Interlacing problem with back-up of a dvd

[bgart13]

Hi, so here's the situation...

I purchased a dvd from France, El Mundo de los Vampiros (or, Le Monde Des Vampires), it's PAL, R2, no English options on the manufactured dvd. Following the instructions here on Videohelp, I have created a back-up with English subtitles I created myself, but there's a problem now. I've been trying a few different programs here and there, and have been dealing with various issues with the subs and image (green subs, no subs, etc.). The first versions I've been working with ended up leading to strong ghosting of the image (I can live with that, but am a bit of a perfectionist at times, so I've been trying to solve this problem). In the last day or so, I managed to get everything with the subs just right, perfect in fact, and now I've run into another problem with the picture. I originally was able to get rid of the ghosting, but now I've got an interlacing problem. See the following image for an example (funny, but the image I'm posting looks much worse in its original capture on my PC):



Here's the software I've used:

Dvd Shrink => importing the dvd
Avi2dvd => demuxing, remuxing, adding subs, etc.
Nero Burn => burning to dvd+rw

I'm on a PC, using Windows XP.

So, what can I do to get rid of this problem? I tried clicking on the "deinterlace" box in Avi2Dvd just now, as I was going to re-do it all again, but I was unable -- Avi2dvd would not let the box be clicked. What's going to be the best way to "fix" this, if possible? Convert to avi first, then go through this? I'd prefer not to, as I would lose some quality in all the converting, etc. (at least, it would seem that way to me).

As an added FYI for possibly helpful info, I want to keep this in PAL format, regardless of me being in the US. When I used Avi2Dvd, I did not set it to convert to NTSC. Left it "as is", so to speak.

Hope that's enough info to get started on helping me out.

Thanks way in advance!

Ben

[poisondeathray]

Hi there, I would start from scratch and insert your custom subtitles into your backup DVD in a way to avoid re-encoding (and quality loss).

Any attempt to salvage what you have now will have gone through too many lossy conversions, and it looks like even the original source was not optimal (an older film)

There are many guides on how to do this, if you search, but Baldrick authored one here as well:
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic338721.html

Finally, many times a DVD will look interlaced on PC, but will look fine on your standalone DVD player. But if you've gone through the intermediate step of hardcoding subs (without fixing the interlacing) the end result will look interlaced on both PC and standalone playback on TV.

[bgart13]

Thanks for some feedback. I actually first tested it on my dvd player & tv and the interlacing nearly made me nauseous and dizzy...heh heh. While not up to the standards of today's modern films, the transfer and quality of the dvd is actually very good, considering the source, etc. (a US company, CasaNegra, was set to release the film here, but for now the company appears to have folded before this release could get out...their other Mexican horror film releases are stupendous and come highly recommended!!!).

Also, the subs aren't hardcoded, but optional (can be turned off, in case I one day learn Spanish and want to listen only to the dialogue...yeah, right...). I am familiar with Baldrick's guide, very helpful and appreciated!

So, then, is there any freeware, then, that I can process the original dvd files with that will deinterlace them, while demuxing, etc. (along the lines of what Avi2dvd does)? As stated originally, I used Avi2dvd and everything worked fine -- but the interlaced results, and Avi2dvd will not let me choose to deinterlace original dvd files, apparently.

Thanks, though.

[Soopafresh]

Post 10 seconds of unprocessed clip.

[manono]

So, then, is there any freeware, then, that I can process the original dvd files with that will deinterlace them, while demuxing,

Nothing will filter (meaning deinterlace or anything else) while demuxing. Deinterlacing will mean a complete reencode, something to be avoided if possible, if all you really want to do is to add in subtitles. As near as I can tell, everything you've done up to now has been completely wrong. If you already knew of the guide to which poisondeathray pointed you, why didn't you follow it?

Anyway, to be able to give any advice about your source files and if there's really anything wrong with them, as Soopafresh says we'll need a 10 second piece of the source videos, a piece with motion. If you don't know how to prepare a small sample, one way is to open a VOB in DGIndex, use the [ and ] buttons to isolate a small section, and then File->Save Project and Demux Video. Upload the resulting M2V to Mediafire or some such place and give us the link.

http://www.mediafire.com/

[bgart13]

Ok, well...what about some sort of processing before adding subs or demuxing, or whatever? Take the dvd files, do what needs doing, then add the subs?

And, I did actually try to follow that guide, to the letter in fact, and had many issues with the subtitles. Tried it a few times, and things were not optimal. The subs wouldn't work, or the subs would be all green and unreadable, and the subs even turned out white with bright neon green outlines (one time turned out white with purple outlines!). Weird and frustrating. That's why I ended up giving Avi2dvd a shot, in adding the subs -- which worked the best so far (subtitle-wise), but then left a lot of interlacing artifacts.

I'll see what I can do about uploading a clip.

[bgart13]

Ok, worked really well! Thanks, monono. Here's the link for some video:

http://www.mediafire.com/?gygzf1anvmg

[manono]

Thanks for the sample. Well, even the source is garbage. It's a PAL DVD that used the NTSC 24fps source and field blended it to convert it to PAL 25fps. So your DVD is both interlaced and field blended. Deinterlacing the source will make it progressive and frame blended. That's probably worse.

Ordinarily when doing a film to PAL conversion, the video is speeded up from 24 to 25fps and it remains progressive. This was done using a cheap and shoddy standards conversion box. It can be unblended if you understand some AviSynth, which is the only way to do it correctly. I had my best luck using Restore24, which unblended it nicely and returned it to 24fps. After that you can use DGPulldown set for 24->25fps to make it output the PAL required 25fps.

Since I don't guess you know any AviSynth, then I'd suggest leaving it alone and following the 2nd method as outlined in the Baldrick guide linked by poisondeathray earlier. It's easy to fix wrong subtitle colors using either PGCEdit or DVDSubEdit. Here's a guide to using DVDSubEdit for the job:

http://download.videohelp.com/DVDSubEdit/Guides/ChangingColors/Guide.htm

But after replacing the Muxman authored DVD back into the original DVD which has the menus (the VobBlanker step), you should have the same subtitle colors as you did originally (if there were any subs at all). You may have to "turn on" the subs to view them, and Baldrick links to a post I made about how to do just that. Good luck.

[bgart13]

Well, it may not be the source. I think I actually posted from the version I added subs to (which, again, had the best sub turnout, but then the interlacing or whatever popped up significantly).

The more I think about it, I might just do a HQ avi file and add the subs. This dvd was meant to fill a gap til a proper NTSC dvd came along. It was also a way for me to get used to using a bunch of different A/V tools on my PC. I'm sure the concept of turning this into an avi bothers some, but this doesn't need to be factory perfect -- I'm more interested in having a watchable version of the film.

But, I'll take more suggestions still.

Thanks
Ben

[bgart13]

Nothing? No more comments or suggestions?

[edDV]

Nothing? No more comments or suggestions?

I'm just reading all this for understanding but I have to ask why not keep it PAL and just replace the subs?

[bgart13]

That is essentially what I'm trying to do! Haha, perhaps that got lost in the post somewhere, and by me.

(my trick comes from something I found elsewhere...you see, I have a regular NTSC Sony dvd player. Can't hack it (I've looked and tried, trust me). But what I found is that PAL dvds can in fact be played on it, but I have to make a back-up dvd+r of it. Trick is to go into the IFOs, and switch the file info to NTSC from PAL. It doesn't change anything in the movies themselves, but "fools" the Sony dvd player into playing it without any problems. Except in this case, when WORLD OF VAMPIRES becomes severely broken up/deinterlaced).

[manono]

I already told you the only good way to do the job. You can do something similar to convert it to true NTSC (unblend followed by DGPulldown). Just changing the IFOs is a stupid little hack that doesn't work some of the time, and even when it does work often causes the DVD to play with jerkiness and/or other problems and in no way produces a true NTSC DVD. And it can't work with interlaced DVDs such as yours. If you insist, go ahead and deinterlace it, make a new progressive PAL DVD, and then use the IFO patch method. But it'll look like crap.

If you like this film and want it to play in your player, it's time to learn some AviSynth. Or save yourself a lot of trouble and buy yourself a cheap player that can play PAL DVDs natively.

[bgart13]

Actually, I've had wonderful experiences so far with this "stupid little hack." The dvds I've tried this with have turned out pefect, without any jerkiness, etc -- which I was concerned about before trying it. That's why I've started doing it more often, and am happy so far with it. Ultimately, I do plan on picking up a universal dvd player, perhaps an Oppo which come highly recommended by some friends of mine. Better way to save on time and money too, in the tooling around with making back-ups. By no means did I imply its perfect, but it is useful for my current situation.

But, thanks for pointing me in the direction of AviSynth. I will look into it some more.

[jman98]

Actually, I've had wonderful experiences so far with this "stupid little hack." The dvds I've tried this with have turned out pefect, without any jerkiness, etc -- which I was concerned about before trying it. That's why I've started doing it more often, and am happy so far with it. Ultimately, I do plan on picking up a universal dvd player, perhaps an Oppo which come highly recommended by some friends of mine. Better way to save on time and money too, in the tooling around with making back-ups. By no means did I imply its perfect, but it is useful for my current situation.

This post reminds me of posts I've seen elsewhere that go something like this...
"I've used Nero for a long time to do ______ and it has always worked perfectly, but now I am getting ________ (insert horrible problem due to Nero) ..."

Then when we tell them that Nero IS the problem and tell them what other program they should be using to avoid the problem, they get mad and stop listening. I'd politely suggest that you might listen to people when they tell you that your little hack is not a good way to go, but if your mind is already closed and you cannot be persuaded otherwise, I see little point in trying to convince a person who is not listening that what he is doing isn't a good idea.

[bgart13]

Actually, my mind isn't closed off to finding a "better" way to do this. That's why I posted for help here. Monono stated that this hack was stupid, etc., and I felt I needed to explain why I was ok with it -- a response to his comment is all. I know it's not perfect, but it works well for my purposes and doesn't take but a few minutes to do this.

I also stated that I will be looking into AviSynth. It seems you're projecting a bit. I'm not mad at all. If I posted here for help, I'm clearly not closed off to new suggestions. Videohelp has been a great help to me so far, and I will continue to look for help here.

[Soopafresh]

As Manono mentioned, there is blending, which makes restoration a PITA