Interlace Flicker on first DVD?!

John Steele · July 12th, 2003, 05:10 PM

Glen, I'm also using a DV500 and if I were you I'd be exporting as a pinnalce MP2 file from within premiere thats all I do, I never use any other encoder. From drivers 4.0+ the DV500 can encode Mpeg almost in realtime which is a lot faster than most of the software encoders out there at the moment. Try exporting as pinnacle MP2 using upper field first(Trust me on this one) and burn from there, the quality of the Pinnacle export really is excellent.

John.

Glen Elliott · July 12th, 2003, 05:30 PM

Yep I even checked in the setting viewer to make sure all the settings have continuity througout- which they do (ie Lower fields first throught).

I'm gonna do one last test DVD using that "adaptive de-interlace" filter on Procoder, and setting fields to "none"...I'll do this both in upper fields and lower fields first just to see which comes out better.

As a rule, however, what should your target MPG2 be if your encoding DV which is lower-fields first?

Roy Roberts · July 12th, 2003, 05:49 PM

Glen I am quite fortunate in many ways as I work in a computer shop and therefor have unlimited machines to use and I have both pal and ntsc setups in my little back room.... send it and I'll see what I can do... ps. I use the matrox 2000 but in this case that dosn't matter does it. Roy

Peter Moore · July 12th, 2003, 06:50 PM

I've always used lower fields first and it's never a problem, either on a progressive TV or a normal interlaced TV, all looks good.

John Steele · July 13th, 2003, 05:05 AM

Glen as I said above if you're using a DV500 why are you not using the DV500 hardware MPEG2 encoder. From premiere export timeline the select filetype as Pinnacle MP2 it'll encode almost realtime and the quality is great. Please try it I'm sure it'll work and you'll feel much better, but when outputting using pinncale it MUST be upper field first.

John.

PS. Meant to say to get the turboMpeg export using the DV500 you need to be on driver version 4 or above.

Dom Hogan · July 13th, 2003, 08:19 AM

I had a similar problem after importing a Canopus reference avi into VV4. After Rendering As a MainConcept MPEG2 I found that all movement was strobe like. Very unpleasant.

What worked for me was to convert the reference avi into a type2 avi & then importing that into VV4. No more jitters/strobe.

Hope it works for you :-).

Rob Lohman · July 14th, 2003, 04:44 AM

If you had an invalid field order somewhere in the chain you should
have also seen this on your computer. If you do a de-interlace
you must set the field order to none indeed.

Glen Elliott · July 14th, 2003, 10:31 AM

How about setting the field order to none in the encoder without de-interlacing the footage?

Peter Moore · July 14th, 2003, 11:21 PM

The NTSC DVD standard requires the MPEG 2 video to be interlaced. Even "24p" DVDs are technically interlaced, they just are encoded in a way so that a player knows how to do the pulldown perfectly. So I don't think setting field order to none will ever work; the DVD authoring software will reject it or reencode it.

Peter Moore · July 14th, 2003, 11:25 PM

"If you had an invalid field order somewhere in the chain you should have also seen this on your computer."

Not necessarily, I don't think. Sometimes codecs will not properly show any interlaced footage regardless of the field order, and so then the user won't know whether the problem is just because the codec doesn't know how to show interlaced footage or because the footage is improperly ordered.

I know Glen you said you double checked all your field orders, but I am still 100% sure that's where the culprit is. Let me ask you some specific questions:

1) The footage itself, what camera is it from and what was the recording mode (i.e. Canon cameras have a frame / progressive mode)?

2) How do you intend the video should look ultimately (30p or 60i)?

Glen Elliott · July 16th, 2003, 10:20 AM

It's fixed!

Finally after doing extensive tests encoding the same clip many times over using different settings I finally did something I should have done in the beginning...tried another encoder. I tried the built in Pinnacle MP2 (for my DV500) encoder, and the Main Concept encoder via Vegas 4.0. Both encoders yielded perfect clips on DVD, no stutter, no flicker, no ghosting, nothing- crystal clear.
I even noticed the video quality looked better even in areas that hadn't given me problems before. I didn't know what clarity I was missing.
Granted it's not drastic but noticable- the thing that is drastic is the lack of the flickering during fast movement.

Apparently it had something to do with Procoder, even when not touching any settings and using it's default MPG2 DVD NTSC template. I'm just glad after a week of pining over this problem it's finally fixed. It's ashame I never found out WHY Procoder was doing this to me....it's supposed to be one of the top encoders. Oh well- I'll stick with Pinnacles MP2 encoder for Premiere projects and Main Concept for Vegas projects.

Thanks goes out to all you guys that took the time to give me insight into helping me alleviate this problem. I'm greatly appreciative- and it's people like you who make this forum so great...thanks!

Arnaldo Paixao · July 16th, 2003, 10:32 AM

"Thanks goes out to all you guys that took the time to give me insight into helping me alleviate this problem. I'm greatly appreciative- and it's people like you who make this forum so great...thanks!"

And people like you, who tell us when they reach a conclusion.
It's a bit destressing when you try to help a fellow, and he does'nt bother to tell when and why the problem is solved.

Best regards
Arnaldo

Glen Elliott · July 16th, 2003, 12:34 PM

Oh I always post a conclusion- that way in the future if any members are having the same problem they can do a search and find a thread that'll have closure rather than speculation.

Then again in this instance there still lies speculation. Granted I could go back and plug away at Procoder and maybe eventually find a solution- but my workflow is switching drastically with my next wedding project. I'm moving to Vegas+DVD and it'd be couter-productive to try and frame-serve my timeline to Procoder when I can keep the workflow within the same program. I've found Main Concept's encoder to be pretty effective. I'll use Procoder when I have to do MPG1 clips, it's speed is incredible. Then again anything is fast compared to Cleaner....ugh, the same project that took 2 hours in Procoder to encode to MPG1, took litterally 12 hours in Cleaner!

Ron Little · July 16th, 2003, 01:17 PM

Your welcome Glen I am glad I could help.

Now get out there and make some DVDs.

Glen Elliott · July 16th, 2003, 02:57 PM

Starting the encode in a few minutes, as I step out to go to the gym. Wooo Hooo! Wish I lived closer Ron- I'd love to train with you sometime. We gotta roll on the mat sometime and see how your submission is- Just gotta watch your kicks when I close for the clinch. ;) *joke*

July 13th, 2003, 08:19 AM	#36
Dom Hogan Tourist Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 1	I had a similar problem after importing a Canopus reference avi into VV4. After Rendering As a MainConcept MPEG2 I found that all movement was strobe like. Very unpleasant. What worked for me was to convert the reference avi into a type2 avi & then importing that into VV4. No more jitters/strobe. Hope it works for you :-). __________________ Cheers, Dom.

July 14th, 2003, 04:44 AM	#37
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	If you had an invalid field order somewhere in the chain you should have also seen this on your computer. If you do a de-interlace you must set the field order to none indeed. __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

July 12th, 2003, 05:10 PM	#31
John Steele Major Player Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Scotland, UK Posts: 216	Glen, I'm also using a DV500 and if I were you I'd be exporting as a pinnalce MP2 file from within premiere thats all I do, I never use any other encoder. From drivers 4.0+ the DV500 can encode Mpeg almost in realtime which is a lot faster than most of the software encoders out there at the moment. Try exporting as pinnacle MP2 using upper field first(Trust me on this one) and burn from there, the quality of the Pinnacle export really is excellent. John.

July 12th, 2003, 05:30 PM	#32
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Yep I even checked in the setting viewer to make sure all the settings have continuity througout- which they do (ie Lower fields first throught). I'm gonna do one last test DVD using that "adaptive de-interlace" filter on Procoder, and setting fields to "none"...I'll do this both in upper fields and lower fields first just to see which comes out better. As a rule, however, what should your target MPG2 be if your encoding DV which is lower-fields first?

July 12th, 2003, 05:49 PM	#33
Roy Roberts New Boot Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 20	Glen I am quite fortunate in many ways as I work in a computer shop and therefor have unlimited machines to use and I have both pal and ntsc setups in my little back room.... send it and I'll see what I can do... ps. I use the matrox 2000 but in this case that dosn't matter does it. Roy

July 12th, 2003, 06:50 PM	#34
Peter Moore Trustee Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Arlington VA Posts: 1,034	I've always used lower fields first and it's never a problem, either on a progressive TV or a normal interlaced TV, all looks good.

July 13th, 2003, 05:05 AM	#35
John Steele Major Player Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Scotland, UK Posts: 216	Glen as I said above if you're using a DV500 why are you not using the DV500 hardware MPEG2 encoder. From premiere export timeline the select filetype as Pinnacle MP2 it'll encode almost realtime and the quality is great. Please try it I'm sure it'll work and you'll feel much better, but when outputting using pinncale it MUST be upper field first. John. PS. Meant to say to get the turboMpeg export using the DV500 you need to be on driver version 4 or above.

July 14th, 2003, 10:31 AM	#38
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	How about setting the field order to none in the encoder without de-interlacing the footage?

July 14th, 2003, 11:21 PM	#39
Peter Moore Trustee Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Arlington VA Posts: 1,034	The NTSC DVD standard requires the MPEG 2 video to be interlaced. Even "24p" DVDs are technically interlaced, they just are encoded in a way so that a player knows how to do the pulldown perfectly. So I don't think setting field order to none will ever work; the DVD authoring software will reject it or reencode it.

July 14th, 2003, 11:25 PM	#40
Peter Moore Trustee Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Arlington VA Posts: 1,034	"If you had an invalid field order somewhere in the chain you should have also seen this on your computer." Not necessarily, I don't think. Sometimes codecs will not properly show any interlaced footage regardless of the field order, and so then the user won't know whether the problem is just because the codec doesn't know how to show interlaced footage or because the footage is improperly ordered. I know Glen you said you double checked all your field orders, but I am still 100% sure that's where the culprit is. Let me ask you some specific questions: 1) The footage itself, what camera is it from and what was the recording mode (i.e. Canon cameras have a frame / progressive mode)? 2) How do you intend the video should look ultimately (30p or 60i)?

July 16th, 2003, 10:20 AM	#41
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	It's fixed! Finally after doing extensive tests encoding the same clip many times over using different settings I finally did something I should have done in the beginning...tried another encoder. I tried the built in Pinnacle MP2 (for my DV500) encoder, and the Main Concept encoder via Vegas 4.0. Both encoders yielded perfect clips on DVD, no stutter, no flicker, no ghosting, nothing- crystal clear. I even noticed the video quality looked better even in areas that hadn't given me problems before. I didn't know what clarity I was missing. Granted it's not drastic but noticable- the thing that is drastic is the lack of the flickering during fast movement. Apparently it had something to do with Procoder, even when not touching any settings and using it's default MPG2 DVD NTSC template. I'm just glad after a week of pining over this problem it's finally fixed. It's ashame I never found out WHY Procoder was doing this to me....it's supposed to be one of the top encoders. Oh well- I'll stick with Pinnacles MP2 encoder for Premiere projects and Main Concept for Vegas projects. Thanks goes out to all you guys that took the time to give me insight into helping me alleviate this problem. I'm greatly appreciative- and it's people like you who make this forum so great...thanks!

July 16th, 2003, 10:32 AM	#42
Arnaldo Paixao Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Vimeiro - Portugal Posts: 255	"Thanks goes out to all you guys that took the time to give me insight into helping me alleviate this problem. I'm greatly appreciative- and it's people like you who make this forum so great...thanks!" And people like you, who tell us when they reach a conclusion. It's a bit destressing when you try to help a fellow, and he does'nt bother to tell when and why the problem is solved. Best regards Arnaldo

July 16th, 2003, 12:34 PM	#43
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Oh I always post a conclusion- that way in the future if any members are having the same problem they can do a search and find a thread that'll have closure rather than speculation. Then again in this instance there still lies speculation. Granted I could go back and plug away at Procoder and maybe eventually find a solution- but my workflow is switching drastically with my next wedding project. I'm moving to Vegas+DVD and it'd be couter-productive to try and frame-serve my timeline to Procoder when I can keep the workflow within the same program. I've found Main Concept's encoder to be pretty effective. I'll use Procoder when I have to do MPG1 clips, it's speed is incredible. Then again anything is fast compared to Cleaner....ugh, the same project that took 2 hours in Procoder to encode to MPG1, took litterally 12 hours in Cleaner!

July 16th, 2003, 01:17 PM	#44
Ron Little Major Player Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Pensacola Fl. Posts: 627	Your welcome Glen I am glad I could help. Now get out there and make some DVDs.

July 16th, 2003, 02:57 PM	#45
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Starting the encode in a few minutes, as I step out to go to the gym. Wooo Hooo! Wish I lived closer Ron- I'd love to train with you sometime. We gotta roll on the mat sometime and see how your submission is- Just gotta watch your kicks when I close for the clinch. ;) joke