Converting DV to H.264 and comparing interlaced/de-interlaced

[amirh1]

Hi,
I'm trying to find the best way to archive my DV videos and convert them into manageable size.

My original interlaced video plays really well on my Windows 7 media player - it's automatically de-interlaced and plays full resolution and looks really smooth. However, when I convert to H.264 with SUPER, the video plays with the noticeable field difference. SUPER automatically de-interlaces (I think) but I actually want to keep the interlace because it comes out much much smoother when I play it (I've attached links to screenshots below).

Anyway, I'd like to do one of two things:

• Either convert to H.264 and keep interlaced so playback is as smooth as original DV, or
• find something that de-interlaces as smooth as the playback of the original DV video appears to be.

Help on accomplishing either of these is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!!!

The DV capture:
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/720/vidtestdvint.jpg

The H.264 capture:
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/352/vidtesth264int.jpg

DV video MediaInfo output:
General
Complete name : C:\temp\Tape16 22.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 197 MiB
Duration : 54s 482ms
Overall bit rate : 30.4 Mbps
Recorded date : 2003-10-18 15:46:45
Writing library : Tdattc_O

Video
ID : 0
Format : Digital Video
Codec ID : dvsd
Codec ID/Hint : Sony
Duration : 54s 480ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 24.4 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 5:4
Original display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Interlaced
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.357
Stream size : 187 MiB (95%)
Encoding settings : ae mode=full automatic / wb mode=automatic / white balance= / fcm=manual focus

Audio
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Unsigned
Codec ID : 1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 54s 482ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 9.98 MiB (5%)
Interleave, duration : 991 ms (24.76 video frames)

H.264 video MediaInfo output:
General
Complete name : C:\Users\amir\Videos\DV\Tape16 22 - SUPER 32000 deint.AVI
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 21.6 MiB
Duration : 54s 396ms
Overall bit rate : 3 332 Kbps
Director : created.with.SUPER(C).v2010.bld.37
Writing application : SUPER(C) - by eRightSoft

Video
ID : 0
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L1.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Codec ID : AVC1
Duration : 54s 120ms
Bit rate : 3 242 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 5:4
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Resolution : 8 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.313
Stream size : 20.9 MiB (97%)
Writing library : SUPER(C) by eRightSoft

Audio
ID : 1
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 3
Codec ID : 55
Codec ID/Hint : MP3
Duration : 54s 396ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 96.0 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 32.0 KHz
Stream size : 637 KiB (3%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 36 ms (0.90 video frame)
Interleave, preload duration : 504 ms

[poisondeathray]

1) "archive" implies original quality, so I would keep the originals for future projects. Any re-encoding / lossy compression will cause quality loss. And you want to keep it interlaced for projects such as making DVD. Deinterlacing will irreversibly damage it.

HDD's are very affordable these days. You can get 2TB HDD for ~$130-140 CDN

2) super is probably single rate deinterlacing to 25p; you could use other programs to "bob" deinterlace or convert to 50p (since 50i is 50 FIELDS per second), and keep the smoothness/temporal resolution. avisynth offers multiple high quality deinterlacers (better than the ones you get with realtime playback) , but it can be a bit difficult to learn at first

[amirh1]

2) super is probably single rate deinterlacing to 25p; you could use other programs to "bob" deinterlace or convert to 50p (since 50i is 50 FIELDS per second), and keep the smoothness/temporal resolution. avisynth offers multiple high quality deinterlacers (better than the ones you get with realtime playback) , but it can be a bit difficult to learn at first

Thanks for the reply! Sorry for my late one, I've been trying avisynth for the past couple of days w/o much luck. Can you maybe point me to a newbie tutorial on how exactly do I use it? I've downloaded a de-interlacer plugin but I don't know how to automatically create scripts and run them on a group of files (I have 100's of files, can't go through manually de-interlacing them).

[creamyhorror]

To effectively use Avisynth you should get AvsPmod, which shows you the output of your script, frame by frame.

Anyway, to deinterlace with decent quality, get the Yadifmod and NNEDI2 packages, install them, then use one of these scripts (taken from an old post by PDR):

single rate (final output 25fps):

AVISource("video.avi")
interp=NNEDI2(field=0)
Yadifmod(order=0, field=-1, mode=0, edeint=interp)

double rate (final output 50fps and a lot bigger filesize-wise):

AVISource("video.avi")
interp=NNEDI2(field=2)
Yadifmod(order=0, field=-1, mode=1, edeint=interp)

Create a text file with the extension .AVS and paste the script you want into it, save it, and use that AVS file as an input to a good encoding program (not SUPER) that takes AVS as input. Try StaxRip, I think it does.

If you get AvsPmod, you can open the AVS file and see how the deinterlaced frames look.

[amirh1]

Thanks creamyhorror! Those filter settings work great and provide output that's actually even better than Windows Media Player (at least the few clips that I've tested).

I'm actually using VirtualDub for the encoding, and found Avisynth Batch Scripter (very simple program) to auto-generate the hundreds of scripts I need.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the DV tapes to preserve them for the next 10-20 years...

Thanks again!!

[VTCop]

Hi! Im having the same problem. Im converting my too much big DV tapes into MKV H264/AVC with SUPER, but Im having this problem. The result video have a lot of horizontal lines (¿interlaced? ¿deinterlaced?)

There is some way to avoid this with SUPER (not with AVsynth please)?
I could import the video from the tape in two formats, DV Type I and DV Type II. Would some of these types solve this problem with super?

Its MKV H264/AVC the best codec to save my home tapes? Would you recomend other codec?

I will preserve my tapes also, the files are to have it more accesible.

PD: In SUPER, when I use other formats different from MKV, there is in OTHER OPTIONS, one that says: Deinterlaced to progressive... etc, but these options are disabled when use MKV, Could this be the solution?

Thanks