How PsF video from the V1 is different than "p" or "F" video

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Bob Grant

Could it be that some of these HD LCD and plasma TVs are really displaying interlaced, I can't think of any reason why they couldn't be refreshing the display at the video's frame rate. If so then the problem isn't de-interlacing the de-interlaced, it's that it's NOT de-interlacing. It's displaying the two fields from the 25PsF, 40mS apart.

Your theory is tempting, but how will you explain that when played from VLC, the bobbing option makes my 25PsF clips twitter just like they do when fed from camera viia component?

[Bob Grant]

That I cannot explain. By my understanding 'bob' is simply interpolating one field, it might be doing something more complex than just line doubling. Also if you're watching it on anything connected to a PC there could possibly be something going on between the refresh rate of the display and the frame rate. I've see frames torn in half by this so maybe, just maybe that has some bearing on the problem.

When I get a chance I'll generate some HD test patterns using Vegas and see how they display.

[Steve Mullen]

Looks like 1080/25p is not here yet -- or not coming. I found these comments:

"HD DVD discs containing high definition content at a field rate of 50Hz or a frame rate of 25Hz cannot be played on HD-XE1 without a firmware update. Firmware update is expected in the future."

"Rightly or wrongly, this whole area is IMO being driven not by the broadcasters, not by the drama producers, but Hollywood. There is a major push for all the hollywood content to be delivered anywhere in the world in HD at 24p. Major political battle, broadcasters in 50 land are not happy, but Hollywood does not like the just speed it up to 25p with the Resulting audio issues. This has driven the HD display device spec to mandate that all the devices need to support 60 based support. Where people want this to go is just as now in SD you have 100hz tv's to eventually get to 120 displays. Canal for instance in Europe is going to deliver all its HD dvd's at 24p."

It looks like 720p is not going to be much used, either.

In last month's HDV@Work I talk about the push to "Full HD." The world is going to 1920x1080/24p/50p/60p. From cameras through HDTV. In addition, the move is 24p displayed AT 24p or 48P or 72P -- no pulldown.


So it looks like the only way to show 25p is via a computer and VLC. Given how good BLEND and MEAN look -- this almost solves the problem. Unless you want to use your HDV camcorder to play your videos. Then you'll need to cut V. flicker in your NLE.

But that means you need to find a way to get 25PsF out of your NLEs and into your V1 and to tape.

And a way to get 25PsF into your NLE. I had to convert 25p .m2t into Apple's AIC 1080p25 .mov -- or -- 1080p25 HDV .m2v to even get it into FCP.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Your theory is tempting, but how will you explain that when played from VLC, the bobbing option makes my 25PsF clips twitter just like they do when fed from camera viia component?

bob is called bob because the image bobs up and down. That's why it is disliked so much.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Looks like 1080/25p is not here yet -- or not coming. I found these comments:

"HD DVD discs containing high definition content at a field rate of 50Hz or a frame rate of 25Hz cannot be played on HD-XE1 without a firmware update. Firmware update is expected in the future."

"Rightly or wrongly, this whole area is IMO being driven not by the broadcasters, not by the drama producers, but Hollywood. There is a major push for all the hollywood content to be delivered anywhere in the world in HD at 24p. Major political battle, broadcasters in 50 land are not happy, but Hollywood does not like the just speed it up to 25p with the Resulting audio issues. This has driven the HD display device spec to mandate that all the devices need to support 60 based support. Where people want this to go is just as now in SD you have 100hz tv's to eventually get to 120 displays. Canal for instance in Europe is going to deliver all its HD dvd's at 24p."

It looks like 720p is not going to be much used, either.

In last month's HDV@Work I talk about the push to "Full HD." The world is going to 1920x1080/24p/50p/60p. From cameras through HDTV. In addition, the move is 24p displayed AT 24p or 48P or 72P -- no pulldown.


So it looks like the only way to show 25p is via a computer and VLC. Given how good BLEND and MEAN look -- this almost solves the problem. Unless you want to use your HDV camcorder to play your videos. Then you'll need to cut V. flicker in your NLE.

But that means you need to find a way to get 25PsF out of your NLEs and into your V1 and to tape.

And a way to get 25PsF into your NLE. I had to convert 25p .m2t into Apple's AIC 1080p25 .mov -- or -- 1080p25 HDV .m2v to even get it into FCP.

Yeah... This would explain the lack of ANY 25p template even in the newest version of Sony's own Vegas. But considering one would re-compress his 25PsF material anyway, perhaps the solution would be to encode them into 24p in order to deliver on a Blu-Ray or HD DVD? Any problems here?

[Tony Tremble]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Yeah... This would explain the lack of ANY 25p template even in the newest version of Sony's own Vegas. But considering one would re-compress his 25PsF material anyway, perhaps the solution would be to encode them into 24p in order to deliver on a Blu-Ray or HD DVD? Any problems here?

What is so difficult to understand? 25PsF is well understood in broadcasting. Why do you assume your problems with the V1 will be replicated by all Blu-ray and HD DVD players necessitating the bizarre and outrageous step of converting 25P to 24P? It would be madness.

A blu ray/HD DVD player will simply signal to your HDTV that the content is progressive so don't deinterlace. It would appear either the V1 does not output the desired signal or the TV/monitors you've connected it to don't acknowledge the signal from the V1 causing the deinterlacing errors.

Mikko answered this issue several posts ago. Perhaps the answer was too obvious?

TT

[Steve Mullen]

1) converted Piotr's test clip using MPEGStreamclip to Apple's 1080p25 HDV codec.

2) playing both original and converted in MPEGStreamclip one could see the line-twitter using S=7. I did this to check if the conversion might filter the original. It didn't.

3) imported the 1080p25 clip 4 times into 1080p25 FCP Sequence, added 3 levels of Flicker Filter, and made a 1080p25 HDV movie.

4) played movie in QTplayer via HDMI to my HDTV. There was no line-twitter. EVEN ON THE CLIP WITH NO FILTER.

5) Played Source clip and Sequence in FCP. Again -- no line-twitter on anything.

If I had a V1E and used FCP -- and I had never read about the V1E's "problems" -- I would see nothing wrong even if I used S=7!

So I used VLC to play the original clip. Very consistent results: if I turned on bob deinterlace, I had line-twitter except at S=3. If I used Blend or Mean, I did not even at S=7.

Then I remembered TT claiming he watched 25p without deinterlacing. I assumed he was using a CRT HDTV. He said he wasn't -- he was using VLC. So if he wasn't using deinterlace, that likely means he was running VLC with deinterlace DISABLED. So I switched to disabled and there was no line-twitter even at S=7.

VLC with deinterlace DISABLED plays just like FCP and the QTplayer -- there's no aliasing or line-twitter even with S=7.

THEN I REMEMBERED THAT the clip I had was a movie -- not original V1E video.

Piotr's test clip is 1080/25p. That means -- I assume -- that Premiere took the 2 fields within 50i and put them into 1 frame and changed the frame rate to 25 and set the P flag.

So it makes perfect sense that DISABLED is the correct way to play a 25p MOVIE. And, the QTplayer and FCP seem to do the same.

So the production cycle of 25PsF to 25P seems to fix the problem and there is no need -- if you are making a 25p MOVIE -- to use S=3.

----------------

But note something else -- how you play video determines what you see. Even with true 25p, I could make the problem come and go just by WHICH software I used and WHAT setting I used.

Piotr -- can you upload a 25p S=7 mode captured directly from the camera.

[Bob Grant]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Looks like 1080/25p is not here yet -- or not coming. I found these comments:

"HD DVD discs containing high definition content at a field rate of 50Hz or a frame rate of 25Hz cannot be played on HD-XE1 without a firmware update. Firmware update is expected in the future."

"Rightly or wrongly, this whole area is IMO being driven not by the broadcasters, not by the drama producers, but Hollywood. There is a major push for all the hollywood content to be delivered anywhere in the world in HD at 24p. Major political battle, broadcasters in 50 land are not happy, but Hollywood does not like the just speed it up to 25p with the Resulting audio issues. This has driven the HD display device spec to mandate that all the devices need to support 60 based support. Where people want this to go is just as now in SD you have 100hz tv's to eventually get to 120 displays. Canal for instance in Europe is going to deliver all its HD dvd's at 24p."

It looks like 720p is not going to be much used, either.

In last month's HDV@Work I talk about the push to "Full HD." The world is going to 1920x1080/24p/50p/60p. From cameras through HDTV. In addition, the move is 24p displayed AT 24p or 48P or 72P -- no pulldown.


So it looks like the only way to show 25p is via a computer and VLC. Given how good BLEND and MEAN look -- this almost solves the problem. Unless you want to use your HDV camcorder to play your videos. Then you'll need to cut V. flicker in your NLE.

But that means you need to find a way to get 25PsF out of your NLEs and into your V1 and to tape.

And a way to get 25PsF into your NLE. I had to convert 25p .m2t into Apple's AIC 1080p25 .mov -- or -- 1080p25 HDV .m2v to even get it into FCP.

Want to know something funny, put a 24p HDCAM SR tape into a deck and you can quite happily play it out as...50i. Hollywood can send us whatever they want, we'll still be running it 4% faster.

And although Vegas doesn't have a 25p template I can quite easily render 1080 25p from the V1P's 25PsF.

And the interesting thing about BD and 1080p. Well HD DVD does do 1080p, they've tried using that as a selling point but Sony themselves keep say it's all smoke and mirrors stuff as it all ends up the same when it's displayed.

As for the rest of the comments about display devices affecting how an image look, well duh. Just because it looks fine on some devices doesn't mean there's no fault in what being fed to the device that shows a problem, usually the reverse in fact.

Get the field order reversed with 50i and it still looks fine on LCDs, are you suggesting the fault is in our broadcast CRTs?
Get one channel of dual mono audio out of phase and it still sounds OK on the stereo monitors but totally vanishes on my mono TV. Ah I get it, it's there's nothing wrong with my audio just the silly viewer for having a mono TV, silly them.

So far the most credible explaination of where the problems lies was a deduction from a comment by Adam Wilt about Sony allowing too much res compared to Canon at the expense of aliasing. Possibly the OLPF is set too high. Why would Sony do that, well this camera takes still through the same lens and imagers, perhaps they didn't want to loose res when stills were being taken.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

Yeah... This would explain the lack of ANY 25p template even in the newest version of Sony's own Vegas. But considering one would re-compress his 25PsF material anyway, perhaps the solution would be to encode them into 24p in order to deliver on a Blu-Ray or HD DVD? Any problems here?

Vegas doesn't have a 25p template simply because one wasn't made. If you have the VASST GearShift tool, you *do* have a 25p template, as we install one. In other words, just make one. As Bob mentioned, all that you need is there.
Speaking of Bob, great post! Looking forward to seeing you at NAB and this winter in Oz.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Douglas, of course I have made my own 25p templates in Vegas (actually the clips I'm posting to this thread were all rendered in Vegas, not in Premiere as Steve is assuming). But the fact is such a template has NOT been included with the system (the "Blue Print" ones are only 50i, 60i and 24p - just like in the Blu-Ray Disk specification). And this cannot be just a coincidence or ommision, IMO.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

Piotr -- can you upload a 25p S=7 mode captured directly from the camera.

Steve, I'm uploading the clips I used so far in Vegas compilations I posted earlier, only this time as raw m2t files (I'm limited in chosing the right ones by the 100 MB upload size per file maximum, and I'm still lacking an utility that would allow me trimming m2t's without re-rendering - does anyone know such a tool?).

Anyway, here is the first one:

http://rapidshare.com/files/19374454...g_shrp_8-2.m2t (sharpness 8)

more are coming (with sharpness at 10 and 12).

http://rapidshare.com/files/19379721...og_shrp_10.m2t
http://rapidshare.com/files/19393514...og_shrp_12.m2t

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Bob Grant

What you've done is the same as I do with high res still for SD, when I say high res I'm talking about images from 10M pixel DSLRs. Thing is how this problem can only happen when you downscale, you need a frequency higher than the sample clock in the source to bring it on. I could probably dig up a post from one of the Sony engineers about SinC functions etc, etc.

Just to further expand that point, the other way HD stills are usually handled is to batch convert them in PS to target res, when you drop that onto a FCP or Vegas T/L there's no problem with line twitter.

So this opens the question as to just where this is happening, given that we're dealing with HD and a camera with a vertical res of say 800 something is fishy. The camera would have to have better V res than 1000 to bring this on I think. Of course if your display device is less than 1080 then this explains it all very nicely.

But even then, working with my HD stills in SD I could never, ever see any aliasing problems using Vegas's internal preview monitors as they are always field merged (aka weave). That's all Vegas can do as the refresh rate of the LCD displays used on a PC is typically 60 or 75 Hz. Could it be that some of these HD LCD and plasma TVs are really displaying interlaced, I can't think of any reason why they couldn't be refreshing the display at the video's frame rate. If so then the problem isn't de-interlacing the de-interlaced, it's that it's NOT de-interlacing. It's displaying the two fields from the 25PsF, 40mS apart.

Bob, do you know how the 0.001 vertical Gaussian Blur in Vegas translates into the horizontal lines number reduction? What does this number really mean? Sorry for a naive question, but I don't know the theory behind it and would like to adopt some technique of slightly reducing v-rez without spoiling the h-rez unnecessarily.

Also, the peculiarities of the V1E's progressive mode (in how aliasing prone it is) have forced me to discover various Vegas settings and tricks that I never paid attention to before, as with the Canon A1 they didn't make much difference. Firstly, you can create a new project using the usual 1080/50i template with upper field first, but changing deiterlace mode to "blend fields". Conversely, you can use the "None" (progressive scan) field order, and - even though it doesn't sound logical - also choose "blend fields" as Deinterlace method.

Secondly, you can add a slight vertical Gaussian Blur (though even the smallest possible of 0.001 results in too much softening IMO), or set the option "reduce interlace flicker" in the clips properties, which seems to do the trick.

Then, the rendering of a 1080/25p output MPEG-2 file. I must say I don't quite understand why we have the options of deinterlacing methods when creating a new project, but NOT when creating progressive file from an interlaced source; in the "render as" template you can only set Fieldd order (upper first, lower first, or progressive). Hmmm.

Add to it the various options at playback time (like using Blend in VLC), and you get a headache when trying to established an optimal workflow for the 25PfS of the V1E. It'd be much easier if a more comprehensive description of all the Vegas options involved was available, because the manual and help system don't seem to be very specific.

Here a kind request to Steve and DSE: could you please help us the PAL V1 users with the above? TIA!

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Bob Grant

Want to know something funny, put a 24p HDCAM SR tape into a deck and you can quite happily play it out as...50i. Hollywood can send us whatever they want, we'll still be running it 4% faster.

That has nothing to do with anything. You won't be making discs. The movie industry will -- under very tight control. If they choose 24p and the players only play 24p -- just exactly what are you going to do about?


"And the interesting thing about BD and 1080p. Well HD DVD does do 1080p"

HD DVD supports 1080/50P and 1080/60P output. The high-end Toshiba cannot even do 1080/24P output let alone 108025P output. In terms of recording, only 24p, 50i, and 50i are supported.


", they've tried using that as a selling point but Sony themselves keep say it's all smoke and mirrors stuff as it all ends up the same when it's displayed."

Sony can say that about 24p because you'll remember I posted earlier that 24p was the only frame-rate that POTENTIALLY could be perfectly deinterlaced in your HDTV. So yes, 1080i60 can carry 24p. Unfortunately, tests indicate it often does work pefectly -- which is why the demand for 60P output -- and for 24p OUPUT.


"Just because it looks fine on some devices doesn't mean there's no fault in what being fed to the device that shows a problem, usually the reverse in fact."

An obviously true statement. So obvious that I see no point to it the context of this discussion. The goal NOW is to find a way to produce P movies from 25p V1E video that look good. If that can be done, the question of what to blame becomes moot.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

But the fact is that BLEND eliminates line twitter completely - even when I send the video from VLC through component, and even at 12 sharpness setting! The image loses some resolution, but is still sharper than Canon's and almost equally quiet in terms of aliasing.

Now, I'd appreciated it very much if somebody told be how to implement the same effect in Vegas. Which filter should I be using, so that the H-rez is intact? I could then re-encode some of my test shots, print them back to tape and ruch to the Sony dealer to check it on a Bravia HDTV again.. But I'm running short of time!

I have just discovered that the same clips in 25PsF (withs sharpness up to 120 that required BLEND in VLC to be watchable at all (otherwise showing awfull line twitter), do play almost quite clean from Nero ShowTime 7, with deinterlacing off!

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

But the fact is such a template has NOT been included with the system (the "Blue Print" ones are only 50i, 60i and 24p - just like in the Blu-Ray Disk specification). And this cannot be just a coincidence or ommision, IMO.

I'm realizing that 25p in the HD world is not exactly a standard format. :)

The progressive formats are 720p50 and 720p60 and 1080p24. The interlace formats are: 1060i50 and 1080i60.

You can shoot 720p25, 720p30, and 1080p25 but most NLEs do not support anything but 720p30 and 1080p25.

At this point in time -- the two hidef DVD formats support only: 1080p24, 720p60, and 1080i60. Other than the crazy expensive BD software, software supports the burning of only 720p60 and 1080i60.

I have burned 720p30 by tricking the software into thinking it was 720p60. I have yet to try 24p with pulldown within 720p60 and 1080i60.

Which means you can make 1080p25 and play it with VLC -- or you can try exporting your 25p timeline as 1080i50. This should be able to be burned to red laser discs and played on a hidef DVD. However, because the software is all written in R60 areas, and mostly for use by folks burning copies of HDTV programs, it may not yet support 1080i50.

Thank you for the S=8.

Playing original with VLC/MPEGstream and FCP clip shows bad line-twitter. After making a 1080p25 HDV movie and playing using QTplayer -- even the original clip (no filter) looks very good. The filter helps, but not much.

Upload S=5 and S= 7 -- these may be safer bets.