Latest News and Updates

Old news (oxymoron?) is available here.
  • July 18, 2003: I've released a new deinterlacer for Avisynth: KernelDeint. This deinterlacer fills the niche between simple field discarding and motion-based algorithms. It provides decent vertical resolution while avoiding residual interlacing and reducing the jaggies effect.

  • July 18, 2003: The forum is down due to "failure to connect to database". I have logged a trouble ticket with the ISP, and I am at their mercy because nothing changed from my side and the database server is administered by them. Check back here for status updates.

  • July 14, 2003: I have started a new forum for support of my tools as well as for general video processing theory and algorithms. You can access it from the left-hand menu bar. It's brand new, so please visit it, register, and start posting! Note that the news given here will transition to the News forum, so please look there for future news items.

  • July 6, 2003: DGBob() version 1.6.0 adds a 50% slow motion mode.

  • July 6, 2003: Antonio Foranna has released version 1.2 of his Noise Reduction Suite (NRS) filter.

  • June 27, 2003: Antonio Foranna has released a bug fix version of his Noise Reduction Suite (NRS) filter.

  • June 25, 2003: DGBob() version 1.5.1 fixes double-rate output, which got broken when I added single rate output. Oops.

  • June 21, 2003: I just had to do it! Here is a version of my DGBob() filter that supports non-doubled frame rate output.

  • June 21, 2003: Released what I hope is the final version (for a while) of my DGBob() filter. Version 1.4.0 adds an optional artifact protection feature (see help file for details).

  • June 20, 2003: Released yet another version of my DGBob() filter. Version 1.3.0 further reduces artifacting at the expense of a little speed. This appears to be a reasonable tradeoff now.

  • June 20, 2003: Released a fixed version of my DGBob() filter. Version 1.2.1 fixes a terrible bug in RGB support, which affected DV and other files.

  • June 19, 2003: Released another new version of my DGBob() filter. This version adds support for RGB and YV12 color spaces.

  • June 18, 2003: Released a new version of my DGBob() filter. This release greatly improves the motion detection and thus the quality of the results. The motion threshold is also exposed in the user interface.

  • June 18, 2003: Antonio Foranna has released a new version of his Noise Reduction/Shifting/Cropping Filter. Note that this filter was previously known as 'kNRC'.

  • June 16, 2003: Karel Suhajda has released a new version of his DeLogo Filter.

  • June 14, 2003: Added a link to Emiliano Ferrari's VirtualDub Filters page. Please note that the site is in the Italian language only.

  • June 14, 2003: Released the first version of my take on smart bobbing for Avisynth: DGBob 1.0.0. I've wanted to write a smart bob for a long time and finally found a reasonable tradeoff between functionality, artifacts, and speed. This filter tries with some success to mitigate flutter. It is similar to Gunnar Thalin's SmoothDeinterlace, but is much faster. A future version will add YV12 support and performance improvements.

  • June 1, 2003: Jim Leonard has released an update of his White Balance filter.

  • June 1, 2003: Karel Suhajda has released an update of his Delogo filter.

  • May 21, 2003: Added a new site feature: "My journal". You can access it through the left-hand site menu.

  • May 7, 2003: Released the first version of MultiDecimate. This Avisynth filter can decimate N out of every M frames. This is useful, for example, for restoring silent movies to their original frame rates.

  • May 4, 2003: Released Logo for VirtualDub Version 1.4. This version increases the maximum X and Y offsets to 1200 and 800, respectively, and fixes a problem that affects encoding with selections/cutting. Also, the help file was converted to HTML.

  • April 26, 2003: Released a Reverse Field Dominance filter for VirtualDub. This is useful for transcoding PAL DV to Standard PAL, and other obscure applications.

  • April 26, 2003: Released Decomb 4.10 beta 2. Refer to the change listing on the Decomb page for details.

  • April 8, 2003: Released MSharpen 1.10 beta 2. This version adds (optimized) YV12 support, contributed by Klaus Post.

  • March 27, 2003: Released Decomb 4.06 beta 7. This version improves the speed of Telecide() for YV12, and relaxes the width restriction from multiple of 4 to multiple of 2.

  • March 21, 2003: Released Dup 2.20 beta 1. This version provides low-level optimizations and fixes a problem with frame blending. These changes were contributed by Klaus Post.

  • January 30, 2003: Released Dup 2.01 to fix a bug that caused crashes when Dup was followed by a filter that requests out-of-order frames, such as temporal smoothers.

  • January 24, 2003: Released my MSmooth filter for Avisynth. It is an interesting detail-constrained spatial smoother. Look at the frame grabs to get an idea of what it can do. It is not yet optimized for speed so it is slow, but there is lots of room for speed improvements, which I hope will be forthcoming.

  • January 21, 2003: Nina Cording has contributed a really cool utility for creating palettes for the Pseudocolor filter for VirtualDub. Check it out! Thank you, Nina.

  • January 12, 2003: Released a version of MSharpen for Avisynth 2.5.

  • January 12, 2003: Released Decomb 4.06 beta 6. FieldDeinterlace(chroma=true) was broken and is fixed in this version.

  • January 9, 2003: Added a link in the Other section: SpotRemover Filter for VirtualDub by Konstantin Khlopenkov.

  • January 8, 2003: Released a version of Dup for Avisynth 2.5. It also provides a new blend option, which allows the copy frame to be generated from a blending of all the frames in the string of duplicates.

  • January 1, 2003: Released a version of Decomb that will work with the new Avisynth version 2.5. This version of Decomb supports both the YUY2 and YV12 color spaces, and thereby lets you work without color space conversions when working with MPEG source material.

  • December 26, 2002: Hans-Martin Kreuz has contributed a port of SmartSmoother to Avisynth (pre-2.5 versions). It is available in the Hosted area.

  • December 23, 2002: Version 4.05 Legacy of Decomb is the end of the line for this version of Decomb. This version fixes a bug in the y0/y1 exclusion band, greatly expands the manual override capability, and adds 3 new parameters: agg, nt, and mm (refer to the help file). Future versions of Decomb will run only under Avisynth 2.5 or beyond.

  • November 19, 2002: Version 1.4 of Dup fixes a crashing bug resulting when the frame dimensions are not a multiple of 32 and the box drawn by show=true is partially off the frame.

  • October 31, 2002: Version 4.01 of Decomb adds a new Telecide() pattern guidance mode (guide=3) for processing 25fps to 30fps telecining, and fixes a bug in default parameter handling of the guide parameter.

  • October 25, 2002: Added new version of End of Processing Sound Alarm for VirtualDub by Giuseppe Lo Sciuto. This new version adds scripting support, PC speaker beep support, sound play time limit, mouse click stopping of the sound, auto save state, MP3 and MID sound format, and new and better settings.

  • October 15, 2002: Added End of Processing Sound Alarm for VirtualDub by Giuseppe Lo Sciuto.

  • October 8, 1002: Added a new version of Fred's AV Links page. Also, added Fred's new DirecTiVo links to the menu bar on the home page.

  • October 8, 1002: Added a new version of the VirtualDub Filters Import File by Wilbert Dijkhof.

  • October 8, 1002: Released a major upgrade for Decomb. Warning: Check your scripts carefully against the new help file; not all parameters are backward compatible! Following are the changes:

    • Decimate duplicate detection has been greatly improved. The metrics are now normalized on the range 0-100%.
    • Decimate now offers different quality options.
    • A bug has been repaired in which Decimate could crash near the end of an encode in certain circumstances.
    • Added 'show' option to all filters. This overlays debug information right on the frames to simplify tweaking.
    • User-specified default parameters.
    • Manual override now possible for all Decomb decisions.
    • Combed frame detection now observes the chroma option.
    • A bug was fixed in FieldDeinterlace that caused bad output when the frame was cropped before FieldDeinterlace and blend was set to false.
    • A table of contents was added to the help file.
    • An appendix on the theory of operation of Telecide was added to the help file.

  • September 15, 2002: Released version 1.2 of Dup. This version fixes a bug that caused an Avisynth stack overflow in some circumstances.

  • September 11, 2002: Released version 1.1 of Dup.

  • September 10, 2002: Ported my MSharpen filter to VirtualDub.

  • September 10, 2002: First release version of my new Dup filter for Avisynth.

  • September 9, 2002: First release version of MSharpen: Version 1.0. This version fixes some minor problems in frame border handling and is faster. The source code is also now available.

  • September 7, 2002: Released beta 4 of MSharpen. This fixes major bugs in beta 2 and (unreleased) beta 3. If you have beta 2 or 3, trash them and get this one.

    I have been asked why there is little VirtualDub development going on while Avisynth is getting a lot of my attention. I plan to redress this concern shortly. I will start by porting MSharpen to VirtualDub.

  • September 4, 2002: Released beta 2 of MSharpen. This version adds YUY2 support, configurable defaults, a high/low quality option (to allow a quality/speed tradeoff), and increased speed, especially in YUY2 space. Several small but insignificant bugs were also fixed in RGB handling.

  • September 2, 2002: Released the first beta of my new smart sharpening filter MSharpen. Future work will include speed optimization, supporting YUY2 for Avisynth, and porting to VirtualDub.

  • August 28, 2002: Released a patch to Decomb. Version 3.91 changes Decimate(mode=2) so that if a cycle of frames has no duplicates it reverts to mode=0 behavior. Previously it just chose the first frame in the cycle, causing possible jerkiness.

  • August 13, 2002: I have released a new version of Decomb. Version 3.9 adds a new decimation mode. This new mode greatly improves decimation in cases where there are repeated duplicates, such as you would encounter with clips that are derived from low frame rate animations, or clips where there is slow motion such that there is not movement in every frame. With Decimate(mode=0), it was likely that the wrong frames would be decimated. With Decimate(mode=2), the correct frames are decimated, preventing jerky output for these kinds of clips.

  • August 11, 2002: Simon Walters has made an Avisynth plugin version of his VirtualDub ViewFields filter (which displays the top field in the top of the frame and the bottom in the bottom!). It's quite useful for debugging field order issues as it shows the actual field order.

  • August 9, 2002: Antonio Foranna has released a new version of his noise reduction/cropping filter. It allows for independent enabling/disabling of the cropping/shifting functionality and the noise reduction functionality.

  • August 4, 2002: Antonio Foranna has contributed a new noise reduction/cropping filter. It provides dynamic noise reduction according to human perceptual qualities as well as integrated cropping/shifting. Thank you, Antonio.

  • July 20, 2002: Karel Suhajda has released a new version of his Shutdown filter. He says:

    "Here is the new version of the Shutdown filter. It's a bugfix, the previous version didn't work under Windows 98 and probably 95 and Me too. This version works for Windows 98 and I assume it is fixed for 95 and Me, but I didn't test it on those systems."

  • June 27, 2002: Karel Suhajda has released a new version of his DeLogo filter. He says:

    "The changes include:

    • Fixed a bug in batch mode causing errors when some masks were not saved
    • Added a warning message to batch save procedure reporting unsaved masks
    • Added possibility to subtract ('undo') a frame during manual analysis
    • Little enhancements of the documentation"

  • June 27, 2002: Added a new version of the VirtualDub Filters Import File by Wilbert Dijkhof

  • May 30, 2002: Added a link to Uwe Freese's website. He has written a Time-Based Deinterlacer filter and a Field Delay filter.

  • May 29, 2002: Klaus Post has released a new version of his High-Quality Smoothing Filter. Here are the changes:
    • New feature: Visualize Blur.
    • MMX optimized "Average Pixels" mode. Speedup in average mode is around 120% without "Weighed with Difference". Without "Weighed with Difference" the filter is now approximately 30-50% faster than Smart Smoother and Spatial Smoother, which both have very similar smoothing algorithms, but with a slightly worse quality in most cases. Quality is 100% the same as older versions.
    • Bug fix: Threshold was still wrong -- would only trigger if ALL RGB values were above threshold. All users should upgrade.
    • Minor optimization to weighed mode.
    • Bug fix: Differences in red color only did not trigger the threshold test.
    • Plain and P3/K6-3 version where the same as the Athlon binaries, causing them to crash! :(
    • Small optimizations to weighed mode.

  • May 10, 2002: Karel Suhajda has released a new Shutdown filter. It allows you to automatically shutdown Windows when processing is complete.

  • May 9, 2002: Klaus Post has released an excellent new version of his High-Quality Smoothing Filter. It is now assembler optimized and offers new functionality.

  • April 3, 2002: Karel Suhajda has released a bug fix for his DeLogo filter. Version 1.2.1 fixes a bug that prevented proper batch-mode operation.

  • March 30, 2002: Released a fix for the AntiFlicker filter. Version 1.1 fixes a bug that caused a hang if a value larger than 31 was entered into the softening edit box. The executable is also recompiled as a multithreaded DLL to reduce its size.

  • March 24, 2002: Released a new version of Tweak. Version 1.3 operates in place and uses integer SSE optimizations when the processor supports it. Integer SSE optimizations by "Dividee".

    Due to a family emergency, I will have to take an extended sabbattical from further work on video processing. This site will remain up but there will be few, if any updates, until my personal situation stabilizes.

  • March 23, 2002: Karel Suhajda has released a new version of his DeLogo filter. This version is revised as follows:
    • Fixed a bug in bitmap saver/loader causing "rainbows" on odd widths.
    • Made slider value fields show real value instead of integer representation.
    • Added "interlaced" option to repair parameters.
    • Added "pixel aspect" option to repair parameters.
    • Changed the way the Repair mask is subtracted from the DeBlend mask.
    • Completely rewrote the repair algorithm, enhanced its speed particularly when multiple independent regions are repaired.
    • Rewrote the Quick start section and revised the rest of the manual.

  • March 22, 2002: Added a VirtualDub filters import file for Avisynth (vdub_filters.avs). This import file was written by Wilbert Dijkhof and is being maintained to track the latest versions of the VirtualDub filters.

  • March 18, 2002: Released version 1.2 of the Tweak plugin for Avisynth. This version is much faster.

  • March 16, 2002: Added a link to an interesting new filter: Tim Park's Smart Chroma Smoother. This filter attenuates the rainbow artifacts that are often encountered with anime.

  • March 16, 2002: Created a new Avisynth plugin: Tweak. This filter allows the hue, saturation, brightness, and contrast of a video clip to be adjusted.

  • March 10, 2002: Released a new VirtualDub filter: Pseudocolor. This filter maps a video through a user-definable color palette. The luminance of each source pixel is calculated and then used to index the user-defined color palette to generate the output pixel. This filter would typically be used to pseudocolor a grayscale clip, but can also be used on color clips to generate interesting effects.

    Several sample color palettes are provided. The user can easily generate her own palettes. Palette files are simple text files defining the RGB values of the palette entries.

  • March 8, 2002: New version of Decomb. Version 3.8 adds pattern guidance for PAL. Note that the syntax for the guide options has changed; please refer to the help file.

    I now consider Decomb to be mature and will turn my attention to other matters. The first thing I plan to do is implement a pseudocolor filter for VirtualDub. Then I plan to port some filters to Avisynth, especially Hue/Saturation/Intensity.

  • March 6, 2002: Yes, one day I will work on something other than Decomb! But not yet. Decomb version 3.7 adds pattern guidance for NTSC 3:2 pulldown material. This feature can improve the field matching for some clips. Refer to the help file for details.

  • March 4, 2002: New version of Decomb: Version 3.6 exposes the deinterlacing threshold in the user interface. See the help file for details.

  • March 3, 2002: New version of Decomb: Version 3.5 fixes a bug that caused a spurious bottom line in Telecide's output when the height of the input clip is odd. This version also has a further improved field matching algorithm that now succeeds on several "torture" clips that it previously failed on.

  • February 27, 2002: The Decomb release stream never ends! Version 3.4 allows for specification of an exclusion band for the field matching. This is typically used to ignore subtitling that might otherwise interfere with proper field matching.

  • February 26, 2002: Another Decomb release! Version 3.3 enhances the Decimate(mode=1) functionality. You can now set a threshold such that instead of blending one frame in every cycle, it will either blend the frame if its difference from the previous frame is less than or equal to threshold, or it will pass through the chosen frame if its difference from the previous frame is greater than threshold. This enhancement allows you to have the nonfilm portions of a hybrid clip passed through untouched, while still blend-interpolating once per cycle in film portions.

  • February 24, 2002: New Decomb release: Version 3.2 improves the field matching algorithm and adds a reverse parameter that allows the sense of the field matching to be reversed (see the help file for details).

  • February 15, 2002: Made a version of Avery Lee's WarpSharp filter that works when imported into Avisynth.

  • February 13, 2002: Released the source code for Decomb.

  • February 12, 2002: Released a new version of Decomb. Version 3.1 adds a new option to Decimate. This option allows you to invoke a mode whereby instead of discarding frames, Decimate replaces them with an interpolated frame. Using this mode, you can render your final output at 30fps without creating jerkiness due to duplicated frames. Also, this version improves the reliability of both Telecide and Decimate with noisy source clips.

  • February 11, 2002: Added a link to the website of Shaun Faulds.

  • February 5, 2002: Jim Leonard has contributed a WhiteBalance Filter. Sort of a Swiss army knife of filters!

  • February 5, 2002: Released a new, faster version of Decomb. Version 3.0 contains coding optimizations and new information (see help file) that lead to large speed gains. Also, a new parameter has been added to Telecide and FieldDeinterlace that optionally enables chroma comparisons in the deinterlacing step. To obtain the maximum speed gains possible with this version, be sure to read and apply the tips in the help file, especially the one about using null parentheses!

  • January 30, 2002: Maintenance release of Decomb. Version 1.91 makes the following fixes:
    • Symbolic parameters are now supported. For example, you can say Telecide(blend=false,debug=true).
    • The debug mode of Decimate was fixed; previously no output was generated.
    • Fixed erroneous blend of the top and bottom lines in frames detected as combed.
    • Fixed erroneous printing of the frame number in the debug output of Telecide.
    • Telecide now throws an error if the input width is not a multiple of 4.
    • Speed tips and other miscellaneous fixes added to help file.

    Added a new link on the main page menu: A/V Links. Thanks to Fred Thompson for providing this valuable listing.

  • January 28, 2002: Another release of Decomb. Please refer to the Decomb page for details.

  • January 24, 2002: Sorry, the links to Klaus Post's filters were broken; they have now been repaired. High-Quality Smoothing Filter

  • January 23, 2002: Fixed another bug in Decomb that caused crashing with cropping. Also, added a decimate 1-in-25 function.

  • January 23, 2002: No, not another Decomb version! Klaus Post has contributed a high-quality smoothing filter. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it looks very interesting. Thank you Klaus!

  • January 22, 2002: Yet another version of Decomb. Version 1.81 fixes a bug that caused crashes when a Crop() call was placed ahead of Decomb. Also, this version is about 10% faster.

  • January 22, 2002: New release of Decomb. Version 1.8 adds the option to force the interpolation of the first and last frames, and greatly improves deinterlacing of frames detected as combed.

  • January 21, 2002: The whole 2.x line of revisions for Decomb was a bad idea. I have rolled back to Version 1.75.

  • January 19, 2002: Yet another Decomb release. This should be the last one for a while. This version enables postprocessing by default, changes the default threshold to 15, and adds an option for interpolating the first and last fields if needed. Note that the Telecide parameters hav changed, so edit your script files appropriately.

  • January 19, 2002: Released a new version of Decomb. Version 2.0 integrates the deinterlace postprocessing into Telecide. Forget about FieldDeinterlace; it is gone. Please read the help file for the new usage syntax.

  • January 18, 2002: Fixed a memory leak in Decomb 1.6. Please get version 1.7.

  • January 17, 2002: New version of Decomb released. The field matching is improved further and FieldDeinterlace is faster when full=true.

  • January 16, 2002: Released a new version of Decomb for Avisynth. Version 1.5 is a major improvement. FieldDeinterlace when used in cleanup mode after Telecide/Decimate now (when the full parameter is set to false) will not touch frames that are detected as progressive. The algorithm for detecting progressive versus combed frames is now very effective. The result is a big reduction in shimmer/flashing that you would otherwise get when progressive frames are erroneously deinterlaced. Telecide's field matching has also been improved. Please read the updated help file as there are several important usage changes to be aware of. This version now does a very good job on challenging anime sources, such as "Cowboy Bebop".

  • January 14, 2002: The Decomb package is undergoing rapid development and there will be a stream of revisions for a while. Please watch the page for Decomb to stay apprised of developments. I've latched onto a new way to handle difficult streams, such as Cowboy Bebop (anime), and I am hopeful that several revisions down the road will show greatly improved results with such streams. After the functionality stabilizes, I will optimize for speed.

  • January 12, 2002: OK, Decimate in the Decomb package is fixed up now. The combination of Telecide and Decimate is working very well on my HBO captures, but there are still some issues to be worked out when applied to difficult anime, especially when it contains lots of blended fields.

  • January 12, 2002: Darn! Decimate is still unreliable in Decomb for Avisynth (but OK for VirtualDub). I am taking it offline for repairs. Check back again in a day or two.

  • January 12, 2002: Released an update to the Decomb package. The FieldDeinterlace function is now much faster and properly deinterlaces the first frame in frame-differencing mode.

  • January 11, 2002: Don't be too shocked, but I have branched out into Avisynth filters and this site now reflects that. My first effort for Avisynth is a package of de-combing tools. Basically, it is an integrated packaging of Avisynth native ports of Telecide, Decimate, and Smart Deinterlacer. The new (reliable!) version of Decimate is used and so we now have an integrated inverse telecine capability that is powerful and easy to use. I will be happy to receive feedback on this software (as well as suggestions for other native Avisynth filters). After the functionality of this package stabilizes, I will undertake MMX and SSE optimizations to improve the performance (which is now just acceptable).

  • January 6, 2002: I've created and released a new filter: Hotspot. It is designed to assist in shooting projected film and complements the existing Antiflicker Filter. It corrects the uneven illumination that one sometimes obtains due to the projector's bulb not even illuminating the frame. Click on the link for more details.

  • January 6, 2002: flaXen's site has gone down and there appears to be no way to reach the owner. Therefore, I have hosted two of the popular flaXen filters under the Hosted Filters section.

  • January 1, 2002: Released a minor update to the Hue/Saturation/Intensity filter. It adds fields that show the numerical values of the slider positions, and is recompiled as a Multithreaded DLL to reduce executable size.

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