Thank you, that actually looks pretty good! According to the qtgmc wiki, the default is "slower" Is that what you would normally use?

It's really slow anyway, and I can't tell any difference at Medium.

Here's an AviSynth script you can use for this with HOS AviDub. Lanczos3 and Spline36 resizing give a similar result. I would render to MagicYUV RGB and bring the 1280 x 960 back into Vegas for cropping and sharpening.

SetMemoryMax(16384)
AviSource("d:\fs.avi")
AssumeBFF()
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)
QTGMC(Preset="Slower", EdiThreads=4)
Spline36Resize(1280,960)
AssumeFPS(59.94)
Prefetch(16)

For performance/stability, you might need to reduce some of the numbers depending on your rig. For example if it crashes, try halving the 16384, 4 and 16.

However don't expect too much. It's basically impossible to get a sharp result when doubling the number of lines, no matter what fancy deinterlacing/resizing/sharpening you use. If 16:9 isn't essential, you might consider a more modest resize to 960 x 720, which is still "HD" but 4:3 of course. YouTube accept such resolution without you rendering black side-bars to make it 16:9, so I guess Vimeo would too. Or you could consider a hybrid of cropping and modest horizontal stretching. That's worked well for me before, although the subject was fish and not humans.

@NickHope, wouldn't rendering twice cause quality loss? I try to avoid having to render something twice. I don't care if it goes slow, I'll go do other things while it renders. Is there some benefit to using the script instead of the settings available in HOS? I ran a test render of a minute of footage and it looked pretty good just doing what musicvid said.

@MikeLV Rendering twice in this case is not a problem because MagicYUV RGB is lossless.

RenderPlus does fundamentally give as good quality as AviDub. However, two reasons I'm used to doing a lossless intermediate before render:

1. I like to add titles/graphics at the final render resolution, for maximum quality. If you add these to the original 480i project, they will get a bit mangled during processing. If you don't have titles/graphics then no problem.

2. I've never really been happy with AviSynth sharpening, and that goes for its basic "Sharpen" as well as the fancier "LimitedFasterSharpen" (used by RenderPlus) and "LSFMod". It's just not that sharp! Also, I personally think sharpening should come after resizing, but RenderPlus puts it before resizing. So I like to add some final native Vegas sharpening to my lossless intermediates at the final render resolution. The danger with the Vegas sharpening is that AFAIK it makes no effort to identify the edges of objects, so it boosts noise. So you have to be careful not to use too much. But the benefit is that it's more crisp than AviSynth sharpening. In either case, for your project, you would probably want to do some quite aggressive sharpening. e.g. RenderPlus sharpen of at least 500, or VEGAS Sharpen of say 0.800. On my current project (interlaced DV and HDV to 1080p) I'm actually typically using BOTH LSFMod (similar to the LimitedSharpenFaster sharpening in RenderPlus) of 300 to 500, AND Vegas sharpening of 0.500 to 0.700.

Also...

3. The RenderPlus resizer crops 56px from the top and bottom. However this gives a slightly vertically squashed result. I think the reason for this may be rooted in the non-square pixels of NTSC video. I calculated that 60px would be correct, but this gave me narrow black bars top and bottom. So actually I think it's better to resize to 1280x960 then crop 120px from the top and bottom either in AviSynth or with VEGAS Pan/Crop.

I did make another script that you can save as .avs and load into RenderPlus as a custom script to try:

SetMemoryMax(4096)
SetFilterMTMode("DEFAULT_MT_MODE", 2)
AviSource("d:\fs.avi")
AssumeBFF()
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)
QTGMC(Preset="Slower")
LanczosResize(1280,960)
Crop(0,120,-0,-120)
LimitedSharpenFaster(strength=800)
Prefetch(4)

But unfortunately the rendered file is flagged as interlaced, and I can't work out why. @wwaag?

After some testing, I think it will probably better to pillarbox instead. And I think the sharpening isn't good, at least with the resize. Is there a way to use the script but have it pillar box instead? So far, the better result is with HOS settings, without the script

As said previously, you may well not have to pillarbox your render to 16:9 at all (like this 4:3 720p video based on PAL DV). Try uploading a 960x720 render with no black side bars. Script for that:

SetMemoryMax(4096)
SetFilterMTMode("DEFAULT_MT_MODE", 2)
AviSource("d:\fs.avi")
AssumeBFF()
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)
QTGMC(Preset="Slower")
LanczosResize(960,720)
LimitedSharpenFaster(strength=800)
Prefetch(4)

If you need a script that renders with black side bars, I could look into that tomorrow. I think the RenderPlus resizer offers that anyway.

Did something change is HOS? When I go to the resize/crop settings dialog, I can't make the pillarbox bars appear on the sides like it used to? Or is there a better way to go from 480i to 720p now? @wwaag Or maybe I'm supposed to be using a script, can't recall.

Do you have source sample somewhere?

Do you have source sample somewhere?

Do you mean the original footage?

@MikeLV

Nothing has changed in HOS regarding the resize/crop settings dialog in R+. Exactly, which tool are you trying to use? If you are using R+, you can simply use the dialog. If you are using AviDub, you must use a script like the one posted by NickHope back in March just a few posts up. If you need help, send me a PM with the specifics.

Using R+, when I go to the crop settings window, and click on pillar box, and click the preview button after choosing the new frame size, it does not show the black bars on the left and right of the video like it did before.

@MikeLV

Will check.

I can confirm that something is messed up. Will fix tomorrow.

👍👍

Do you mean the original footage?

Yes (short fragment), so I can try my avisynth script.

Do you mean the original footage?

Yes (short fragment), so I can try my avisynth script.

I sent a private message to you @fifonik