Occasional stutters when playing HDV files using VLC from Canon HV30 in 30p

[XperienceD]

Hello everyone,

I have recently captured some HDV recordings that I have made a few years ago with my Canon HV30. Most recordings have been made in 60i-format, but a few were filmed in 30p (I used the corresponding setting in the menu of the cam).

I have a playback issue when using VLC or Macgo Bluray player (both have identical deinterlacing options). When I play 60i-material, I set the deinterlace mode to "Bob" or "2xYadif", and the playback is smooth. For playing back 30p-material, I thought it was logical to turn deinterlacing off due to the progressive format, and in fact there is no frame combing, and the image is very crisp with very little artifacts. However, each time I play back 30p material without having deinterlacing activated, I notice short period of stutters that occur each mintue or so. The periods last only a few seconds, but they recur periodically.

For your information, my screen refresh rate is set to 60Hz. Here is the thing: When I activate deinterlacing, the stutters go away. I would accpept that state if it wasn't for some visible artifacts that appear with deinterlacing especially when there is a slight movement on areas that capture high detail (it looks like there is more digitalization noise). When I played back the m2t files with the Windows Media Player in the past, there was no stuttering, but it was later that I figured out that WMP employed deinterlacing by default.

Does anyone have the same issue and could tell me how to get rid of the stutters when viewing 30p material with deinterlacing set to "Off"? I would be very grateful for your experiences.

[aedipuss]

30p and 30i are encoded the same way on HDV tape. 30p has half of each frame that was recorded at the same time encoded into a 60i stream. a 60i hdv picture has half of each frame recorded at separate times.

[_Al_]

I have HV30 and shoot 30p also (stored in 60i on tape) and since the begging I figured out to make those files true progressive. Before even loading them into videoeditor I load clips into ReStream and changing those 3 flags I make it properly flagged progressive video:

check - Frametype progressive
uncheck - top field first
check - progressive sequence

so you can give it a shot and load that into VLC

[XperienceD]

@Al

OK, so I have downloaded ReStream and followed all the steps that you have outlined. At first it seemed like the stutters became less, but not gone. What helped then was to set my screen refresh rate to exactly 59.94Hz (possible to do it manually via Nvidia settings). I guess that makes sense, since the video frame rate is actually 29.97fps.

Thank you for your advice! BTW, are you still shooting with your HV30 nowadays? There used to be a good forum that was all about these camcorder series (the form was called www.hv20.com, but it seems to be no longer existing. I guess that's due to the age of the cam and the weaker interest in it).

[aedipuss]

i still shoot occasionally with a hv30, it is a workhorse and has never let me down. i always used the same type tape so the heads stay clean and with an external mic even the audio is ok. i use 30p as it mixes well with the video i get from 2 canon dslrs i also use.

[_Al_]

Thank you for your advice! BTW, are you still shooting with your HV30 nowadays? There used to be a good forum that was all about these camcorder series (the form was called www.hv20.com, but it seems to be no longer existing. I guess that's due to the age of the cam and the weaker interest in it).

I still do, that darn thing is not dying, looks solid still as I bought it 2009 That hv20 com was a nice site.