1080P TO DVD INTERLACE mystery?! at DVinfo.net

Greg Voevodsky · March 4th, 2009, 11:39 PM

OK - HERE IS MY WORKFLOW. SHOT 1080 30P CONVERTED TO PROREZ - EXPORTED PROREZ 720 X 480 widescreen 29.97 interlace bottom for DVD. Encoded with bitvice creating a m2v file.

PLAYBACK IN QT player looks fine as well as DVD preview in DVD studio pro. However, on DVD burn it gets jaggies. Then I had a BREAK THROUGH LAST NIGHT, I opened my Mac DVD player and opened the original Video files from the hard drive directly - so that it was emulating the DVD from the same files and not from the burnt DVD. Same thing happened... looked bad... but there is a DEFAULT SETTING TURNED ON FOR "DEINTERLACING" - I TURNED it OFF!! the Interlaced video looks great - the same as source. Sooo Im not sure what that means - is my Panasonic plasma trying to de-interlace too? Obviously the deinterlacing is not putting the 30p back to gether correctly, rather looking like a top bottom problem. However, I have tested all 3, top interlace, bottom interlace, no preference during bitvice encoding.... all looked bad. Help?!

Oh you can download the 30 sec 20MB clip "MAUI TEST-QTC-NTSC.m2v" at the bottom of the page at:
http://wavesdvd.com/DL.html

David Issko · March 5th, 2009, 05:20 AM

Sorry Greg, I'm confused.

You state that you shot in 30p, just confirming, 30 frames per second progressive. Is that right?

Then you export in interlaced. Is that correct?

If the original is progressive, then you should follow the progressive theme all throughout the workflow to DVD and not introduce interlacing at any stage. So, export PR422 but don't check the interlace option. Don't introduce interlace option in BV either.

Have I understood? If not, can you explain your problem again.

Cheers

Piotr Wozniacki · March 5th, 2009, 06:25 AM

As I understand it, Greg is "interlacing" his output because the DVD specification doesn't allow 30p.

In fact, what he should be getting is a DVD-compliant 60i m2v stream, which in fact should be 30PsF - whereby the fields are compatible with 60i stream, but are not offset in time. Theoretically, such a stream - while being 60i compliant - should behave like the original 30p file, i.e. show no interlacing artifact.

In practice, two things may happen:

- the stream gets unnecesarrily de-interlaced somewhere down the playback sw/hw chain; if the deinterlacer happens to be the most brutal one like bobbing, a heavy line twittering will occur

- the 1122... sequence of field dominance gets f**ed-up into 1212, (or even worse - 1221), and combing will be shown as the consecutive fields are now offset in time

That's the theory; unfortunately, I cannot help in practical terms as I'm on PC/Vegas :)

Mitchell Lewis · March 5th, 2009, 12:09 PM

Yeah, he should leave it progressive instead of trying to make it interlaced. DVD's can handle progressive just fine in my experience.

The 30PsF thing that Piotr eludes to is over my head though. :)

I'm on a Mac

Greg Voevodsky · March 5th, 2009, 01:46 PM

yes I shot 29.97p and am trying to get 59.97i for DVD.

Thanks for the suggestions, I am definately getting the @#$@#$ reverse order line twitter.
My mistake was that I was changing it to 29.97i and not to 59.97i - thanks for pointing that out.

I will now try both a test of keeping 29.97p all the way through and let you know.

I will also try 59.97 and see if that also works or doesn't.

Any other workflow suggestions, always will be welcomed. Thanks.

Greg Voevodsky · March 5th, 2009, 05:13 PM

29.97p downscaled to 720X480 WIDESCREEN -> Bitvice -> DVD studio pro (no interlacing added) seems to work best. It passed the mac DVD playback test - turning on and off the de-interlacing and looked great on my 1080p Panasonic plasma with HDMI connection.
The 2 other 59.94 interlaced conversions both top and bottom frame both failed the Mac playback test in both progressive and interlace. On the DVD player though with an interlaced TV they do not so BAD... but still bad... however, the 29.97p played back on DVD players connected to the plasma with component and s-vhs showed some quality problems making me think its a combination of the upscaling and the interlacing or non interlacing that is affecting its look... I'm still a bit puzzelled with all the different looks it has on 3 different tvs and players... Any others tests or suggestions always welcome. Thanks.

So far I guess 29.97p is the only way to go...

Alister Chapman · March 6th, 2009, 01:40 AM

Or shoot 720/60P and then create a 720x480 interlaced file from that. Each frame should be converted to a field, you get smooth motion without jaggies.

Ray Bell · March 6th, 2009, 06:52 AM

you might want to look at this post where I point out two sights talking about going
from HD to SD...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdca...ml#post1023252

Mitchell Lewis · March 6th, 2009, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg Voevodsky

29.97p downscaled to 720X480 WIDESCREEN -> Bitvice -> DVD studio pro (no interlacing added) seems to work best.

You spent $450 on Bitvice? Was it worth it? Did you try your same workflow using Compressor?

29.97p downscales to 720x480 WIDESCREEN > Compressor > DVD Studio Pro

I think you'll find that as long as you stay progressive, you won't need any fancy compression for good results.

EDIT: In fact I think if you went 29.97p > Compressor (make sure interlaced isn't turned on) > DVD Studio Pro it would look great as well.

Greg Voevodsky · March 6th, 2009, 02:44 PM

Yes, I love Bitvice - much sharper images and great noise reduction are built into it. Compressor is soft and noisy by comparison. In fact, that might be a bit of my problem, is that bitvice is so sharp that I am now getting some flicker. Download it, you'll see TEXT is a lot sharper and cleaner.

I agree that in the future, I will shoot 1080p 29.97 with the detail off for DVD and add it back in for blu-ray. The BBC recommends shooting 720p for DVD because the XDcam is too sharp.

The real sad news is that I have seen my footage on 6 different TVs, plasmas, LCDs, and DVD players and there is a huge difference on how the new HDTVs and players uprez and play DVDs. Cabling made a huge difference as well as vivid vs standard settings on the LCDS... The older lcds crushed my blacks making my beautiful sunset look like a dark moody Batman sunset. OH well, in a few years, Blu-Ray lets hope will solve this mess.

I'm trying some flicker reduction tests today and softening the image a bit to see if that helps too.

Greg Voevodsky · March 6th, 2009, 04:59 PM

FLICKER TESTS - UPDATES!

Very interesting results. The flicker tests (low/medium/high) filter from FCP as well as a .1 guassian blur - all softed the image just enough to remove the flicker.

Now, the points of interest. With the high end connections to my Panasonic plasma - hdmi and component. The original footage (no filter) 720x480 29.97p looked very sharp with just a tiny tiny bit of flicker. However, when connected with a s-vhs jack, all of a sudden there were lots of flicker. Same with a ps3 into a 1080i Sony HD tube TV via hdmi, lots of flicker with the original footage. But the flicker filters and blur test footage removed it.

The conclusion - Flicker results from low end connections and poor uprezing from the DVD player or from the hdtv. Perfect HDMI with great uprezing DVD player removes flicker.
So, I am going to add either a low blur / low flicker - so that most of the CUSTOMERS will have good results. I rather it be a bit soft with no flicker on all systems - than have it sharp on a few and look horrible on others. Thanks for everyones help!

March 4th, 2009, 11:39 PM	#1
Greg Voevodsky Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Portola Valley Posts: 105	1080P TO DVD INTERLACE mystery?! OK - HERE IS MY WORKFLOW. SHOT 1080 30P CONVERTED TO PROREZ - EXPORTED PROREZ 720 X 480 widescreen 29.97 interlace bottom for DVD. Encoded with bitvice creating a m2v file. PLAYBACK IN QT player looks fine as well as DVD preview in DVD studio pro. However, on DVD burn it gets jaggies. Then I had a BREAK THROUGH LAST NIGHT, I opened my Mac DVD player and opened the original Video files from the hard drive directly - so that it was emulating the DVD from the same files and not from the burnt DVD. Same thing happened... looked bad... but there is a DEFAULT SETTING TURNED ON FOR "DEINTERLACING" - I TURNED it OFF!! the Interlaced video looks great - the same as source. Sooo Im not sure what that means - is my Panasonic plasma trying to de-interlace too? Obviously the deinterlacing is not putting the 30p back to gether correctly, rather looking like a top bottom problem. However, I have tested all 3, top interlace, bottom interlace, no preference during bitvice encoding.... all looked bad. Help?! Oh you can download the 30 sec 20MB clip "MAUI TEST-QTC-NTSC.m2v" at the bottom of the page at: http://wavesdvd.com/DL.html

March 5th, 2009, 05:20 AM	#2
David Issko Major Player Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 393	Sorry Greg, I'm confused. You state that you shot in 30p, just confirming, 30 frames per second progressive. Is that right? Then you export in interlaced. Is that correct? If the original is progressive, then you should follow the progressive theme all throughout the workflow to DVD and not introduce interlacing at any stage. So, export PR422 but don't check the interlace option. Don't introduce interlace option in BV either. Have I understood? If not, can you explain your problem again. Cheers __________________ David Issko Edit 1 Video Productions

March 5th, 2009, 06:25 AM	#3
Piotr Wozniacki Inner Circle Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Poland Posts: 4,086	As I understand it, Greg is "interlacing" his output because the DVD specification doesn't allow 30p. In fact, what he should be getting is a DVD-compliant 60i m2v stream, which in fact should be 30PsF - whereby the fields are compatible with 60i stream, but are not offset in time. Theoretically, such a stream - while being 60i compliant - should behave like the original 30p file, i.e. show no interlacing artifact. In practice, two things may happen: - the stream gets unnecesarrily de-interlaced somewhere down the playback sw/hw chain; if the deinterlacer happens to be the most brutal one like bobbing, a heavy line twittering will occur - the 1122... sequence of field dominance gets f**ed-up into 1212, (or even worse - 1221), and combing will be shown as the consecutive fields are now offset in time That's the theory; unfortunately, I cannot help in practical terms as I'm on PC/Vegas :) __________________ Sony PXW-FS7 \| DaVinci Resolve Studio; Magix Vegas Pro; i7-5960X CPU; 64 GB RAM; 2x GTX 1080 8GB GPU; Decklink 4K Extreme 12G; 4x 3TB WD Black in RAID 0; 1TB M.2 NVMe cache drive

March 5th, 2009, 12:09 PM	#4
Mitchell Lewis Trustee Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Kennewick, WA Posts: 1,124	Yeah, he should leave it progressive instead of trying to make it interlaced. DVD's can handle progressive just fine in my experience. The 30PsF thing that Piotr eludes to is over my head though. :) I'm on a Mac __________________ Sony EX3, Canon 5D MkII, Chrosziel Matte Box, Sachtler tripod, Steadicam Flyer, Mac Pro, Apple/Adobe software - 20 years as a local videographer/editor

March 5th, 2009, 01:46 PM	#5
Greg Voevodsky Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Portola Valley Posts: 105	yes I shot 29.97p and am trying to get 59.97i for DVD. Thanks for the suggestions, I am definately getting the @#$@#$ reverse order line twitter. My mistake was that I was changing it to 29.97i and not to 59.97i - thanks for pointing that out. I will now try both a test of keeping 29.97p all the way through and let you know. I will also try 59.97 and see if that also works or doesn't. Any other workflow suggestions, always will be welcomed. Thanks. Last edited by Greg Voevodsky; March 5th, 2009 at 02:39 PM.

March 5th, 2009, 05:13 PM	#6
Greg Voevodsky Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Portola Valley Posts: 105	new tests. 29.97p downscaled to 720X480 WIDESCREEN -> Bitvice -> DVD studio pro (no interlacing added) seems to work best. It passed the mac DVD playback test - turning on and off the de-interlacing and looked great on my 1080p Panasonic plasma with HDMI connection. The 2 other 59.94 interlaced conversions both top and bottom frame both failed the Mac playback test in both progressive and interlace. On the DVD player though with an interlaced TV they do not so BAD... but still bad... however, the 29.97p played back on DVD players connected to the plasma with component and s-vhs showed some quality problems making me think its a combination of the upscaling and the interlacing or non interlacing that is affecting its look... I'm still a bit puzzelled with all the different looks it has on 3 different tvs and players... Any others tests or suggestions always welcome. Thanks. So far I guess 29.97p is the only way to go...

March 6th, 2009, 01:40 AM	#7
Alister Chapman Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Bracknell, Berkshire, UK Posts: 4,957	Or shoot 720/60P and then create a 720x480 interlaced file from that. Each frame should be converted to a field, you get smooth motion without jaggies. __________________ Alister Chapman, Film-Maker/Stormchaser http://www.xdcam-user.com/alisters-blog/ My XDCAM site and blog. http://www.hurricane-rig.com

March 6th, 2009, 06:52 AM	#8
Ray Bell Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,414	you might want to look at this post where I point out two sights talking about going from HD to SD... http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/sony-xdca...ml#post1023252

March 6th, 2009, 02:44 PM	#10
Greg Voevodsky Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Portola Valley Posts: 105	Yes, I love Bitvice - much sharper images and great noise reduction are built into it. Compressor is soft and noisy by comparison. In fact, that might be a bit of my problem, is that bitvice is so sharp that I am now getting some flicker. Download it, you'll see TEXT is a lot sharper and cleaner. I agree that in the future, I will shoot 1080p 29.97 with the detail off for DVD and add it back in for blu-ray. The BBC recommends shooting 720p for DVD because the XDcam is too sharp. The real sad news is that I have seen my footage on 6 different TVs, plasmas, LCDs, and DVD players and there is a huge difference on how the new HDTVs and players uprez and play DVDs. Cabling made a huge difference as well as vivid vs standard settings on the LCDS... The older lcds crushed my blacks making my beautiful sunset look like a dark moody Batman sunset. OH well, in a few years, Blu-Ray lets hope will solve this mess. I'm trying some flicker reduction tests today and softening the image a bit to see if that helps too.

March 6th, 2009, 04:59 PM	#11
Greg Voevodsky Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Portola Valley Posts: 105	FLICKER TESTS - UPDATES! Very interesting results. The flicker tests (low/medium/high) filter from FCP as well as a .1 guassian blur - all softed the image just enough to remove the flicker. Now, the points of interest. With the high end connections to my Panasonic plasma - hdmi and component. The original footage (no filter) 720x480 29.97p looked very sharp with just a tiny tiny bit of flicker. However, when connected with a s-vhs jack, all of a sudden there were lots of flicker. Same with a ps3 into a 1080i Sony HD tube TV via hdmi, lots of flicker with the original footage. But the flicker filters and blur test footage removed it. The conclusion - Flicker results from low end connections and poor uprezing from the DVD player or from the hdtv. Perfect HDMI with great uprezing DVD player removes flicker. So, I am going to add either a low blur / low flicker - so that most of the CUSTOMERS will have good results. I rather it be a bit soft with no flicker on all systems - than have it sharp on a few and look horrible on others. Thanks for everyones help!