Has anyone seen this level of aliasing from their EX1/3/1r? I have never seen aliasing this bad with either my EX3 or EX1. However, I was recording to my nanoFlash at 50Mb/s L-GOP; so, I don't know if the encoding algorithm used in the nano combined with the higher bitrate can cause this aliasing issue. After seeing what the nanoFlash does when recording a camera with a lot of noise using the 100+Mb/s L-GOP codec, I am curious as to whether the Sony codec can increase aliasing.

Hmmm. Something odd is happening. When I exported a frame from Premiere Pro CS5, the jpeg did not have any aliasing. But, when I rendered within the timeline, there was considerable aliasing when viewed at 100%.

Did you mean to attach a screen shot or something?

Steve, are you able to host some clips on a Web server? If you did a parallel SxS and Nanoflash, recording, it would be good to see.

Steve, are you able to host some clips on a Web server? If you did a parallel SxS and Nanoflash, recording, it would be good to see.

Unfortunately, I was not able to record to both SxS & nanoFlash with my EX3, which was the main camera angle. My client had not received their 32GB SxS card by the time of the event so I had to use my nanoFlash for the event and use the rest of my SxS cards in the other 2 cameras. There were 2 events in two days and each event was projected to last almost 3 hours each; thus, I only had enough SxS cards for 2 cameras to cover that length. However, I had to set my EX1 to 1080 60i SP (25Mb/s) in order to cover the entire event with just 3 16GB cards in that camera (and a 32GB & 2 16GB cards in their EX1r recording at full quality 1080 30p). Fortunately, the nano and my 64GB Transcend CF cards worked perfectly.

One jpeg was exported from PPro's Program Window using its export button, but it does not show any aliasing which is very surprising.

The other image is from the Print Screen function and then cropped in Photoshop which shows the aliasing.

When I play the video either thru PPro or from a rendered file, I can see the aliasing as well.

I will upload a video to vimeo shortly, but I must leave right now to go vote.

Check your playback and paused resolutions. Are they at Full? If they are, and the problem presists, try turning off GPU acceleration as your next step.

To truly double check, playback your nanoFlash files in VLC to see if you see the same problem in the originals.

This is not aliasing, this is scaling a half-resolution image to double it's size. This is most likely a Premiere issue.

Check your playback and paused resolutions. Are they at Full? If they are, and the problem presists, try turning off GPU acceleration as your next step.

To truly double check, playback your nanoFlash files in VLC to see if you see the same problem in the originals.

This is not aliasing, this is scaling a half-resolution image to double it's size. This is most likely a Premiere issue.

Here is a section where I see the aliasing. The source footage is 1080 30p 50Mb/s and this clip is 720 30p CBR 6Mb/s H264. You must have the HD enabled in order to see it. Although, due to the high compression, the aliasing is not as noticeable. When I exported it to DVD and watched on my 46" TV, the aliasing was very apparent. And yes, I do know that some aliasing can be caused by the upscaling, but I haven't seen this amount of aliasing in all of my prior DVDs that were created with XDCAM EX footage.

PS - His suit was actually a greyish black, but my EX3's beautiful IR issue rears its ugly head here. However, I was able to fix it and get it to look very close to its original color by using a couple effects in PPro where I targeted the shadows and midtones. This clip was rendered before I CC'd.

Thanks for the comments so far :)

Alias-720p_CBR-6Mb/s on Vimeo

Has anyone seen this level of aliasing from their EX1/3/1r? I have never seen aliasing this bad with either my EX3 or EX1. However, I was recording to my nanoFlash at 50Mb/s L-GOP; so, I don't know if the encoding algorithm used in the nano combined with the higher bitrate can cause this aliasing issue.

Do you see aliasing when playing back directly from the nanoflash through HDMI to a HDTV?

My guess is the 30p source from the nanoflash is being misinterpreted as 60i. As a result the scaling and display algorithms are working with 540 line fields that are consequently aliased.

Try checking your source files with mediainfo to see if they are tagged as progressive or interlaced.

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

Yeah, there's no standard for showing 30 fps progressive on a consumer television so you are
guaranteed to get problems from TV's that expect 60i getting 30p and trying
to deinterlace the result.

If you final product is TV, consider shooting one of the formats that TV's understand
like 1080 30i or 720 60p. The 1080 30p is really a web only thing or a special effect.

Also, I don't think the effect you are seeing is what most people would call aliasing.
You have caused a temporal problem with the fields/frames by trying to pack a
novel video standard into a pipeline designed for an existing video standard.

You can get "temporal" aliasing in a situation like this but it would be because you
were shooting interlaced footage that had so much vertical detail that the deinterlacer
in the TV couldn't properly figure out what was detail and what was motion.

The "spatial" type of aliasing is virtually impossible with the EX1/EX3 unless you
use bad resampling in Premiere which has already been discussed.

If you final product is TV, consider shooting one of the formats that TV's understand like 1080 30i or 720 60p. The 1080 30p is really a web only thing or a special effect.

First of all, there's no such thing as 1080 30i. That would be only 15 fps if it existed -- which it does not.

Second, you are NOT "guaranteed to get problems with 30P". 30P is now the defacto standard for most high-end broadcast television production in the USA.

If you are doing things correctly, 1080/30P that is displayed or broadcast as 1080/60i should look flawless and identical to the original 30P. You're just taking each frame and dividing it into two identical fields. The result looks exactly the same as 30P. So, the reason that Blu-ray and broadcast television don't need a 30P mode is because 30P material shown as 60i is the same thing.

Believe me, 30P is NOT a "web only thing".

And finally, shooting 720 is short sighted, It's not even HD. It's medium definition and soon won't even be around anymore. I don't even know if you can buy a 720P television anymore unless it has very small screen.

1080/30P -- that is today's standard.

I don't even know if you can buy a 720P television anymore unless it has very small screen.

1080/30P -- that is today's standard.

720p is very much a standard supported by modern televisions, so there is no need to worry. Unless you are talking about 720p native panels which frankly you don't need to display 720p.

I guess I didn't make myself clear. Obviously 720P can be displayed on a 1080 TV. Do you seriously think I don't know that? Guess what, I also know that SD can also be viewed on modern televisions. But that doesn't mean that 720P or SD look good.

My point is that most TVs being sold today are full 1920x1080 and 720P is clearly on the way out. A new large screen TV with native 720P resolution would be rare if not non-existent, and that was not the case a couple of years ago. 720P was just a stop-gap resolution who's time is quickly fading away. In my opinion, it is short sighted to shoot in 720P today unless you are 100% sure you'll never want to use it in a 1080P production someday down the road. I prefer to future-proof my footage because you never know what you might need.

Take my word for it, 720P will soon (if not already) have the same stigma that SD footage does today.
I hope that clears it up.

First of all, there's no such thing as 1080 30i. That would be only 15 fps if it existed -- which it does not.

30i by definition means 29.97 frames per second where each frame consists of two temporally independent interlaced fields. 60i refers to 59.94 fields per second which is exactly the same thing.

1080 30i makes sense because the 1080 is the size of the frame and 30i is the rate of the frames. If you want the rate of the fields, than it should logically be 540 60i which specifies the size of the fields and rate of the fields. However, in the quest for larger numbers, camera manufacturers often write 1080 60i which mixes the size of the frame with the rate of the fields.

Now back to the aliasing. If you extract every other line from a interlaced frame you get a field, however, if you extract every other line from a progressive frame all you get is a downsampled image that was obtained using a very alias prone downsampling method. Therefore, it is important that 30p be distinguished from 30i during playback and editing.

This is really getting ridiculous. 30i is not a real frame rate and does not exist. Please show me one legitimate industry source that recognizes 30i as a real frame rate. If it was a real frame rate, 30i would only be 15 fps. Just as 60i is only 30 fps. It takes TWO interlaced fields to create one frame.
Fields and Frames = two different things.

Frame rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate)

I know this thread has drifted off track form the original subject, so I won't post again on this topic no matter how much misinformation is being thrown around in the next post.

This is really getting ridiculous. 30i is not a real frame rate and does not exist. Please show me one legitimate industry source that recognizes 30i as a real frame rate. If it was a real frame rate, 30i would only be 15 fps. Just as 60i is only 30 fps. It takes TWO interlaced fields to create one frame.
Fields and Frames = two different things.

Frame rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate)

I know this thread has drifted off track form the original subject, so I won't post again on this topic no matter how much misinformation is being thrown around in the next post.

Hey Doug,

I appreciate the comments so far, but I know of one reputable company who refers to 1080 30i instead of 1080 60i - Aja. Actually, they list it as "1080i 30". KONA LHi - AJA Video Systems (http://www.aja.com/products/kona/konalhi/specs.php)

I do believe the 1080i 30 is correct because the '30' refers to the number of frames per second. 1080 60i is incorrect because it is not 60 frames per second, but 30 fps. All of the 'Video Formats' include the frame size and frame rate, not fields per second; thus, 1080i 30 is correct, and so is 1080i 25.

If you are doing things correctly, 1080/30P that is displayed or broadcast as 1080/60i should look flawless and identical to the original 30P. You're just taking each frame and dividing it into two identical fields. The result looks exactly the same as 30P. So, the reason that Blu-ray and broadcast television don't need a 30P mode is because 30P material shown as 60i is the same thing.


If you feed a 60i (as you correctly would call 30i, sorry) via HDMI into a modern flat panel TV it
is going to go into a deinterlacer which may or may not do what you claim. Some hardware
deinterlacers that I have seen (some of the Bravia ~2006 era at least) definitely do not interprete
30P in 60i and make a nice 30p screen.


1080/30P -- that is today's standard.

Do you have any references to back this up? If you are shooting un-controlled live action
there is a good bit of judder/loss of temporal resolution with 30p. Not quite 24p but
it's not smooth.

<shaking my head> Don't understand the angst some are displaying about learning the ins and outs of 30P from someone who really knows what he's talking about.

I am by no means at the freelance level of Doug Jensen but, like him, I rarely shoot anything that isn't 30P anymore. Have yet another 30P shoot this Friday where they specifically asked for it.

Many of the network news magazine shows want 30P. Have you folks watched PBS, 60 Minutes or the CBS Sunday Morning News lately? That's pretty much all they want. At least that's what they asked for from me. Granted, there's 60i video mixed in but for the elements I've been involved with shooting them, it's been 30P

I saw the link from the company labeling a format 1080I 30...seems strange but I'm no engineer, just a guy who gives the client what they ask for so they give me a check in return.

There's a lot of misinformation in this thread and it's NOT coming from Doug Jensen.

I'm not trying to begin a flame war of who is and isn't professional.

Just pointing out I'm yet another freelancer with real world clients who want 30P more and more.

We're not talking about taking a raw feed out of the camera directly to whatever monitor or tv set you happen to own. We're talking about an image which is edited, then broadcast to achieve the look they want. If it was a problem, they wouldn't be coming back again and again for more.

edit: I want to be very clear that I am not trying to insult or demean anyone with my above comments. Just trying to share some information. ;)

Many of the network news magazine shows want 30P. Have you folks watched PBS, 60 Minutes or the CBS Sunday Morning News lately? That's pretty much all they want. At least that's what they asked for from me. Granted, there's 60i video mixed in but for the elements I've been involved with shooting them, it's been 30P

While 1080p30 is part of the ATSC broadcast standard, I don't think it is actually used because of the desire to mix in 1080i. Many HDTVs will accept a 1080p signal, but blu-ray doesn't provide a 30p standard. In both cases 1080p is often processed as 1080i. If a 1080p image is of sufficiently high resolution, then processing it as 1080i will result in aliasing. As shown in the original post, the EX3 produces such images. In this case, the workflow needs to be fixed so the frames are processed progressively throughout.

Are the files recorded by the nanoflash tagged as interlaced or progressive?

Hi Eric,

Looking at video information and....not sure where to find an answer to your question.

Here's the info I have for my latest 30P shoot I did for PBS network of the raw BPAV files.

Video Format

Port: DIRECT
Codec: MPEG2 HDLong 35bps
FPS - Capture: 29.97P Format: 29.97P
Layout: 1920 X 1080 16:9
Pull-Down - Type: 1-1 Frame Phase: 00

That's the video information I get seeing the files in my XDCAM Browser.

So...would the double "0" for Frame Phase provide the answer? I'm not sure...just asking.

Port: DIRECT
Codec: MPEG2 HDLong 35bps
FPS - Capture: 29.97P Format: 29.97P
Layout: 1920 X 1080 16:9
Pull-Down - Type: 1-1 Frame Phase: 00

This appears to be a correctly tagged 1080p progressive 35mbps file. Is there aliasing with this one too? I thought the aliasing was only a problem with the 50mbps file recorded by the nanoflash.

No, I've never had aliasing problems...we just got caught up in a discussion about the positives and negatives of 30P and that took everything off track.

My video is perfect!

Of course! LOL ;)

Hey Doug,

I appreciate the comments so far, but I know of one reputable company who refers to 1080 30i instead of 1080 60i - Aja. Actually, they list it as "1080i 30". KONA LHi - AJA Video Systems (http://www.aja.com/products/kona/konalhi/specs.php)

I do believe the 1080i 30 is correct because the '30' refers to the number of frames per second. 1080 60i is incorrect because it is not 60 frames per second, but 30 fps. All of the 'Video Formats' include the frame size and frame rate, not fields per second; thus, 1080i 30 is correct, and so is 1080i 25.

I was confused by this as well, but I think I figured it out.
My question was how can it be both 1080i and 30p? I believe the difference is in how the image is captured and then recorded.
The picture is captured as progressive, in other words, all pixels at once. It is recorded as interlace, the picture is spilt AFTER capture, and therefore there are no 'interlace artifacts' as we think of them.
I like to think of it as two different 'flavors' of interlace, ha ha!

Can anyone confirm/debunk this explanation?

My question was how can it be both 1080i and 30p?

A video can't be 30p and 1080i at the same time.

Processing a progressive frame as two interlaced fields is the probable cause of the aliasing observed in the first post. Luckily the nanoflash records with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling, otherwise there would be additional chroma artifacts from using the interlaced 4:2:0 algorithm on a progressive 4:2:0 frame.

This is really getting ridiculous. 30i is not a real frame rate and does not exist. Please show me one legitimate industry source that recognizes 30i as a real frame rate. If it was a real frame rate, 30i would only be 15 fps. Just as 60i is only 30 fps.
Let's clear this up.

Up until a few years ago, the correct nomenclature for what you are both referring to would have been "1080/60i" (30 frames, 60 fields), and for the comparable progressive system it would have been "1080/30p".

The relevant standard setting bodeis then decided it would be better (and don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger only.... :-) ) to ALWAYS refer to framerates, and NOT framerate when progressive, fieldrate when interlaced. To avoid confusion (!!!!!!!!) it was further defined to change the way it was written, such that i or p before the hyphen indicated new (and official) nomenclature.

Consequently 1080/60i should now be referred to as 1080i/30. Both mean the same thing - but the former is strictly "old" terminology.

Earlier Steve Kalle said "I appreciate the comments so far, but I know of one reputable company who refers to 1080 30i instead of 1080 60i - Aja. Actually, they list it as "1080i 30".

And the point is that 1080/30i and 1080i/30 DO NOT mean the same thing. The former means an interlaced system of 15fps framerate, using old terminology! The latter is the correct way of referring to one of the main current broadcast standards. At least according to the bodies responsible for standard setting.

GRADUALLY the new terminology is replacing the old, and arguably is more logical. Given the confusion it has caused (and still is causing) it could be argued forever whether the change was worth it. I'm not going to get hung up on that, but officially 1080i/30 is the correct terminology.

The picture is captured as progressive, in other words, all pixels at once. It is recorded as interlace, the picture is spilt AFTER capture, and therefore there are no 'interlace artifacts' as we think of them.
I like to think of it as two different 'flavors' of interlace, ha ha!

Can anyone confirm/debunk this explanation?
Following on from my previous post, what you describe is correctly referred to as "1080psf/30". "psf" stands for "progressive, segmented frame" and is exactly what you refer to. (Google psf if you want more details.)

Up until a few years ago, the correct nomenclature for what you are both referring to would have been "1080/60i" (30 frames, 60 fields)...

GRADUALLY the new terminology is replacing the old, and arguably is more logical. Given the confusion it has caused (and still is causing) it could be argued forever whether the change was worth it. I'm not going to get hung up on that, but officially 1080i/30 is the correct terminology.

I would posit that a reason for changing to 1080i 30 is due to 1080p 60 becoming more relevant and referring to 1080 60i AND 1080 60p *could* be rather confusing. For most of us, its not confusing but think of all of the consumer handycams that now include both 60i and 60p recording modes.

What I understood to be the reasons were more academic - that sometimes referring to framerate (progressive and psf) and sometimes fieldrate (interlace) was illogical. If framerate is ALWAYS specified it becomes more consistent and it's possible to tell at a glance the raw data rate from the two figures, (So 1080i/30, 1080p/30 and 1080psf/30 will all have the same aount of uncompressed data - 1080p/60 will be double.)

I agree with the logic - but the question of whether the confusion the change has caused was worth it (witness this thread) is another one. I'm not going to go into that, the main point is that, officially, 1080i/30 is now the correct terminology.

[QUOTE=Steve Kalle;1721934]Has anyone seen this level of aliasing from their EX1/3/1r? I have never seen aliasing this bad with either my EX3 or EX1.....

If I have the same problem or not, I'm not sure, but here's my situation:
I'm shooting with EX1 at 1080p/25 (PAL region). In Vegas, the project setting is 25fps and progressive. However, in the preview windows, it says 50i. Why?
When I render to an m2ts file plus ac3 audio file, and pack them together to an iso file in DVD architect and play it on an LCD HDTV, severe aliasing appears: A black wire against a grey sky background appears with white lines on both sides of the black wire; all crispy dark details have white glare around them; contrast seems exaggerated, TV set says "1080i" is playing (from media player, not blu-ray player).
What happens? When in the workflow did it all shift from progressive to interlaced?
When I play back the same m2ts file on my computer, everything is normal (!!)...

PLEASE help... ;)

Hi Dag,

Your aliasing problem is most likely due to the scaling algorithm being applied by the DVD player to scale the resolution up to your HDTV. This aliasing issue varies between every DVD player because they all use various scaling algorithms with some being worse than others. The best way to combat this issue is to apply anti-aliasing effects in your NLE (if it has them - Premiere Pro has an anit-flicker setting and an anti-alias effect which essentially applies a slight blur but I think it focuses more on high frequency).

From my experience, very slight aliasing in the source footage can show up as ugly aliasing in a DVD on an HDTV due to the DVD player's up-scaling.

TV set says "1080i" is playing (from media player, not blu-ray player).

Are you rendering a blu-ray iso? How does it look when you play the files extracted from the iso on the computer? What type of media player are you using?

Are you rendering a blu-ray iso? How does it look when you play the files extracted from the iso on the computer? What type of media player are you using?

Preparing a blu-ray iso in Architect, yes. No re-rendering required in architect.
I'm using the QNAP NMP1000 media player.
QNAP Systems, Inc. ( NMP-1000 ) - Quality Network Appliance Provider (http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=117)
It's not fast enough to play iso-files, so I put the iso file on a virtual drive, and copy the BDROM catalog onto the QNAP, which plays it well.

Actually, I experience the same aliasing problems playing the m2ts file in windows media player, output via HDMI to a HDTV set. On the PC monitor however, it looks good. Weird...

The footage is native 1080p/25 from the XDCAM EX1, so why it appears as 50i in Vegas when playing it from the timeline, is also a mystery. Also, when the rendered file is opened in DVD architect, the file appears as 25i, even though I've selected "Maintain source file format"... Even more weird...

I'm using the QNAP NMP1000 media player.

Sony Vegas and DVD Architect can't be used to master a 25p blu-ray iso. The main reason for this is that 25p is not part of the blu-ray standard. If you can do without the menus, it would appear more reasonable to render a true 25p mp4 file for playback on the media player.

The change in contrast may be due to a bug in the Vegas 8-bit rendering path concerning full versus studio swing levels. This bug is not as well known as it should be but easy enough to work around.

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?42431-Colors-change-after-Rendering&p=393460&viewfull=1#post393460

Also check whether there is a sharpness setting that can be turned off in either the television or media player.

Hello again :)

I've taken a couple of photos, to illustrate my problem.
First photo is of my movie shown on the computer screen (preview in Vegas)::
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2LZ75_4uCUQLS1ZcVNBam9XTGM
There is no aliasing problem (the moire comes from the bad cell phone camera...).

The second photo is of the same snapshot from my movie, shown on a TV set (FullHD Sony TV):
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2LZ75_4uCUQZnFtNVZ4VXA2MFU

There are obvious aliasing problems, as I understand it. Around the wires, you can see a major glare!

The movie was shot in 1080p/25. Vegas project settings:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2LZ75_4uCUQRHo5eGlBYVF5aGM

Rendering settings:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2LZ75_4uCUQdEN0OXJGWEx0aVk

I have tried rendering as progressive, but no difference.

Since this is a MPEG2-file from Vegas (Main Concept plug-in), it is not possible to include a multi channel (5.1) audio file, so the 5.1 AC3 audio file must be rendered separately, and the two files merged in DVD Architect, which always outputs interlaced video format (I assume). Here is where the problem occurs, or what do you guys think?

Rendering a MP4 file in Vegas, is also no option, since a multichannel audio file cannot be included.
So, what should I do?
Any help is highly appreciated! :)

BR Dag

I've taken a couple of photos, to illustrate my problem.

This is not aliasing. It looks like sharpening done using the "unsharp mask" method. The sharpening may be stronger in the horizontal direction. Is the media player connected to the television using analog cables?

I agree with Eric, if your TV has a sharpness setting for that analog input (assuming you are
using an analog input) it is too high.

There is not much vertical component to the halo so this is probably not related to interlaced
versus progressive issues.

The media player is connected to the TV via HDMI cable.
If I play the movie on the computer (Windows mediaplayer), using two screens: 1) PC monitor, and 2) TV (HDMI connected), the PC monitor displays the movie without any artifacts at all, whereas the TV shows this "halo effect", no matter how I adjust the TV (FullHD TV).

The difference I can think of, being the fact that the PC monitor can display 1080p, whereas the TV can only display 1080i... Am I right? Where is the interlacing done? In the display card or in the TV?

I thought f.ex. BBC broadcasted 1080p on satellite, and there is no artifacts at all watching those HD channels. Maybe the computer display card (and media player) outputs only interlaced to TV screens? Why? I'm really not sure they do that...

Moreover, since the DVD architect packed this .m2v video file and .ac3 audio file (both from vegas) into one iso file (the unpacked to one .m2ts file) and played back on media player/computer, maybe DVD architect outputs interlaced video, since the bly-ray standard has no 1080p/25 option? If so, why does this interlaced output display correctly on a PC monitor, and with halo effects and "vibrating/aliasing" effects on the TV (wherever there is much details in a moving/panning image)?

I am still totally confused, even though I feel we have now circled in the problem greatly... ;) Please help!

BR Dag

the TV shows this "halo effect", no matter how I adjust the TV

What model TV is it and have you found a "sharpness" control in the TV settings menu?

I have tried two TV sets, both with the same problem:
1) Sony Bravia 4000, 52" (4 years old)
2) Phillips IntelliTV 55" (2 months old)
Both full-HD 1920x1080. I've tried many different settings, without success.

I will try once again, since you mention it. Thanks for helping! :)

I've tried three different TV's, but no differences between them.
I've tried every available adjustments of the TV, with no success.
Does media players and computers oversharpen HD-video output to TV screens by default?

Does media players and computers oversharpen HD-video output to TV screens by default?

Computer monitors display full-swing RGB whereas TVs display studio-swing YUV colorspace. It is possible that the haloing is a result of non-broadcast safe levels in your blu-ray encode. In Sony Vegas try inserting the filter

Video Output FX->Sony Levels->Preset Computer RGB to Studio RGB

while rendering. Also try Sony Broadcast Colors. It would be interesting if either of these filters fixed the problem with your video.

The problem was finally solved!
Thank you all for valuable info. I appreciate it very much.
Eric: You were right! I must have overseen the sharpness control in the TV setup menu, or underesteimated it's influence (can't exactly remember).
Anyhow, the sharpness setting was only at "10", on a scale from 0 to 30. Turning it down to zero, solved the whole problem! This setting really caused lot's of frustration, and I found it hard to believe that it was so powerful, and causing that many artifacts.

Now life is much easier :)