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  1. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    First I wanted to make mention that the olympic games are all interlace much like all other sport. They are not telecine or any other nonsense.

    I am noticing that this program has image artifacts. But I think it is one of three causes:

    A -- The video could be going through some Time Expansion/Compresison and BLENDS are the result
    B -- The video went under some pre-filtering stage
    C -- combination of both A and B.

    If it is being filtered, there are left over aritifacts that look like ghosting. This was my earlier indicator that the video went through some pre-filtering stage, as might be evidensed in the example pic, below, but if you read on, you might believe otherwise something else.


    * A capture off my analog cable tv

    Now, in the picture above, it seems to indicate "blending" but it is not in every frame, and because of my initial finding of artifacts (before I came to the vague conclusion that there might be time expansion envolved) it was the only pic I had at the time, and I wanted to post something up. But it still serves a purpose here.

    However, one clue has me believing that is could be interlace related, and I am researching this aspect as I write this post. I just wanted to know if there are anyone else (besides me) deinterlacing the games (for computer display, etc) and experiencing the same or similar problems. At least if you are then you can rest breath again and try and work out a solution to the problems.

    There are other example-issues I spotted during the last couple of days with the games. And I am working with testing those as well. And I will try and post a few pics of them when (if) I find them. But I am leaning on the fact that it just might be a time expansion thing, because of the way they have laid out the games across times.

    It is highly probable that this is the product of time expansion. But I have to do some more tests on this because in some of my other videos, the picture did not look blended but partially filtered as left over garbage was found in some pics. I'll have to find those if I can.

    I will report back as soon as I find the cause. I believe I am very close. Just trying a couple more tests and I will come back with my findings.

    Also, I would like to know if anyone is capturing (recording) via their HTDV capture cards. I can't seem to get NBC on mine though -- traffic/congestion must be pretty high these weeks. If anyone is, how well are your deinterlaced results ??

    Thanks,
    -vhelp 4805
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  2. Member edDV's Avatar
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    China is a PAL country. Cameras there are a mix of 25fps and 29.97fps with frame conversion back and forth. What you are seeing is the interpolation resulting from real time frame rate conversion.

    NBC has their own cameras there for the key USA events and their "profile reports" but much of the coverage comes from pooled sources that can be 1080i or 720p or 720x576 or 720x480 in 25fps or 29.97fps (50fps or 59.94fps for 720p/576p/480p).

    The good thing about HD, at least the raster sizes are the same but for US coverage, everything gets converted to 1080i/29.97 by NBC. If the host network was ABC or FOX, we would be getting everything converted to 720p/59.94.
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  3. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    [UPDATE] ...

    Ok. It looks like I found out part of the problem with this program source.

    It seems they have altered the interlace patterns. They are interlacing the video in an unusual way, at least in one that I have not come across in all-interlaced video. Anyway. The *fields* have been reordered. The best way to describe this is like this..

    Given the scene where a person is walking, the person appears to be walking backwards or is it, hesitating:

    --> Field A, the person takes a step backward.
    --> Field B, the person takes a step forward.

    * This can be seen when the video is separated into fields using an AVIsynth script function, SeparateFields()

    And to fix it, you have to de-order the fields. After several test sessions I found correct param usage for the selectevery() function and the following is the AVIsynth script to use:

    --> SelectEvery( 2, 1,0 )

    Once you setup the script above, it will help to clean up the field sequence in these games. And further script processing can be obtained, including deinterlacing. After running the video through this script the results of deinterlacing came out a little bit better.

    Maybe HDTV source will provide *clearer* facts. But as I said, my reception is too week to receive this channel on certain days or whatever. But I will continue to try

    -vhelp 4806
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  4. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by eddv
    The good thing about HD, at least the raster sizes are the same but for US coverage, everything gets converted to 1080i/29.97 by NBC. If the host network was ABC or FOX, we would be getting everything converted to 720p/59.94.
    Yes that is why I am glad the Lions are an NFC team and play on FOX most of the time at 720p instead of 1080i. However I usually leave my hddvr box to autodownconvert to 720p for a smoother transition from hd channel to hd channel.

    @vhelp - I wouldn't know yet since I haven't done recordings for the olympics yet. But as I just mentioned above I configure my hddvr to output 720p instead of 1080i for what to me is a cleaner image on my 1366x768 hdtv via hdmi of course.
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  5. Member edDV's Avatar
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    That sounds like you got a field reversal going on. I haven't seen that here.

    I've got 3 HD Olympics feeds from NBC (local station, USA-HD and Universal-HD) and all have been smooth so far. MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and Oxygen cable NBC networks are each showing downscaled 528x480i which looks pretty good as well. It seems Comcast is giving these channels more bandwidth than usual. I need to test that. NBC is also doing live online feeds using Microsoft Silverlight. These are looking faily good as well.
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  6. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    edDV posted while I was writing.

    Yea, I realize that China is a PAL country and factored that in. But as I said, I never realy came across an all-interlace source that was structured so strangely. This is an all-interlace source and not a telecine. We already know what (and how) they fudge PAL->NTSC sources. I don't claim to know everything, but this was definately new to me with interlace sources. So I figure that it might be partly due to time expansion because of the layout of the schedule and a few other uncertain facts.

    Also, I realize that they are incorporating various footages into the games program. You have Film; PAL; and NTSC; and combination of each. And I know how to (in most cases) discern each and separate them for processing. So, yeah, it does make it harder (and confusing) at times to come up with an definitive cause, when it could be the result of a combination of everything

    Anyway. The video (the sporting events, not the jenournal etc) is all interlace at 29.970 fps and all frames *are* interlace. But it is questionable weather it is either/or/combination of:

    pal->ntsc; time expansion; filtering; etc.

    The issues I am describing are those to do with just the all-interlace videos. Not the Film/PAL aspects. Those were clearly realized. I'm just talking only about the all-interlace videos. Sorry for repeating so many times.

    Oh, did I say also that this captured source video is based of a DV capture that just makes things even more complicated Oh well.. I'm still working things out because one of my projects of the complete games is to deinterlace them for computer display.

    -vhelp 4807
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  7. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    edDV, I think my issues are mainly because I am still on analog cable tv. And as you know, this source medium is *very* noisy. That makes it even harder to work with, plus, that also can confuse some of the apsects that go into PAL->NTSC and other conversion processes, and deinterlacing as well. And when attempting a deinterlace with analog cable sources the results are not as good as if the input source was from a digital medium, like your HDTV or digital satellite/cable, etc. So the results are mostly difficult if not poor in my cases. But I try, and I try harder to get the best results I can with this source medium -- or, until things change with my input video source mediums.

    fwiw, I did try on friday to get NBC on my hdtv card but I didn't put much effort into it. I was mainly concirned with getting my vcr setup for ep recordings and my analog capture card set for occasional capturing while I'm watching, etc. So, I will try again, soon, whether my HDTV reception sitatuion changed for the better or not, to see what results I can get from all this.

    -vhelp 4808
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    Originally Posted by vhelp
    Oh, did I say also that this captured source video is based of a DV capture that just makes things even more complicated Oh well.. I'm still working things out because one of my projects of the complete games is to deinterlace them for computer display.
    It seems you'll need many many cups of coffee

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  9. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by vhelp

    Oh, did I say also that this captured source video is based of a DV capture that just makes things even more complicated Oh well.. I'm still working things out because one of my projects of the complete games is to deinterlace them for computer display.

    -vhelp 4807
    I'm looking at boxing on CNBC at 528x480i on SD MPeg2. It looks like all the fields are advancing motion in the right direction and without judder typical of transcodes. These are either NTSC camers or the transcoder is very good (no ghosting). I capped that from an ADVC-100 from S-Video.
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  10. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    Midzuki, sorry, I don't mean the *WHOLE* games, but just the ones that I have in mind. Sorry for the confusion. I sometimes confuse myself, too.

    Because my source is analog cable and very noisy and the footages I could find that I could use in the detection processes, it has been difficult for me to determine what I had in front of me. However.

    I am comming to a final conclusion that most of the all-interlace video (if not all of them) have been shot on PAL equipment, and then given to the NTSC'ers and they do the PAL-NTSC conversions. The othe videos that are introduced into the games, such as documentaries, personal diaries, etc., are those from their native origin -- PAL or NTSC, and mixed into the complete package we see here.

    Maybe they must use PAL equipment over in China for undisclosed reasons or whatever. I don't know. But so far there doesn't seem to be any reason why at least our footage is ntsc interlace or pal->ntsc interlace. Doesn't make much sense to mix the two when you can use your ntsc cameras while there. The main games videos is what we are watching, as produced by our ntsc cameramen, at least that is what I would believe. But it not, then that doesn't make much sense

    -vhelp 4809
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  11. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    Gosh, I have so many virtualdub windows opened.. testing all these things out plus my experimental deinterlacers and avisynth scripts all thrown at this windows for testing on my XP Home computer. I hope I don't crash because I am running low on my C:\ drive, now down to 272MB left. I know that on my win98 machine, if drop to 1mb my whole system locks up. I hope that doesn't happen here on my XP home because I am at a stage where I can't save everything specifically -- its one of those unique situations where you have a whole lot going on in the spare of moment, and I'm trying to contain everyting in their proper order in my overflowing brain. And right about now, my eyes are popping starting to pop out. So don't beat on me too hard guys.. my plate is full full.

    -vhelp 4810
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  12. I wish that when HD format arrived, it would have dropped interlacing entirely. Why couldn't they just go 1080p 60fps? No doubling of frames. Just pure, 60 individual frames captured each second from the camera. The bandwidth is available today.
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  13. Member edDV's Avatar
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    They just did a boxing breakin on the Universal HD feed and this was showing upscale or transcoding artifacts with sharp vertical motion. I guess the cameras there are either SD NTSC or PAL but they are 16:9.
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  14. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    edDV, its looking more and more likely that everything (actual games) are being shot on PAL equipment. I was just capturing the last swimping with Cullen Jones and it was definately exhibiting pal quality -- ghosting.

    I'm going to be testing more quick captures of various footage. I don't care much for the documentaries or news parts.. just the actual games. But I'm getting more vigalent with my conclusions that these games are in facts shot only on PAL equipment.

    -vhelp 4812
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  15. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by Wile_E
    I wish that when HD format arrived, it would have dropped interlacing entirely. Why couldn't they just go 1080p 60fps? No doubling of frames. Just pure, 60 individual frames captured each second from the camera. The bandwidth is available today.
    1920x1080p/59.94 takes twice the bandwidth of 1920x1080i/29.97. That is why. Less than 10% of the population could tell the difference while 30% and growing want more HD channels over cable or satellite. The more informed want more bitrate. OTA digital conversion reduces available 6MHz channel slots by half. Cellphones and wireless won that war.

    Maybe in another 10 years full 1920x1080p/59.94 will become practical. It will take another generation or two on AVC encoding.
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  16. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by vhelp
    edDV, its looking more and more likely that everything (actual games) are being shot on PAL equipment. I was just capturing the last swimping with Cullen Jones and it was definately exhibiting pal quality -- ghosting.

    I'm going to be testing more quick captures of various footage. I don't care much for the documentaries or news parts.. just the actual games. But I'm getting more vigalent with my conclusions that these games are in facts shot only on PAL equipment.

    -vhelp 4812
    NBC's prime time HD seems to be mostly native 1080i/29.97 where NBC has their own cameras. Most of the world is PAL so minor events are most likely using PAL wide SD or 1080i/25fps. Now that boxing is on Universal HD, it's looking more like upscaled 16:9 SD PAL SDI. Artifacts mostly show with vertical motion or slight diagonals.

    Nothing like boxing to test a deinterlacer.
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  17. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    Unfortunately I still can't get NBC in hd in my living room where my computer is, using a 50' coax cable. Well, that's not totally true. The attic antenna in my bedroom along with my hdtv receiver is receiving a clear uninterupted picture at +/- 45%. Too bad my hd stick can't reach that far, however.

    ..Womens Diving was great!

    now watching girls gymnastics..

    -vhelp 4813
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  18. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    Here's an update regarding deinterlacing technique on the Summer Olympic Games..

    For those using virtualdub, there are two plugin filters available for restoring Film or Progressive videos:
    ** deinterlace - PAL movie, by Gunnar Thalin
    ** PAL Frame Restorer v3.5A2, by Simon Walters

    * Default settings should be suffecient -- they were for my videos.

    I tested both these filter plugins and they produce deceant -to- good restore back to progressive frames. I was pretty impressed even with my noisy analog cable tv sources of the olympic games. Still, because of the pal->ntsc conversions (and my unfamiliarity with them) and my noisy analog cable, there are slight noticable artifacts. I would assume that digital sources like satellite and hdtv sources would produce far greater results with either of these two filters.
    You only have test for yourselves.

    So please do consider these two in your deinterlace endeavors if avisynth is not your forte or preference.

    Never the less, there's also a few PAL plugin filters availble for AVIsynth. I forget their names but I'll see if I can find at least one of them and post the script I will use (test) on it, shortly.

    -vhelp 4814
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  19. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    @ jagabo, yeah I have my mail notifications turned off, so I didn't see your post while I was writing mine. I wish I had faster connection here so I can D/L your sample clip, but i've been online for over 13 hours now and my dialup might brake down from exhaustion. I'll try to when I go to work tomorrow.

    back to my deinterlace saga.. So it does look like we are dealing with pal->ntsc video sources. At least in my analog cable tv captures. I hear that they are presenting them in HD as well, though still under pal->ntsc. At first, the origin of the videos interlace was eluding us, but thanks to good eye-ing and stuyding the timeline I determined that the interlace (fields) were reverse or re-orderd.. whatever the correct terminology use for this is. Anyway. As I was saying.. At least that was what the announcers in-between commercials were selling. Anyway. I got more work fun work to do.

    -vhelp 4815
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  20. I cheated anyway. My clip was captured with a Hauppauge HD PVR (component from the cable box) as 1080i h.264. I bob'd with TDeint() and downsized to 720x480 anamorphic 16x9.

    We've been watching 1080i. Most of it has been fairly good (lots of signal dropouts though) but some of the fast moving logos look really bad. Too bad you've got all the blended field crap.
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  21. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    Yeah, too bad for me. Anyway, my hdtv receiver hooked up to my 13" tv (in my bedroom) is looking damn amazing. The picture strength on the meter is now at 74% so go figure for why my pctv pro stick won't receive it in my living room. Still, I'm dying to see how I fair with deinterlacing the hdtv feed. I must spin my wheels to figure out a way to receive this over my pctv pro stick.

    -vhelp 4816
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  22. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    Ok. wow. I'm even more impressed (with the results I made so far) encoding to an MPEG with this virtualdub plugin. It actually did a very nice job after all. wow. Anyway, the frame look all pregressive and clean and you can't see any artifacts during play. I think I over-exagerated the issue a bit too far. Sometimes you just gotta try it out and then review it. It looks great. I love it. And the best thing of all was that I didn't have to use long and complicating slow routines for this.

    So, preparing the video with the..

    --> SelectEvery( 2, 1,0 )

    ..and following it up (inside vdub) with the pal plugin filter is successful. Course, you could prob just do it all straight through avisynth, too. But since I work mainly in vdub, these two-step (small) routines were worth the effort and work.

    I'm so happy with the results, that tomorrow, I will upload a short 2 minute sample and anyone interested for reviewing or whatever.

    Now, I'm wondering if after working through all these issues if after all, these games are actually being shot progressively. Well, as evidense, (in tomorrow's upload demo, you will see) that these games are in fact shot in progressive. But for now, I'll leave that up to you all to digest and ponder over in your own (obtained) videos and your own set of routines for reviewing and what-nots.

    Until then, I'm so happy!! Go U.S.A. .. and .. The Dream Team !!

    -vhelp 4817
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  23. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    I ran a few tests with an avisynth pal version. Unfortunately, I did not like the overall quality. I had assumed it would do much better than the virtualdub version, but it did not. There were a few too many artifacts and noise though mostly around the edges and the filesize was larger (using CQ) in the finished mpeg. Its possible that it could have been the version I was using though. I don't know. I'm really too tired from all the experimenting and messing around with this captured sources to bother with it right now. And the more I play around with encoding test demos (for tomorrow) I am feeling comfortable with sticking to the vdub routine.

    -vhelp 4818
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  24. Member edDV's Avatar
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    I did a little more research. All of the Olympic events are originating in HD with China's CCTV providing the bulk of the coverage in 25 fps 1080i mostly with 425 Thomson LDK 8000 multi-format HD cameras. So the artifacts we are seeing are due to 25 to 29.97 frame rate conversion. NBC is providing their own suplimental 1080i origination for major events.

    The feeds home are 20Mb/s MPeg4 so two can fit in a fiber 45 Mb/s DS3. That gets converted back to Mpeg2 for broadcast. The story below says NBC has over 100 HD feeds back to the US over AT&T DS3's.

    Related stories:
    http://www.ibeweb.com/ibe-news/olympics-hd-mobile
    http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/industrials/miranda-provide-signal...ing/-320315813
    http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6584303.html
    http://www.nbcolympics.com/newscenter/news/newsid=148556.html
    http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/06/adobe-wins-gold-in-online-olympics/

    LDK 8000 HD camera at boxing event



    The International Broadcast Center managed by Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Co. (BOB) hosts the worlds TV networks and provides the basic event coverage. All programs are distributed as 1080i 50 fields per second. NBC edits in 50i, then converts to 59.97 field per second interlace and then encodes to 20 Mb/s MPeg4 for fiber transmission to the USA. The MPeg4 AVC encoder used is the Tandberg EN8090.

    http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0082/t.14627.html
    http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?id=3078
    http://www.tandbergtv.com/productview.ink?productid=1313
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  25. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    I went out and took a chance on a purchase for an roof antenna amplifer which feeds a 50' cable. Anyway. As it turns out, it paid off. I can now receive the NBC HD in my living room computer.. yeah!!

    I did several recording sessions of the olympics, and although I've mixed feelings, I do have to say that the 1980x1080i does look impressive, though fast motion kills some of that with pixelation even at the 15Mb/s rate.

    Just finished watching mens scyn diving, and now watching womens volley ball.

    From the feed I am receiving, I can easily tell that the games are definately pal->ntsc. Now, for some testing and analizing.

    -vhelp 4819
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  26. Originally Posted by vhelp
    From the feed I am receiving, I can easily tell that the games are definately pal->ntsc.
    Even the NBC HD channels? Those are perfect 1080i (59.94 fields per second) here.
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  27. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by jagabo
    Originally Posted by vhelp
    From the feed I am receiving, I can easily tell that the games are definately pal->ntsc.
    Even the NBC HD channels? Those are perfect 1080i (59.94 fields per second) here.
    They originated 50i by BOB, were edited 50i by NBC, then converted to 60i, then encoded to AVC MPeg4 for undersea fiber then distributed over the networks as MPeg2.

    The one question remaining for me is whether graphics were added at 50i or after 60i conversion. I'm also comparing HD bit rates from the local NBC affiliate, USA HD and Universal HD. The Comcast SD 528x480i down conversions mask most of these issues. To me the SD letterbox looks better than the 4:3. They don't have a consistent SD strategy over CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Bravo, Telemundo and Oxygen. Some are 16:9, others are overscanned 4:3 center crops.
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  28. Member vhelp's Avatar
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    I'm talking about the olympic games. So far, the ones I recorded with my pinnacle pctv pro hd stick, the motion (hand movements, etc) give it away. It may look like all interlace, but its definately a pal->ntsc. More testing and analizing to do. But right now, I'm mainly recording as much of the games as possible so that I have plenty (scene opportunities) to review.

    now recording Michael Phelps.. another world record.. ok, its over, but more games to come..

    -vhelp 4820
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  29. Member edDV's Avatar
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    To understand NBC's need to edit prior to broadcast, watch the online MS Silverlight event feeds that are the raw BOB feeds without commercials or commentary. Each event lasts hours with much dead time.
    http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/index.html
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