for free, or the editor in Freemake Video converter.

[Ashura]

We'll have to disagree on Virtualdub! It's the tool I have people use to clip replay videos for Youtube usually since it's simple to pick up. Explaining to them how to dump a raw avi into handbrake is generally fairly simple.

Re: Laptops, yes, I would agree that you should be more careful with burning out laptops. If you have a desktop, I wouldn't worry a whole hell of a lot about this burning out the system though. But you're right; know your machine, and how it handles pressure.

HC Encoder looks scary as hell to me, and I know what all that stuff means, it'd give a normal person a heart attack. (I originally wrote up an explanation for DGIndex, but realized you didn't link to it, but rather a different program...)

I updated my post. DGIndex is at the very bottom of that page under HC Encoder; it's the place where the official website points to get builds, even if it's a little confusing. HC Encoder is not anything anyone using this guide needs to worry about, and yes, it's quite scary and intimidating looking.

[MarcFBR]

We'll have to disagree on Virtualdub! It's the tool I have people use to clip replay videos for Youtube usually since it's simple to pick up. Explaining to them how to dump a raw avi into handbrake is generally fairly simple.

Try out Freemake Video Converter. More and more it's a tool I recommend to the 'consumer.' It's a universal converter with a very clean and easy to understand interface, and it has in built editing tools, and built in uploading to Youtube.

[Ashura]

EDIT: Here's one I did a few days ago.

This definitely looks a lot better to me!

I would say that I personally like to remove the color cast first and then do the corrections since then I have full control over the final colors. When you do all the blues and everything first, you really don't know how it will look exactly after you remove the cast.

Luckily in vdub, though, you can experiment with the order you remove colors... so testing the other way around is easy.

Also, this should go without saying, but if any particular blend of methods works better for you, go for what works for you. Mine isn't the one, true way by any means.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

We'll have to disagree on Virtualdub! It's the tool I have people use to clip replay videos for Youtube usually since it's simple to pick up. Explaining to them how to dump a raw avi into handbrake is generally fairly simple.

Try out Freemake Video Converter. More and more it's a tool I recommend to the 'consumer.' It's a universal converter with a very clean and easy to understand interface, and it has in built editing tools, and built in uploading to Youtube.

So I tried it, and aside from the Blu-Ray burning I could get everything from between Windows DVD Maker and FreeStudio's Converters. But I won't deny that interface is as simple as it gets, for what that's definitely worth, I didn't even see any bars to adjust bitrates.

[ET93]

Wow this is absolutely fantastic, honestly this is much appreciated

[dexterp]

I'm going to go out on a limb and ask: Is this possible with the orange bricks?

I know a lot of peopkle will ask what the point is, but I'm simply asking if the orange bricks are still in a workable state, and whether a POC exists.

[MarcFBR]

I'm going to go out on a limb and ask: Is this possible with the orange bricks?

I know a lot of peopkle will ask what the point is, but I'm simply asking if the orange bricks are still in a workable state, and whether a POC exists.

I think you need to clarify- Workable state... for what?

[dexterp]

Re-colouring. The Orange bricks are messy.

[Metalwario64]

Re-colouring. The Orange bricks are messy.

Not for season two I know. So many lighter background details have become crushed white, so they no longer exist at all on that footage.

[MarcFBR]

Re-colouring. The Orange bricks are messy.

Not for season two I know. So many lighter background details have become crushed white, so they no longer exist at all on that footage.

Well, the thing is... I don't completely agree.

Thus far he's only suggested that he wants to change the color. That can still be done.

It won't magically make detail come back, but he could still recolor what is still there.

[Metalwario64]

I'm just trying to say that there isn't much there to work with, which is what I assumed he meant.

[MarcFBR]

I'm just trying to say that there isn't much there to work with, which is what I assumed he meant.

No argument there. But if all he wants to do is play with colors, he can have at it.

[fps_anth]

Awesome guide. I'm definitely going to try this out on some of my favorite episodes. I'm not nearly patient enough to do this for more than a few episodes

[takarajima]

諸行無常・・・・・・・