Encoding downsized HDV 24p footage to MPEG-2 properly

[stantheman1976]

I shot my first important event recently with 2 Canon HV40s filming 1440X1080/24p HDV. I exported from Vegas as NTSC DV Widescreen AVI 23.976fps with 2:3 pull down to create a DVD. I'm encoding to MPEG with TMPGEnc Plus 2.5.

In my settings do I need to check the 3:2 pull down option in TMPGEnc?

[Case]

Yes, progressive NTSC content at 23.976 fps should have a 3:2 pull down flag when authoring as DVD.

[jagabo]

I believe 24p HDV is encoded as 30i. You have to IVTC back to 24p before resizing and encoding as MPEG2 with pulldown flags.

[stantheman1976]

I'm still a bit confused with the pulldown thing though. So I rendered with 2:3 pulldown. That telecines from 24fps to 30fps? Then I encode with 3:2 pulldown and that inverse telecines back to 24fps? Is that a normal workflow?

Vegas has the option to render with 2:3:3:2 pulldown. Should I do that and encode with my normal settings then? I'd like to avoid that if possible since it took 36 hours to render this project because it's going from HDV to SD and has Magic Bullets plugin.

[jagabo]

24p HDV is packaged as 30i with hard pulldown. To restore the original 24p frames you have to inverse telecine, ie, remove the pulldown. Once you have 24p frames you can resize and encode for DVD as progressive frames with pulldown flags. The flags tell the player how to produce the 59.94 fields per second required for interlaced analog output. In TMPGEnc Plus that would require setting the Encode Mode to "3:2 pulldown when playback" and Frame Rate to "23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)".

You may find this description of interlaced video and film pulldown useful:
http://www.movieconverter-studio.com/ivideo_en.htm

[stantheman1976]

I think I'm clear now. Rendering as DV AVI Widescreen with 2:3 pulldown gave me an AVI flagged as 29.976fps to conform to DV standard. Then encoding with 3:2 pulldown at 23.976fps will give the MPEG file the correct flag so when I author it to DVD a player will know what do with the footage. Is that right?

[jagabo]

Why use DV as an intermediate? That will make the video interlaced again and reduce the horizontal color resolution. Then if you want to encode progressive TMPGEnc will have to IVTC again. Output as 24p with a codec that supports that (HuffYUV?) then encode with TMPGEnc as progressive with pulldown flags.

[stantheman1976]

So if I output to Huffy as 23.976 IVTC do I need to use the "23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)" setting or just set the encode mode to non-interlace with frame rate of 23.976 and check the 3:2 pulldown box?

[jagabo]

So if I output to Huffy as 23.976 IVTC do I need to use the "23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)" setting or just set the encode mode to non-interlace with frame rate of 23.976 and check the 3:2 pulldown box?

Do not checkmark the "3:2 pulldown" box -- that's really selecting inverse 3:2 pulldown. Your 23.976 fps HuffYUV file has already gone through inverse 3:2 pulldown by Vegas. Just use the settings I gave you earlier: set Encode Mode to "3:2 pulldown when playback" and Frame Rate to "23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)".

[aedipuss]

just to make your day more exciting the hv40 shoots both native 24p and 24p in a 60i stream. so how you handle it depends on which mode you used to shoot with.

hv40 frame rates: 60i, Native 24p Progressive (records at 24p), 24p Progressive (records at 60i), 30p Progressive (records at 60i)

[stantheman1976]

I shot in 24F mode which is the native 24p mode for the HV40. So if I output to HuffyUV it should be a lossless AVI version of my final edit. So when I encode with TMPGEnc do I need to set the encode mode to 3:2 pulldown and the framerate to 23.976 (29.976 internally) or leave the framerate as 23.976 and encode mode as non-interlace? In either case should I even need to bother with the 3:2 pulldown box under the Advanced settings?

[aedipuss]

keep it 24p(f) all the way through. use jagabo's last sentence -

Just use the settings I gave you earlier: set Encode Mode to "3:2 pulldown when playback" and Frame Rate to "23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)".

[jagabo]

Ah, I though HDV camcorders always packaged 24p in 30i with hard pulldown. (I hate the fact that manufacturers are now calling 30i 60i.)

[aedipuss]

no the hdv "standard" seems to have been bent and different manufacturers are setting there own standards. jvc even has some that shoot 720 60p.

i've been whining about the marketing nonsense of 60i since they started that crap also.

[stantheman1976]

Here's one other little thing. I rendered as HuffyUV and left the pixel aspect ratio as 1.0. So on playback the video is square instead of widescreen like it should be. If I render with everything set correctly telling the encoder that the source and final video should be widescreen will it still display properly on the finished DVD? I tested a short clip encoded that way and it plays fine on my computer. I'm just wondering if it will carry over to the finished product.

[poisondeathray]

Here's one other little thing. I rendered as HuffyUV and left the pixel aspect ratio as 1.0. So on playback the video is square instead of widescreen like it should be. If I render with everything set correctly telling the encoder that the source and final video should be widescreen will it still display properly on the finished DVD? I tested a short clip encoded that way and it plays fine on my computer. I'm just wondering if it will carry over to the finished product.

Yes it will work fine

You set the 16:9 AR flag in the MPEG2 encoder

[jagabo]

You may also need to tell the encoder what the source PAR or DAR is. Otherwise it may assume square pixel and resize.

[aedipuss]

HDV doesn't have square pixels. it's 1440x1080 but when displayed or encoded to square pixels it should be 1920x1080.

[stantheman1976]

I'm not really sure what's going on now. I rendered 2 segments in HuffyUV. If I try to play the files they skip like crazy or freeze up. I can encode the second segment with TMPGEnc successfully but the MPEG seems to be screwed up also. I tried importing the shorter segment back into Vegas and rendering as DV and the finished DV video skips also. I'm seeming to have nothing but trouble with these videos. Any ideas what might be happening and what to try next besides rendering anew into DV instead of Huffy?

BTW, I know the project itself is fine because I rendered into WMV HD also and it plays fine. It's the AVI renders I'm seeming to have an issue with. I also kept the original DV AVI I rendered before I started this thread and it plays fine even though it's not quite as sharp as the HuffyUV or WMV HD render.

[jagabo]

Post MediaInfo results of your HuffYUV AVI and final MPG files. A few seconds of the videos (with motion) would be even better.

[stantheman1976]

First segment AVI:

General
Complete name : E:\Josh+Amanda.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 97.4 GiB
Duration : 38mn 6s
Overall bit rate : 366 Mbps
TCOD : 0
TCDO : 22862422916

Video
ID : 0
Format : Huffman
Codec ID : HFYU
Duration : 38mn 6s
Bit rate : 7 476 Kbps
Width : 1 440 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : RGB
Bit depth : 8 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.200
Stream size : 1.99 GiB (2%)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 47s 5ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 8.61 MiB (0%)
Interleave, duration : 42 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 41 ms

Second segment AVI:

General
Complete name : E:\Reception.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 31.7 GiB
Duration : 10mn 36s
Overall bit rate : 427 Mbps
TCOD : 0
TCDO : 6368862500

Video
ID : 0
Format : Huffman
Codec ID : HFYU
Duration : 10mn 36s
Bit rate : 26.9 Mbps
Width : 1 440 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : RGB
Bit depth : 8 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.720
Stream size : 1.99 GiB (6%)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 40s 290ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 7.38 MiB (0%)
Interleave, duration : 42 ms (1.00 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 41 ms

Second segment MPEG:

General
Complete name : E:\Reception.m2v
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
File size : 702 MiB
Duration : 10mn 36s
Overall bit rate : 9 261 Kbps

Video
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP : No
Format settings, Matrix : Default
Duration : 10mn 36s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 9 250 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Scan order : 2:3 Pulldown
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 1.116
Stream size : 674 MiB (96%)
Writing library : TMPGEnc 2.510.49.157

I didn't encode the first segment to MPEG yet but I would use the same settings as the second.

[jagabo]

HuffYUV doesn't compress enough to give you smooth playback of a 1440x1080 video from a hard drive. The file itself is probably fine. Open the video in VirtualDub and step through it frame by frame -- you'll probably see motion is just fine.

The MPG file properties look ok. How exactly is it screwed up?

[stantheman1976]

It freezes a few seconds into it. If I skip past that it seems to play ok but takes longer to start back than normal MPEG files I encode.

If I try to encode the first segment TMPGEnc freezes up a few seconds in.

[poisondeathray]

I agree this suggests the problem is with the huffyuv export, since the encoded MPEG2 file doesn't play correctly , but WMV export is fine

You can try other lossless compression e.g. lagarith, ffv1, or even uncompressed , but they are not meant to be played back in real time either . UT video codec can be played back in realtime if you have a fast system and no bottlenecks (like disk IO limitations), it's a bit faster than huffyuv-mt on a multicore system and scales very well

There is something weird about your mediainfo - the lengths don't match for video & audio, even within the same segment. Something fishy is going on

[stantheman1976]

If I decide to render to DV and encode from there do I use the same settings? Vegas has the option of DV Widescreen 24p with 2-3 pulldown. If I encode that file do I still select 23.976 (29.976 internally and 3:2 pulldown during play back?

[aedipuss]

if you want to use DVavi start over with the tapes and have the camera do the HDV->Dvavi conversion in hardware. the cam will have a setting to transfer it as DVavi over firewire.

[poisondeathray]

Is there a reason you are avoiding vegas's (mainconcept's) MPEG2 encoder and exporting directly? It's not that bad, certainly not much worse than TMPGEnc

[stantheman1976]

That would be a mighty painful route. I've put two weeks into this already. I would have to re-sync everything, recreate envelopes and transitions and such. Then with the Magic Bullet plug in it takes almost two full days to process a 40 minute clip.

Plus I know that the original M2T files are fine. There were no dropped frames and they play fine if I try to view them. The issue seems to be with the MPEG encoding. I have DV renders of both segments that play correctly. Both files I've tried to encode with TMPGEnc Plus and there is an issue. I've encoded countless times before for years with the same program and never had an issue so that's why it's really getting to me. There's no obvious reason, especially if I'm encoding what is now SD DV file.

[stantheman1976]

I've never actually used Main Concept because I'm so familiar with the ins and outs of TMPGEnc and have always gotten excellent results using it.

[jagabo]

It freezes a few seconds into it. If I skip past that it seems to play ok but takes longer to start back than normal MPEG files I encode.

If I try to encode the first segment TMPGEnc freezes up a few seconds in.

Did you step through the HuffYUV AVI file? Does it show problems?