I'd just like to mention...these were likely mastered to some sort of NTSC videotape (1" reels, if I recall from the special features), meaning that the video, at the least, is 29.97 fps and always has been. So its not so much a restoration as it is an enhancement.

 

The inverse telecine process is be definition a restoration, so its not an enchancement. I'm restoring the original animation frames back to their 24fps format. You have to read my web page that explains all this and about the process of converting the film to the NTSC format for telelvision viewing. I'm reversing that process, thus, restoring the animation back to its original film form.

I understand. Its just that, typically of shows this age, you won't find any sort of film master. I'd be surprised as hell if any kind of film cutting went on whatsoever. I'd figure they'd telecine it, cut it on videotape, and thus produce a Betacam or one-inch "master."

 

I admire the work you're doing, so please don't take it as a slam...

A question... how do you know that the masters were film and not video?

 

Setting aside common sense that the inverse telecine process just "happens" to work perfectly when done on these cartoons, the fact that these cartoons were done on film first is quite well documented on the DVD extras in the Chinese box set I have. They even show some blooper frames where you can see the Japanese animator's hand trying to place the next cell, as well as several test frames with the classic scene take marker. They also claim that they were able to directly telecine most of the master film footage, but that some of the episodes have the 1" beta tape footage filling in unrecovered spots. You can tell when this happens because the picture goes from a vibrant film quality to a blurry video tape quality.

 

Lastly as a final test of proof, I went and pulled 1 second of a heavy action scene in the first episode. Sure enough, it was distinctly animated in 24 exact frames, with each frame showing an animation change. Now I will point out that some scenes were poorly animated and is why the quality often looks better in animated movies. In these spots, the animators of the show simply shot each frame twice, filling out the 24 frames with only 12 actual uniquely drawn cells. This is how they would often make the deadlines, but it of course causes the quality of animation to suffer.

For more proof, here is the text explaination on the DVD extras:

 

The Analog Process

 

The one-inch video tape was utilized as the reference source for all subsequent editorial decisions. These tapes reflect what the viewing audience has experienced for more than a decade. These early tapes reflect the quality production available 18 years ago. These masters were transferred from 35mm prints on telecine machines. Film prints generally have limited contrast range and color saturation. Additionally, there is a softness in the video which tends to mask the overall sharpness to the picture.

 

The downside to this process was the inferior color depth, clarity, and the mount of analog noise. The analog video technology of the 1980's was far inferior to the digital film transfer process available today.

 

The Digital Process

 

Today, the film is typically 35mm negative instead of a 35mm print. The negative is ultrasonically cleaned using an electrostatic process with counter rotating buffers and alcohol (the alcohol is for cleaning the film). The film passes over sticky rollers, further cleaning the film (like a lint brush). It is then digitally transferred to a digital Betacam videotape.

 

The digital nature of the image source is retained in all subsequent copies. The analog tape format is not so forgiving when multiple copies are required from one master tape. Digital Betacam can be reproduced almost infinitely with no signal degradation.

 

Because the film-to-tape process has improved dramatically over the years, today's film transfers are quieter (less noise in the picture), cleaner, and more colorful. Also, the film technology has improved, creating grainless film stocks with greater color range and color clarity.

 

Over the years, the simple physical handling of these 18-year-old film negatives has created some physical defects that can't be prevented. Some remaining dirt is embedded in the emulsion of the negative.

 

Alas, we don't live in a perfect world and like all things, film ages.

 

As part of the restoration process, attempts were made to minimize the abrasion and scratches in the subsequent assembly process. A process called "dust-busting" was employed to eliminate the more noticeable dirt, hair, and animator dandruff. This process is unique to cleaning films, the process simply takes the previous or next clean film frame and replaces that segment of the picture.

 

Some instances the dirt, dust, and scratches were too great. The film transfer was subjected to an electronic process of removing scratches and dirt called "DVNR".

 

The Assembly Process

 

The 35mm film masters were often incomplete:

-scenes were missing

-scenes were insterted with errors or omissions

-scenes were not completely animated

-characters were not talking whent they should (lights blinking, mouths moving)

-missing layers of animation

-scenes rendered backwards

 

Clips that were missing were replaced with the original one-inch transfer.

 

All of the recaps were reconstructed from the 35mm high grain negative transfers.

 

From assorted additional scenes there are slates indicating the scene and episode number. The episode number is referenced to the Sunbow episode number. These slates are followed by the appropriate replacement action.

 

 

Ok so here's a couple pics I took from my HD screen (was not able to pull the contents off directly as the dvd did not read in my drive) showing some of the DVD's own side-by-side comparisons of their direct film transfer and the original broadcast tape:

 

 

 

Notice in the 2nd pic, they were unable to recover the missing film footage, so that side is blank. For scenes like this, they used the original broadcast master.

Restoring Hybrid 23,976+29,970 which these Rhino r1 DVD's are to 23,976 fps (24fps) is not an easy task

 

if you had the master tapes then it's easy! don't forget the masters are transferred to mpeg2 hybrid saves 20% file size and bitrate

 

your using .avi no doubt ?? and xvid awesome MPEG-4 codec but the wrong choice for archiving imo as quant 2 doesn't even give transperant quality (q1 just ups the MB's) try h.264 [mpeg-4 v10 avc] or mpeg-2 (cinema craft encoder)

 

first thing you should consider is a new container that can handle vfr (virtualFrameRate) like.mkv or .mp4

why do you need vfr ? simple

 

if you ivtc to 23.976 all 29.970 footage will go to hell and it will play jerky aswell

no matter if you use dgindex (force film) or (honor Pulldown) with a telecide/decimate (decomb or tfm/tdecimate)

same goes for 29.970 ...23.976 footage will playback jerky

 

note i never use force film unless i get 100% progressive with 96% i rather IVTC and look for bad frames and freeze em :)

 

you can install reclock etc .. won't make a difference

 

3 possible ways actually 4

 

01 use a telecide filter with a post processing deinterlacer a sharp one and leave it at 29.970fps don't use decimate if dgindex shows you have more video (Interlaced) than film (progressive) (Press f5)

 

02 use a telecide filter with a postprocessing deinterlacer a sharp one and decimate (Cycle=5) if dgindex shows you have more film (progressive) than video (Interlaced) (Press f5)

 

03 use tfm (telecide) and its vfr option to save the time codes + the Matroska container (.mkv)

 

04 get a good dvd player with progressive scan and HDMI like a denon, oppo or something... or use a good decoder on the pc like Nvidia's MPEG2 decoder or Powerdvd (with hardware decoding enabled (Nvidia)), reclock,haali's splitter (or overlay for tv-out)and FFDShow (yv12torgb High Quality (nvidia 8600 needs it)

 

you using wmp o.O ..oo oK ... try zoomplayer kmplayer mplayer anything but windows media crap ...player or worse real ..& quacktime

 

maybe you'll find this information usefull

 

encoding or restoring video is not meant for 1 button pushing 30minute readers and acting they spend countless hours/days reading how to use g-knot or any other one button pushing encoders imo.

reason there are so many crappy videos floating around.

I use Gordian Knot for my project, which works perfectly fine for my needs. Once I got the hang of making my own custom settings, I was able to make ivtc conversions that look better than the raw dvd footage (using 2-pass encoding with xvid since I plan on these being smaller files for storage).

 

Also I hate to tell you this, but the Windows Media Player for Vista Ultimate 64 (which is what I have) actually plays DVD content with fantastic smoothing and on-the-fly ivtc correction. I've compared its playback to numerous other players (including VLC) and its noticably smoother on red tones with black outlines. Of course I found out this version of Windows Media only comes with Vista Ultimate and you have to buy the upgrade to the player if you're not on Vista Ultimate. So I figure I'll use it since I have it.

Now I will point out that some scenes were poorly animated and is why the quality often looks better in animated movies. In these spots, the animators of the show simply shot each frame twice, filling out the 24 frames with only 12 actual uniquely drawn cells. This is how they would often make the deadlines, but it of course causes the quality of animation to suffer.

This is what I was referring to...

 

it would seem that they were trying to meet deadlines quite often

 

though in MTMTE in particular, the animation frame rate is noticeably improved over most episodes (Rebirth being another one that comes to mind).

Gordian knot huh

btw i run vista ultimate 64 and xp32 ..best player (imo) for both are zoomplayer 6 or kmplayer

I see you don't like smooth motion

you said they look better than the raw they don't actually you just removed the interlace to progressive any good software deinterlacer on your pc does the same.

another good example is Rhino's TransFormers The Movie << IT IS 23.976 FPS but has been pulled down to 29.970 to play on a dvd player (25.000 (Pal) 29.970 (NTSC) but still shows a progressive picture.

 

the thing that's kinda weird is this

you boldly claim this :

 

I was shot down and told I was basically an idiot for not undertsanding how the "NTSC" format works. Nothing could be further from the truth as I have done extensive research on the subject, not to mention having over a decade experience working with film.

 

a decade ??? and still using a beginners tool like gordian knot ???

you did extensive research on the subject right heh read it again

 

sorry mate but it seems like you don't know very much about video at all if you need some help i can help you i do have more than a decade of experience i started in 1992 (vcd era) as a amature and for the last 12 years as a professional. (Work)

Gordian knot huh

btw i run vista ultimate 64 and xp32 ..best player (imo) for both are zoomplayer 6 or kmplayer

I see you don't like smooth motion

you said they look better than the raw they don't actually you just removed the interlace to progressive any good software deinterlacer on your pc does the same.

another good example is Rhino's TransFormers The Movie << IT IS 23.976 FPS but has been pulled down to 29.970 to play on a dvd player (25.000 (Pal) 29.970 (NTSC) but still shows a progressive picture.

 

the thing that's kinda weird is this

you boldly claim this :

 

I was shot down and told I was basically an idiot for not undertsanding how the "NTSC" format works. Nothing could be further from the truth as I have done extensive research on the subject, not to mention having over a decade experience working with film.

 

a decade ??? and still using a beginners tool like gordian knot ???

you did extensive research on the subject right heh read it again

 

sorry mate but it seems like you don't know very much about video at all if you need some help i can help you i do have more than a decade of experience i started in 1992 (vcd era) as a amature and for the last 12 years as a professional. (Work)

 

First, my claim of over 10 years film experience has NOTHING to do with Gordian Knot. I'm talking actually handling 35mm film. If you want to be a jerk about that, that's your problem.

 

Second, Whether or not Gordian Knot is a "beginners" tool is completely irrelavent. It does the job with excellent results, something even you have to concede, mr. expert.

 

Third, I did not "just remove the interlace to progressive". Doing just that will still leave you with 29.97 fps, just no interlacing artifacts. IVTC removes the unwanted stretched frames as you well know, leaving the the animation "smoother" because there are no ghost frames trying to interpret how the animation should look. In frame 3 of the NTSC frames example on my web page, you can see how the background is ghosted such that you never get to see it in the NTSC version, yet its rendered completely in the IVTC corrected version. That's what I mean by smoother.

 

FInally, I've already tried other players like Zoom and found they invariably had something I did not like about the display. It all comes down to a matter of preference, and when I play dvd content on Media player for vista ultimate, it looks cleaner than other players. In fact, I will upload a couple of comparison pics to point out exactly what I'm talking about.

Ok, here's exactly what I'm talking about with the dvd playback feature on WMP for Vista Ultimate. In this pic, take note of how smooth the reds are around the eyes of both Megatron and Starscream:

 

 

 

Now take a look at how this same frame looks on virtually every other "free" media player:

 

 

Now those same reds have a decidedly pixelyzed look to them. Incidentally the free version of Zoom player has REALLY bad problems with crashing, hanging, and buttons showing up on the screen that do not get cleared when a new command or function is opened. I got so fed up with it, I uninstalled it in complete disgust. If I have to buy a decent media player just for DVD playback, I'm very well satisfied with the output from WMP on Vista Ultimate as you can see from the example pics above.

bieng a jerk ...right thats why i offered help in the first place ...you just don't want to listen thats your problem! not mine

 

ever considered that ivtc can cause jerky playback ?? on hybrid and Full Interlaced sources (most of the toon now are full (100%) interlaced becuase they are computer generated take galaxy force for example)

 

gordianknot is a nice tool sure nothing wrong with it ...but xvid needs settings changed and/or a custom matrix to get the max quality out of it.

 

nvidia's decoder does "ivtc" on all dvd's that are encoded with 23.976 + pulldown restoring it to its original frame rate with no interlacing or ghosting ! nvidia's decoder is equal to most expensive dvd players on the market

 

http://www.hardware.info/nl-NL/articles/am...dia_Purevideo/8

use babelfish to translate or look at the score card only

 

http://www.hardware.info/en-US/articles/am...nd_DVD_players/

 

dude what ever makes you a happy camper if you want to watch jerky toons be my guest just don't claim you know what your doing becuase you don't thats perfectly clear.

and calling people names sure is childish especially when someone is trying to help :S

 

o well best of luck on your project

 

regards

Mr Expert :P

 

Picture one is 23.976 (meaning Ivtc on the fly)

Picture two remain 29.970 but is deinterlaced

now use zoomplayer with nvidia's decoder for example (automatic + overlay) the picture will be sharper and more vivid.