laserdisc to DVD conversion?

[gman1339]

I am yet another person trying to convert THE trilogy from laserdisc to DVD.

I captured the source as 20 some NTSC 29.97 FPS AVI files split at 1.9 GB by VirtualDub with a resolution of 352x480.

The movie is telecined.

I am running the adaptive IVTC built into VirtualDub and frameserving to TMPGEnc.

Does anyone have a guide on how this should be handled? I think I have tried every combination I can think of. The jerky motion on slow pans is driving me nuts. The AVI looks great so I know the problem is going from the AVI to the mpg.

By running the IVTC filter in VD when frameserving to TMPGenc I would assume that the input to TMPGenc would be film. I am not changing the framerate in VD, just applying the adapdive IVTC.

Can anyone tell me the proper TMPGenc settings for getting this telecined NTSC 29.97 FPS source through TMPGenc and out as a smooth panning NTSC compatible mpg?

[RWANDREWS]

I don't really have any answers to your questions, but I have an additional one for you. I have converted dozens of LD's to DVD & have ALWAYS used 720x480(?) resolution because of the greater resolution available on LD sources. Why are you doing this at 352x480 ? Aren't you giving up valuable source info ?

Understand please, that I am not criticizing your methods, I just want to understand the rationale for my own knowledge. I also am interested in converting THE trilogy, which version do you like best, as there are several ?

[gman1339]

Laserdisc resolution is not as great as everyone thinks (at least when compared to DVD). I think these laserdiscs are 528x480 since they were produced prior to 1990. I'm not losing much by capturing at 352x480 and it produces significantly smaller files. Plus my capture card (Pinnacle PCTV) can't handle the full 720 DVD resolution without creating "tears" in the captured file. I am converting the Definitive Collection with the corrected discs (gotta have that Leia welding footage). All I can say is...

Han shoots first.

[Jukka]

Why are you inverse telecine-ing, I thought you could make DVDs that were 29.97fps (I have anyway)?

[gman1339]

Transferring the captured 29.97 telecined video directly to a 29.97 mpg without running an adaptive IVTC filter on it will create a horrible mess. It's the only way I have found to get "clean" video from merging multiple laserdisc sides into 1 video. Since I am capturing laserdisc I have to deal with side changes and merging these side changes (in most all cases) will result in field order mismatches, thus resulting in some horrible combing effects with motion on the screen.

[learner1]

Well, I just captured mine through my digital camcorder into DV
and transferred the DV to AVI on my computer using Firewire
connection. The whole thing went without any problem. The
multiple AVIs were then put together as one video using Premiere.
The whole thing did not really take that long. The most painful part
was to re-create all the chapter points in DVD-Lab (about 40 some
chapter points for each epistle.

[gman1339]

I have no DV camera, firewire port, or Premiere. All I can say is that with my analog capture with the Pinnacle PCTV card is that if I don't IVTC then the result looks bad when played back on the TV. I'm sure that Premier is doing some extra things that I may not be accounting for by frameserving from VirtualDub to TMPGEnc.

[andkiich]

I've never gone thought telecining anything from my LD collection. I've always captured 720x480 uncompressed AVI, encoded with TMPGENC, merged and authored with DVD-Lab.

I did THE trilogy last year and they look identical to the LD. I've also done a bunch of anime that I have. I just don't understand why you have to go through all those hoops. Strange.

[Bob W]

I just run the laser disc output to my Panisonic E50 recorder and the finished DVD looks fantastic every time. You could consider buying a DVD recorder and CompUSA has the LiteON DVD+RW recorder on-sale for a mere $250.

[Perro Grande]

I, too, have converted various LD's to DVD. I have not had to deal with Telecine issues. However, I *have* had to clean up such things when transferring some old tapes (VHS) to DVD.

You are doing one step that I generally do not do -- that is the VirtualDub portion.

I generally capture to raw AVI, then use TMPG to produce the mpeg file. If necessary, I let TMPG do the IVTC operation. This is nice because I can have it render a portion of the file that I know is problematic (bad pan, combing, etc) and check the results quickly.

Once I have clean settings from TMPG, I let it do its thing and then author the DVD.

[gman1339]

I am using VirtualDub for the fact that I can use it to trim out areas of side changes from the capture and maintain the dolby pro-logic soundtrack by exporting a wav and converting it to an ac-3 file in besweet. If I use TMPGEnc for my audio I will lose the pro-logic info and it gets converted down to stereo.

[FulciLives]

I am using VirtualDub for the fact that I can use it to trim out areas of side changes from the capture and maintain the dolby pro-logic soundtrack by exporting a wav and converting it to an ac-3 file in besweet. If I use TMPGEnc for my audio I will lose the pro-logic info and it gets converted down to stereo.

Can't you use LPCM audio in TMPGEnc which is 16-bit 48k Stereo audio. That should keep the pro-logic shouldn't it? Then you can convert it to AC-3 if you like.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
You can join all your clips in an AviSynth script and even load it into VirtualDubMod to edit then import the edits into the AviSynth script then you can bypass VirtualDubMod and just load your AviSynth script directly into your encoder be it TMPGEnc or CCE or MainConcepts etc.

[Perro Grande]

Ya know -- I've been pondering your question for a couple of days...

Are you SURE you need to run IVTC? If your end goal is to watch your DVD on an NTSC television, it is going to get re-interlaced again, anyway. You'll only notice the combing effect when you watch if on a purely progressive device, like a computer monitor.

If you're going to make a DivX of it, then perhaps de-interlace and/or IVTC is in order.

I was, incidentally, able to replicate exactly what you are experiencing. I used my Canopus to capture a motion clip from The Godfather on LD. Sure enough -- when I converted to MPEG using TMPG (or Pinnacle, for that matter) it looked terrible. Predictably, using IVTC removed the comb, but created jerky motion in places. The uncompressed AVI looked flawless.

Interestingly, I allowed DVD-IT to render the AVI to MPEG and the appropriate VOB files, which looked flawless on both the monitor and the TV... Honestly, sometimes this rate conversion and telecine stuff leaves me holding my head in my hands! lol

[dwisniski]

Since we're talking about THE trilogy, have you checked out the "Star Wars Conversions, hit me with your best shot." topic at all? It is a wealth of information concerning this topic!

I recently converted the trilogy from the original widescreen laserdiscs (sorry, didn't have 200$ to shell out on ebay for the definative's), captured at 640x480 using Virtualdub. I then frameserved to TMPGEnc, anamorphically resized the video ( I have a widescreen TV), used the automatic IVTC feature AND deinterlaced using the double(adaptation) feature, (had to, IVTC didn't take care of all the interlacing? go figure.) I encoded at full DVD resolution, (23 fps with the internally 29 fps 3:2 pulldown option) and converted the audio to ac3 from the.wav file using Besweet.

I authored with DVD Maestro and the results were quite good. I used the subtitle editor in Virtualdub to replace the alien subtitles, since I lost them in the resize.

[lordsmurf]

If bitrate is available to prevent macroblock errors, then shoot for 720x480 if you can.

[gman1339]

In reply to Perro Grande...

Yes,

I have to run IVTC on the capture. It's the only way to remove the combing caused by half frame mismatches that I was getting in the 29.97 fps capture. As long as the source is 24 fps "film" like THE trilogy it shouldn't be a problem. Just don't IVTC something that is not a progressive film source.

I have read the "hit me with your best shot" thread to death. Nothing there really gave me all the answers for my situation.

dwisniski,

The IVTC in TMPGEnc is not adaptive. It works good until field orders get reversed. This was happening to me on the LD side changes. My field order would get swapped and the TMPGEnc IVTC would be hosed. That's why I opted for using the Adaptive IVTC filter in VirtualDub.