MPEG 2 problems

[specwarrior09]

I have Pinnalce Studio 9 AV/DV capture card, and I am capturing xbox 360 footage through the pinnacle program. (Movie Maker has horrible quality) My problem is when i playback the captured video, with any sudden movement, the horizontal lines are displaced. I guess some move faster than others. The quality is good, not blurry, but the lines dont follow each other. AVI is fine. Plus if there is any other program that can capture video (and audio hopefully) into a compressed codec that Final Cut Pro uses, and can give me more options, I would like to know. What I do is capture the video directly to an external hard drive and then plus it into my MacBook Pro.

Thanks

[specwarrior09]

another

horizontal%20lines.jpg

[jagabo]

It's called interlaced video and it's perfectly normal.

Standard definition TV trasmits 60 half pictures a second. Each half picture is called a field. Each field is every other scanline of the screen. First all the even scanlines are sent, then 1/60 of a second later all the odd scanlines are sent. You only see one field at a time on a CRT TV. An alternating sequence of even and odd fields.

When interlaced video is captured by a computer two consecutive fields are woven together into a frame. If nothing moved during the 1/60 of a second between the two fields you get a nice complete "progressive" frame. But if anything moved the frame will have interlace comb lines like you are seeing.

If you are going to make a DVD out of this footage you can just leave it as-is. The DVD player will send the two fields to the TV one at a time, just like they were originally broadcast (in your case, output from the Xbox).

If you are making video to be displayed only on the computer, you may want to deinterlace it. There are many techniques for doing this. None of them is perfect because there's no way to perfectly create a full picture out of two different half pictures. It's also possible to use a player that deinterlaces on-the-fly. Windows Media Player usually does this with DV AVI files -- which is probably what you have been using. Many editing programs will hide the comb artifacts (only showing one field).

You have to be careful when working with interlaced video. You must ensure that each field stays in the appropriate set of scanlines. The images you posted have been resized improperly so parts of the even field have mixed with or moved into the odd field, and vice versa.

Some more information about interlaced video and deinterlacing techniques:

http://www.100fps.com/

[Bjs]

Tell a little more about the setup .

What is xbox360 output set to .
Av cable switched to tv .
What device do the leads from xbox360 go to first .
How , and where are they connected to computer .

Example : https://forum.videohelp.com/topic334002.html

----

The capture device will come next ... not much info on it ... but your a mac os according to pc specs ... which means more work .

According to device , nstc 30fps , 60 fields .

You say avi is fine , but mpeg not ... then stick with avi and convert to mpeg later .

[specwarrior09]

The setup is Xbox 360 set to TV, the composite video goes to the capture card directly. Is there any other program that will do everything for me and I wouldnt have to to a second passthrough?

[Bjs]

Program to do what ?

Capture and remove interlaced artifacts at same time I suppose ...

Well xbox360 should be passed through vcr or tv , which also has a/v outputs , this way you can leave the pc to record and go play it .

As for software side of things in order to remove such problems means using two pass's , one to capture , and one to do all the post filtering to remove such problems , especially if hardware is not capable of handling interlace input and the recording program lack's facilities for such settings beforehand .

Adobe Premiere seems to have options .
Final Cut Pro - http://mac.sofotex.com/download-132881.html (various free filters with explanations)... just might help .
Info - http://www.creativemac.com/2002/09_sep/tutorials/fcpqt8.htm

For pc , there's alway's virtualdub's deinterlace filter's and capture ... but to get full d1 capture without frame's being dropped , might require higher system specs when filters are pre-engaged for capture ... of course , if vdub cant engage the capture device , then its a two step process again .