Author Topic: SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 CRS-3 Splashdown Video Repair Task Thread  (Read 1201543 times)

Offline ugordan

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I sincerely hope there is better video (preferably from observation ships/aircraft) following Saturday's launch.

I don't know how much "better" such video would be. On another site I saw a claim that the telemetry plane on CRS-3 was over 20 miles away. The CASSIOPE launch aerial images released also suggest a pretty large distance from the vehicle. I guess safety trumps closeup observations.

Offline mmeijeri

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Maybe they can enable some of the resilience features this time round?
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Offline ugordan

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If it was that simple and at no additional cost (like increase in b/w requirements) I imagine they'd already have done that. After all, even the video on the way up breaks up fairly badly at times.

Offline Adaptation

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Frame 3 is disgusting  >:(

I can't do anything with it (disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm doing)
Agreed. It seems to be totally random noise.
yeah i think its just the fact that it has so few bytes, its got 8927. while the best picture so far (iframe8) has 20428. i think its interesting that iframe 6 has the at most 29622 but so far looks just as garbled as others. might be the one with most room for improvement?
Can it be that due to bit errors the size of Iframe3 is not correctly determined and part of IF3 is interpreted to be part of the next frame?

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Shanuson
Possible. Possibly with some better work on the transport stream that can be determined to be the case or ruled out. The try1.ts file's iframe3 is a bit larger than the others at 9005 bytes.

Been rather busy this week, I'm going to try to finish the todo list for my program this weekend then start in on a fresh reconstruction of the raw.ts, no guarantees it will yield much but I'm hopeful. 

Offline mlindner

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If it was that simple and at no additional cost (like increase in b/w requirements) I imagine they'd already have done that. After all, even the video on the way up breaks up fairly badly at times.

If they'd turn off interlacing they'd get a big boost to compressibility. Compressing interlaced video at the frame level rather than field level gives you nightmare terrible compression.

I'd guess its because they got some stock "space rated" (super old technology) cameras that are old analog NTSC cameras and they transcode that to a digital video signal for downlink.
« Last Edit: 05/08/2014 02:40 pm by mlindner »
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Offline mvpel

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ASIDE: Watching all this amateur Kremlinology on some badly-corrupted individual video frames reminds me somewhat unpleasantly of watching the internets go nuts over similarly-confusing bits of video and tidbits of information following STS-107. I can see why SpaceX didn't rush to release the video immediately. I sincerely hope there is better video (preferably from observation ships/aircraft) following Saturday's launch.

I think you're overreacting. The "kremlinology" you deride is in reality a genuine and heartfelt cooperative effort among enthusiastic and obviously highly-capable fans of SpaceX to suss out the precisely correct layout of each iframe, not just some pointless exercise in conspiracy-theory grandstanding. The "secretive organization" and the "limited data points" really do exist, in the form of the scrambled and uncharted bits of each iframe. If there is, in reality, a smudge or dent on the lens or a dent in the leg, then that provides important reference information for untangling the rest of the iframes. If you go grab a cup of coffee and then take another look at the astounding progress that has been made so far, I'm sure you'll feel more pleasant about it.
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Offline SwissCheese

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iframe 13 from try1:

40:1:-1,0:10:-1:0:-10,1:10:-1:,4:10:49027,8:29:-1


Offline AncientU

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iframe 13 from try1:

40:1:-1,0:10:-1:0:-10,1:10:-1:,4:10:49027,8:29:-1

Semi-submerged legs?
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Offline fatdeeman

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iframe 13 from try1:

40:1:-1,0:10:-1:0:-10,1:10:-1:,4:10:49027,8:29:-1

Oh wow look at that! 

Offline ugordan

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If they'd turn off interlacing they'd get a big boost to compressibility. Compressing interlaced video at the frame level rather than field level gives you nightmare terrible compression.

Yes, this is actually something I've been whining about ever since they switched to this method (CRS-2 I think) and the video is still 15 fps interlaced. I'm not getting my hopes up anymore.

Offline Joffan

iframe 13 from try1:

40:1:-1,0:10:-1:0:-10,1:10:-1:,4:10:49027,8:29:-1


Looks like the stage moved to the right, compared to the initial splash?
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Offline mlindner

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iframe 13 from try1:

40:1:-1,0:10:-1:0:-10,1:10:-1:,4:10:49027,8:29:-1


Looks like the stage moved to the right, compared to the initial splash?

Hard to tell, remember that color and "brightness" of the blocks are dependent on nearby blocks, often unpredictably so, when there are errors. You should only rely on the texture patterns themselves for determining information here IMO.
« Last Edit: 05/08/2014 03:17 pm by mlindner »
LEO is the ocean, not an island (let alone a continent). We create cruise liners to ride the oceans, not artificial islands in the middle of them. We need a physical place, which has physical resources, to make our future out there.

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Yeah, interlacing is a terrible idea in pretty much any case, especially in the digital age. I was appalled when they decided to continue that for the HD standard(s).
Definitely bad for compression and when you are watching it on a computer.

Offline Lars_J

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But then after looking at the emerging details of frames 7 and 8, I'm beginning to fear your suspicions may be correct that they are not bugged bits but rather a big gnarly dent in the leg. 

Hi, I think it might be some sort of splodge of high refractive index stuff on the camera bending light around it (see attached image: red circle in same place on the two frames, aligned them using the black mark above it) Its an oval region without any internal texture (ie blurred) in all other frames AFAICS, bordering another dirty mark, and still appears to be there in frame 12 where the leg is underwater. I reckon the leg was probably OK until hitting the water, but it would be nice to get more clear images of the "splodge".

Great work guys, although I don't understand a word of what you are talking about re: video decoding !!

Yes, I think the "dirt on lens" is the more likely explanation.

Offline mmeijeri

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I'd guess its because they got some stock "space rated" (super old technology) cameras that are old analog NTSC cameras and they transcode that to a digital video signal for downlink.

If they're using a COTS encoder then they can likely turn off interlacing and maybe enable some resilience features. That either means they're not using a COTS encoder, or getting video footage wasn't a priority before.

Having worked for Siqura BV, I naturally recommend their EVE line of encoders. :)
« Last Edit: 05/08/2014 03:34 pm by mmeijeri »
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Offline mlindner

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More work on iframe8. Will post the mmb later.

LEO is the ocean, not an island (let alone a continent). We create cruise liners to ride the oceans, not artificial islands in the middle of them. We need a physical place, which has physical resources, to make our future out there.

Online Chris Bergin

More work on iframe8. Will post the mmb later.



Super impressive.

Now a quick task for anyone able.

Can we create a .gif, showing the original frame8 and the one above, with before and after written on them?

The .gif needs to be 350 pixels wide and whatever you require in length and then I'll use that in the article I'm going to put on shorty.
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Offline wronkiew

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This is a good point, and it got me thinking. If everything goes as planned, SpaceX will launch again in a few days, and I think they're planning to attempt recovery again. This could upstage the (arguably more historic) first landing video. We need to put together a video with what we've got today, tomorrow at the lastest. If necessary, I can hand-assemble something from the iframes and pieces of the pframes. It wouldn't be as pretty as what arnezami and mlindner can do, so I'll wait until I hear from them.

It's actually a lot easier than that. If no one else does it by Friday Eastern time then I'll be modifying ffmpeg to add a frame specifier to the mmb options. Then we simply pile all the mmb options into one long entry and run ffmpeg with it. viola, produced video. This would also allow us to try tweaking some p-frames if we so wish.

Producing a video now with what we have won't be very attractive yet. We need to fine tune a lot of the frames still. I'm doing that now for iframe8, which should hopefully look really really good. This means doing things like whenever you use -1 and replace the block, fine tune all the luma and chroma settings for it to have the least effect on surrounding blocks.

Are you still planning on doing the frame specifier modifications tonight? Right now we have mods for two different video streams. Are you going to be able to integrate those, or do we need to start a porting effort to a newer reconstruction?

I think it is likely that it could take weeks or months to get the video to a level of quality that is going to satisfy everyone working on it. Chris, can you ask PAO what timeframe would be most useful to them?
« Last Edit: 05/08/2014 03:53 pm by wronkiew »

Offline Zach121k

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I just started reading this thread today, and I want to say... this all looks beautiful.
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Offline SpaceX_MS

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I think it is likely that it could take weeks or months to get the video to a level of quality that is going to satisfy everyone working on it. Chris, can you ask PAO what timeframe would be most useful to them?

You guys are ahead of the game, the only real game in town actually. Provide what you can, when you can. This is an unbelievable effort on show here.

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