DVD scan lines/interlaced issue

[Kieran Vyas]

Exporting straight out of premiere pro is not an option. The quality I was getting from PP was just not good enough and after countless hours troubleshooting on forums it turns out that the encoder was just not working with my footage. Using Avisynth with hcencoder has given me incredible results. The only problem left is these few clips that appear interlaced. I want to interlace to retain the fluid motion of my 50p footage. I need some advice as to what might be causing these few clips to appear interlaced and how I might solve it. Thanks!

[Chris Harding]

Ok - Is all your source footage progressive? If it is then there is no reason for any interlaced lines being abnormal. Of course, if you watch the final rendered footage on a computer you WILL see interlacing but going thru a DVD player will remove them. If you only see interlacing now and again then PP is not deinterlacing any interlaced footage present on the timeline before remdering it to progressive

This link helped me a lot when I started making DVD's What is deinterlacing? The best method to deinterlace movies

[Kieran Vyas]

Ok! Most of my footage is progressive but some is interlaced,( I then rendered losslessly as progressive and used Avisynth to interlace.) So you think premiere pro might not be deinterlacing it properly? I Will go back and Check my clips but I'm pretty sure all the interlaced clips are set to 'always deinterlace'.

[Chris Harding]

It certainly sounds like interlaced clips are not being de-interlaced to me!! Maybe try and de-interlace with an external program first and then make a short test DVD ... I find if I have an issue it's easier to spot the problem with a small test render ... combined say, 30 seconds of interlaced with 30 seconds of progressive and go thru the progress and test .. if half the final clip is full on lines on a TV then you know the de-interlacing isn't working

[Kieran Vyas]

So this is very strange!!! I went back to the source footage, and some of the footage that is showing scan lines on the final DVD was progressive originally. The only interlacing involved was during the AVIsynth script which is then put into HCencoder. Could there be anything wrong with my script OR my settings in HCencoder? Any ideas? Thank you!!

Just to confirm my script:

AviSource("finished.avi")
ConvertToYV12()
Spline36Resize(720,576)
Blur(0,0.5)
ColorMatrix(mode="Rec.709->Rec.601",clamp=0
AssumeTFF().SeparateFields().SelectEvery(4, 0, 3).Weave()

And my HCencoder settings:

Avg bitrate - 4000
Max bitrate - 8000
Profile - Best
Matrix - Manono3
Interlacing options - Auto detect; TFF

[Kieran Vyas]

PROBLEM SOLVED! I was originally using Encore to burn the DVD. I tried burning the DVD using DVD Architect Studio using the SAME files and there was no problem. Somehow it seems the Adobe Encore was causing the issue.

[Rob Rothkopf]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

Edius does have Lanczos3 scaling choice but will only do single pass encode so for the long times I have I need 2 pass VBR for the best quality. I also find TMPGenc to be the better encoding of all I have tried.

Ron Evans

So I'd read for a while about benefits of 2-pass VBR, but I'd avoided VBR due to glitches I'd seen in rendered output in the past. So I thought it be time to check it out again a few weeks ago.

I rendered 4-minute segment of video using Vegas 14 templates with bitrates set as if it were a 1.5 hour video. I rendered CBR, VBR 1-pass and VBR 2-pass. Once done I dropped the three rendered clips into a Vegas timeline and examined each one by soloing individual tracks. I found NO VISIBLE DIFFERENCE in the three files.

Thinking it was because at 1.5 hours there wouldn't be much compression anyway, I did the same test with templates set for 2 hours 45 minutes. Similarly, and surprisingly, I found no visible difference that justified doubling render time for a 2nd pass. The footage is of dance shows where the cameras are fairly static (we also shoot with 3-4 cameras for dance recitals) but the subjects (dancers) are moving.

Just thought I'd share my results with ya :-)

[Rob Rothkopf]

QUESTION ---

I *do* see I can change the field order in DVDA templates, including setting it to "None (Progressive)"... but I've always left the templates alone (upper field first)

If (as I've just read) progressive DVDs are possible (is it as simple as changing the field order in a template), AND they use less compression AND they look better... then why are the default templates in DVDA still set to interlaced?

[Cary Knoop]

Originally Posted by Kieran Vyas

I am trying to burn a DVD but I'm having an issue with it being interlaced. I am getting scan lines on the subject in my scenes during motion, when played back on my TV. The same as if I was watching interlaced footage on a computer. Any ideas why this might be?

That is the nature of interlaced footage. Each field is sampled at a different time, so if there is movement vertical lines may not line up for the whole frame.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Rob Rothkopf

QUESTION ---

I *do* see I can change the field order in DVDA templates, including setting it to "None (Progressive)"... but I've always left the templates alone (upper field first)

I don't know anything about your software and I stopped making DVD's many years ago. But just as a general comment, the simplest form of de-interlacing is simply to duplicate one of the fields and discard the other. This will give you progressive video but of course you will lose 50% of the vertical resolution which will be quite noticeable.

The proper way to convert interlaced to progressive involves treating the moving parts of each field differently from the static parts. There are various methods for doing this and they can result in pretty significant render time. Just selecting "progressive" in a menu may not do this.

If you're making files to use on a computer or mobile device (instead of a DVD) then the free Handbrake program (for Windows and MacOS) does a pretty good job of this. Or if you just want to watch the interlaced video on a computer, the free VLC app also does a decent job if you set deinterlacing to "Yadif".

I use Apple Compressor for de-interlacing on the Mac.