HOWTO: Make high-quality AMVs, without pre-processing

[santiagokq]

We all know that the default "AMV Converter" tool doesn't do such a great job. That's why we usually pre-process the videos, applying our own filters (resize, sharpen, crop, volume, noise reduction, etc), and then we convert it.

But there's a better way to do this: since AMV Converter (AMVC) is DirectShow-based, you can take advantage of that, and apply your filters on-the-fly (while converting), reducing the conversion time 2:1.


The best filter for doing this is ffdshow (ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net): not only it has all the filters you need, but it also can decode most common formats, without the need of additional codecs (or even those horrible "codec packs").

Here are the ones I used, when I had an AMV-based MP4 player; I guess they're good for everyone:

* Video
- resize (its routines have much better quality than AMVC's).
- sharpen (for compensating the blurriness added by "resize").
- crop (in case you're trying to fit widescreen videos in your regular MP4 screen).
- deinterlacing (if needed).
- postprocessing (although it isn't always useful for tiny resolutions).
- picture properties (useful for raising contrast, saturation, brightness, etc).
- subtitles (in case you need to embed them).

* Audio
- volume (you could need to maximize it, in order to hear well in crowded places).
- FIR filter (great for reducing the noise added by volume maximization).


Well that's pretty much it; I hope you guys find it useful...


(NOTE: when you install ffdshow, remember to tell it to also process RAW audio and video; this way you'll apply the filters to all formats, not only the ones you decode with ffdshow).

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Thanks for that, although i never liked ffdshow. :P

Well, we just need to have it installed, configure those encoding settings and that's all? I mean after doing this, i can just give my source video to the AMV converter? If that's the case, then major thumbs up for you man! 8)

[santiagokq]

Yes, you only need to configure the right settings while watching the movie in any DirectShow player; and when you like what you see, just close the player, open AMV Converter, and feed it the movie.

ffdshow will remember the filter configuration, and since AMV Converter uses DirectShow, it will inherit all ffdshow filters, applying them on-the-fly while converting the movie.

I've been doing this for over a year, and it's worked great. I would have posted it in this forum before, if only I had known it existed... though I remember posting it in some MP4 wiki a while ago.

[dvd4me]

Originally Posted by santiagokq";p=&quot

I've been doing this for over a year, and it's worked great. I would have posted it in this forum before, if only I had known it existed... though I remember posting it in some MP4 wiki a while ago.

It's true, no need to get the huge avi file and also a super cool bonus is the perfect sync of Mpeg2 sat streams converting.
I'm talking after a week of various tryouts to get in sync audio of converted mpeg2 sat streams, none of the glorious apps, including Vdub is doing this conversion properly, except for Mpeg Streamclip or Alive Video Convertor, the last one you can rebuild the Mpeg2 stream with no more errors in it and you can use Vdub after to reconvert with no more sync issues.

But why pass thru 2-3 conversions and get the same result when ffdshow and AMV converting tool can do directly from the mpeg2 stream!!!

Super great, someone should try to make a guide and also this method should be sticky.

There are some tricks to choose the apps loading the ffdshow, because only the converter should loading-it and may be the player, the rest of apps should stay off.