As a byproduct of my never-ending search for better ways to improve video quality, I have created this "totally new" video, albeit modified from another video. So this is a "new" video in the sense that this particular encoding does not exist, as I am typing this now, anywhere else on the planet.

Anyway, this "new" video, which began life as a .vob file (see torrent #8966917), sat in my pending tray for a little over 2 weeks (I'd actually forgotten I had downloaded it) and has, over the past 2 or 3 days, been through extensive and exhaustive testing and re-testing, and re-testing again with really very little to show for it. 

Except the following discovery:
-------------------------------
I can say now, with near 100% certainty, that there's a definite limit to what you can do with pre/post processing of videos. If you truly want to enhance the quality of a video such that it actually *is* better rather than "appearing to be better" (ie. artifact hiding), then the tweaking has to be done down at the level of the encoder. Not before, and not after - though you can do that too of course. In my day, I think that process was called "writing a pixel shader" although I never actually wrote one.

Well thankfully nowadays there is a video (en/de)coding scheme that allows for tweaking of video data as an integral part of the (en/de)coding process. And that scheme would be the famous H.264 or "Advanced Video Codec" (en/de)coding scheme. So 
I decided, once and for all, to actually learn a thing or two about H.264. Things like: 

    • What's a B-frame? or an I-frame?
    • What's an Uneven multihexagonal search?
    • What's an 8×8 Adaptive DCT Transform?
    • What's a Loop Filter?

and so on. And I believe I have actually understood the ideas and used that knowledge in order to revert this severely degraded .VOB file back into a *true* "High Definition" video (with a few minor glitches naturally).

As for the music? Well, now I have a chance to actually sit down and listen to it!

About the performance:
----------------------
IGNACY PADEREWSKI (1860-1941)
Miscellanea, Op.16, No.4: Nocturne
Humoresques de Concert, Op.14, No.1: Minuet in G major

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750)
Partita No.1 in B flat major, BWV 825

FREDERIC CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Études, Op.10
Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op. porth.

Jan Lisiecki, piano 

Louvre Auditorium, September 2013

- user101966

NB. I have left the ugly text in at the beginning as evidence of this video's origin.

***********************************************

Video Info:
-----------
General
Complete name                            : D:MusicutorrentJan.Lisiecki.Paderewski.Bach.Chopin.H.264.Dolby.HDJan Lisiecki plays Paderewski Bach Chopin.avi
Format                                   : AVI
Format/Info                              : Audio Video Interleave
File size                                : 1.94 GiB
Duration                                 : 1h 2mn
Overall bit rate                         : 4 464 Kbps

Video
ID                                       : 0
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 4 frames
Codec ID                                 : H264
Duration                                 : 1h 2mn
Bit rate                                 : 4 000 Kbps
Width                                    : 1 276 pixels
Height                                   : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.145
Stream size                              : 1.74 GiB (90%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 123 r2189 35cf912
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=32 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=3 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=0 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=300 / keyint_min=30 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=4000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.20

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : 2000
Duration                                 : 1h 2mn
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 448 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 200 MiB (10%)
Alignment                                : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration                     : 32 ms (0.96 video frame)