Intentional artifacting?

[MrDys]

Stylistically, I'm really interested in video artifacts as I think they tend to look cool. I've done lots of experments with compressing using different codecs, expanding/contracting resoultion to exploit these flaws, etc. There is one effect, though, that I have been unable to replicate. It tends to happen in divx/mpeg-4 encoded movies when frames are dropped, and in order to catch up, the image freezes and the next keyframe takes over and tears through this frozen image. It's a bit hard to explain, but I'm sure you've all seen what I am talking about.

So, does anyone have any ideas on how to generate this flaw, (particularly on an OSX system), or have any other ideas regarding intentional artifacting?

[foonji]

i know what you mean about the divx artifacts... maybe you could use After Effects plugin "Card Dance" to try and reproduce it.

[KillingFrenzy]

In an old version of quicktime, twiddling the volume selector used to f' up the mpeg4 codecs pretty nasty.
So, you might try forcibly scrubbing around or fooling with tracks to create deestruction. Fooling with the framerate might do it.

[sleepytom]

twixtor or another interframe morphing software can do some weird stuff if made to do very long morphs between two very diferent frames.

[DrBuano]

if ya have a freeview box try pulling the aerial cable out a little at the back, it should distort the mpeg nicely:)

[KillingFrenzy]

So, I decided I'd try and get some files to glitch intentionally.
I made a Max/MSP Jitter patch that I could control to take an MOV file and scrub, change rate, or jump really quickly. Like milliseconds quickly, to try and really screw things up. For the life of me, I couldn't get Archive.org stuff to do anything but pretty much skitter about quickly (amazing how speedy it was, really) but I could get it going too fast and make it crash. Next step was to try some old Anime trailers/fan videos that I knew were in all sorts of nasty Divx codecs. I managed to find one that was an old Divx file that when I played it backwards would exhibit the nasty artifacting. Unfortunately, skipping around the file really would mess it up, but it also didn't look very interesting because of all the skipping. But the reverse playback was a little more useable. You could probably play files backware at 3x rate, and then slow down and reverse the results or something. Do my suggestion is to get an old version of Divx, and encode at the highest amount of compression/a fairly large image. Then reverse it and try and knock it into artifacting by hammering performance. Running multiple movies might do it, by eating up decompression processing bandwidth.
You can also physically mar DV tapes by trying to scrape the tape. But I'd only do that if I had a DV camera that was already on the fritz. You might be able to pick up a cheap Digital8 camera somewhere. Just don't do anything that will catch in the head of the machine. Think methods of scraping off the metal, or somehow magnetically garbling portions. It will probably just do stupid looking lines, but you might get something decent.

[DrEskaton]

the sapphire plugins pack has a plugin called "jpeg damage" just to do these kind of effects...

but it's pretty stupidly expensive and not real time...

would make a great free frame effect?

[Stuart]

if you open up the file and mess with the header you might be able to trick the player into thinking the codec is whacked.

[KillingFrenzy]

I started a thread in the developers area about this.

I'd be curious to get anyones insight on how to actually take a file and intentionally misread it... or how to damage a file in an interesting manner.
There are plenty of ways to make things look like damage... but I want real damage.

[DrEskaton]

you want real damage?

pick up your hard disk to a height of one foot off a hard concrete surface.

drop repeatedly...

attempt to play clips

:)

[Stuart]

real damage

open the file in a text app and try doing a bunch of find a replace

[levon]

i havent tried it, but you could try opening up the video in virtualdub, and deleated a few I frames, i think thats what causes the problem in videos, is missing keyframes.

[DrEskaton]

vade has just posted up a MAX/Jitter tutorial on "glitch a like" techniques

http://abstrakt.vade.info/?p=48

[KillingFrenzy]

Hmm... Vade's patch is nice.
I'm going to try and add a little to it.
The thing I think I can add is using an alpha mapped time delay and having chunks of video get delayed different amounts in the same sort of way he's displacing them.

So I managed to get some nice DIVX decay going. Completely unintentionally, as well. If you play a divx file over a network it will do it. So, I think part of the trick is having your bitrate for playback higher than your bitrate for access. It seems like the codec just sort of doesn't bother to get all the information and moves along without it. The result is sections of the image getting "left behind" and not knowing what to do/decaying. Really a nice effect and turns people into scary hamburger faced zombies/Peter Gabriel album covers.
So, I imagine if you wanted to force that you'd encode at as high a bitrate as possible, then run over a slow network connection. In my case, I was using wireless, so that slowed things down a bit. Oh, and use OLD versions of Divx, since new ones seem more stable.

[caine]

will vades patch work in Runtime? i dont have proper max/msp. that looks just what i'm needing as my method of using glitchbrowser to glitch video frames takes forever.

[KillingFrenzy]

So I built a pretty good codec style mangler. Not by real codec trashing, but by faking it somewhat like Vade did. I started with Vade's patch, and by the time I was done I don't think any of it is the same. The best thing I got from him was the idea of trying to set my intentions and fulfill them. So, instead of the effects he got, I tried to detect the areas where the most motion/data change was occuring, and then make them not able to keep up. I faked that by using a mappable time delay and having the region with the most motion get chunky pieces of delay. Then, I actually luma keyed the original version back over it to get something less skanked up so you don't just have garbage. Then, I set up feedback back into itself so that the decayed region really starts to "melt".

Here are some picture examples, I'll try and get a movie up (time to update my quicktime capture patch)

The original video is the dancer on a colored background. The keying actually kills the background on some of this, which is nice.

http://killingfrenzy.com/glitchgroove1.jpg

http://killingfrenzy.com/glitchgroove2.jpg

http://killingfrenzy.com/glitchgroove3.jpg

So, does anybody wants a copy of the patch?
How do they want it.
Runtime version or Patch?
Mac or PC?

The easiest for me is PC as a patch, not runtime, because I'm using a third party (xray objects) external and would rather not have to try and figure that out unless I have to.
I don't have a mac, so someone else would have to make a Mac runtime.

When I get a more finished version, I'll post to vades blog with it.

[Bildstrom]

i can port it to osx if you send me the win-patch

happy patching
gunnar

[DrEskaton]

cool kf, wish I had max/msp myself to play with this....

I've been planning to try and make something similiar in qc for a while but I'll probably end yp with something quit different as I'm limited in my time delay capabilities with quartz composer....

excellent ideas to base it on movement and put feedback in...

[vjpixylight]

non runtime if it's a headache..
I've been exploring MaxMSP, and would like to see the working's behind this all!
cheers KF!

[KillingFrenzy]

I'll give it a diddle and have it and have a couple of movie examples up in a day or two.

Time for me to figure out wrapping up third party externals into a standalone.

[LEVLHED]

thats phat
I don't have max/msp

[Syntax]

The Musee Hofstadt (http://www.c-trl.com/ctrl05b/index_main.php) video by C-trl has some kind of artifacting in it. Looks really cool. It may just be some kind of mapped delay though.

[CEdicon]

Bump :)

I'm new here and although I have read the two threads that really pull together some thoughts on forced glitching/artifacting, I haven't found any information on this effect outside of DV tape manipulation and Max/msp patching. I am wondering if, years later, anyone has found more methods of achieving this effect. I am curious if it is possible to use an application like VLC to force temporal artifacts in the video... I've been experimenting but no results so far.

[dEp]

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but I'm into all sorts of glitching as well (more analog than digital, though), and found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynfOc020y1s

I think that's the effect that the OP was after. I like how it's used in the transitions :)

[kyogen]

wow that clip is fantastic, best music video i've seen in ages.

A while ago i saw a science doco about a DJ who was making messed up music by growing various moulds on CDs. theres no reason why the same thing cant be done with video. Once ive finished moving house i might give it a go.

heres a link to the transcript of the show:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s988979.htm

[lowRes]

here's more stuff u might find interesting
http://vjforums.com/showthread.php?t=27456


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