[HELP] Upscale suggestions needed

[Miranda]

All I have is a rip from DVD as the original master is lost. I need to upscale from NTSC SD to 1080p for a Blu-ray release. I have tried numerous settings but the image still appears to be slighly unstable in places. Quite a few sudden shifts of blocks of color etc in various scenes, especially in night scenes.

link to sample clip

[karthauzi]

Im not sure, but you could try add Deblock PP7 Filter and maybe try TemporalDegrain2 with Radius 1 - 3 too or combining both, there is no really grain, but it can maybe help to stabilize motion a bit accoding to my experience. But there will be other people who mayxbe can help you better.

[Selur]

To do this properly, you would need to filter each scene separately.
Not filtering the scenes separately, will always a compromise between hiding artifacts and loosing details. Without adjusting per scene, the strong filtering required for some will be maybe too strong for others.
mcdegrainsharp + MCTemporalDenoise seems like a decent method to be able to adjust this.
Alternatively, if you got a fast NVIDIA GPU using SCUNet+CAS, gives some nice results, but might be too strong in some scenes.
Once the source is cleaned enough, using NNEDI3 is probably good.

SCUNet + CAS + NNEDI3 + Filmgrain:





MCDegrainSharp + MCTemporalDenoise(medium) + CAS + NNEDI3 + Filmgrain:






Cu Selur

[Miranda]

Thanks, I will try these settings. The movie is 140 minutes long, so breaking it into shorter scenes is sadly not possible.

I'm also seeing verticle combing/bleeding around the edges of strong colours, such as those on bright red and pink clothing. You can see it on the red dress in your last image above. What can be done to reduce this?

How do I use SCUNet? I think perhaps my PC is a little too old for this.

Also, on fast movement of arms etc, I find that some noise removal filters tend to remove portions of the arm whilst it is moving quickly. Can this be fine-tuned?

[Selur]

How do I use SCUNet? I think perhaps my PC is a little too old for this.

SCUNet is one of the ai filters Hybrid supports through it's torch addon, but the addon only works with NVIDIA cards and also requires a fast card (and 8GB+ of VRAM) or a lot of patience. So probably not an option.

I'm also seeing verticle combing/bleeding around the edges of strong colours, such as those on bright red and pink clothing. You can see it on the red dress in your last image above. What can be done to reduce this?

Have you tried 'MCDegrainSharp + MCTemporalDenoise(medium) + CAS + NNEDI3 + Filmgrain:' ? (use the Vapoursynth Preview to tweak the settings. I often additionally set Filtering->Vapoursynth->Misc->Preview->Split Compare View->Filter View mode' to 'interleaved' to better see the effect of filters.)
MCTemporalDenoise(medium) should remove the ChromaBlocking.
Alternatively, for the chroma deblocking you could use something like DeblockPP7 and restrict it to chroma only.:

# applying deblocking using DeblockPP7
clip = core.pp7.DeblockPP7(clip=clip, qp=12.00, mode=2, planes=[1,2])

see: https://imgsli.com/MTQ3MDMw
or aWarpSharp2 only on chroma

# sharpening using AWarpSharp2
clip = core.warp.AWarpSharp2(clip=clip, blur=4, depth=32, planes=[1,2])

see: https://imgsli.com/MTQ3MDM1

Also, on fast movement of arms etc, I find that some noise removal filters tend to remove portions of the arm whilst it is moving quickly. Can this be fine-tuned?

Usually filters like SpotLess, DeSpot and KillerSpots can easily remove stuff, but the potential is there in every denoise, degrain filter.
Whether the effect can be fine-tuned depends on the filter.

The main issue with the source is that someone butchered the chroma planes.
So, you might want to concentrate on filtering the chroma planes.
Unfiltered:

with DeblockPP7 as suggested above:

it butchers the chroma even more, but it smoothed it
and here with aWarpSharp2:

Here's also SCUNet as an example of an ai based filter:


There are tons of ways to approach those issues.

Thanks, I will try these settings. The movie is 140 minutes long, so breaking it into shorter scenes is sadly not possible.

That only depends on the effort and time one is willing to spend.

=> Use the Vapoursynth Script Compare view and the different 'Filter View' modes to better understand what the filters do and then find a combination that suits your source and your time budget the best.

Cu Selur

[Miranda]

What do you mean by "someone butchered the chroma planes"? Is this something I can fix?

I noticed that if I rip the disc via Handbrake and apply a very light "smooth chroma" it also removes the edge chroma bleeding. Perhaps I will try a Handbrake rip rather than MKV for the Hybrid upscale.

[Selur]

What I mean by it, is that the chroma plane looks way worse than the other luma plane.
This usually happens with some encoders if you starve them in respect to the bitrate that you allow them. Encoders will usually prefer the luma-plane since humans are more 'luma aware'. (which is the reason that we use 4:2:0 instead of 4:4:4 chroma sampling in DVDs&Co)

Since your DVD source is this way, aside from filtering it as good as you choose, you can't really do anything about it. This is something that has been done through the way from the captured film to the DVD.

Cu Selur