Interlacing Problems Ripping Futruama NTSC DVDs

[Geardan]

Bear with me, as I am pretty much a total newbie to video stuff. I'm ripping Futurama from NTSC DVDs I bought forever ago using Handbreak (the only software I know much about atm). I've done a bunch of reading but am probably still making some mistakes. Basically, I set "Detelecine" to Default and Constant Framerate to 23.976 to get rid of telecine issues.

I tried a number of settings for Deinterlace, but kept getting interlaced lines in the video output. I eventually found smart people recommend leaving interlacing in the video for this kind of source, so using H.264 I added ":tff" to Handbrake's "Extra Options". After messing that up a few times, I finally got it so MediaInfo now reports "interlaced=tff" on the output video.

The problem is that now I'm seeing some weird color-interlacing in VLC (as you can see in the included png; there is a red smear where Fry's tongue will be in the next frame), especially in the earlier Futurama episodes (which are apparently kind of famous for being kind of crappy DVDs).


[Attachment 48370 - Click to enlarge]

Questions:
1) Did I do the right thing to undo the telecine used on this DVD?
2) What, if anything, can I do to fix the color-smearing? Keep in mind, I barely know what I'm doing w/ video encoding, so try to dumb it down a little if possible.
2) How can I tell if the DVD is tff or bff interlaced? I'm pretty sure this source is tff, but I'd like to know how to find out for sure.

Thank you!

[manono]

1) Did I do the right thing to undo the telecine used on this DVD?

To handle any difficult sources needing IVTC, use AviSynth.

2) What, if anything, can I do to fix the color-smearing?

Interlaced chroma can also be handled in AviSynth. But, if I remember correctly, these Futurama DVDs are very difficult to work on.

2) How can I tell if the DVD is tff or bff interlaced?

Put on AssumeTFF followed by a bobber. Then advance a frame at a time. If it advances smoothly, it's really TFF. If it advances in a herky-jerky forward/backward manner, it's really BFF.

Leave your DVDs alone unless you want to let yourself in for a world of grief.

[SaurusX]

Leave your DVDs alone unless you want to let yourself in for a world of grief.

Agreed, this project just isn't worth the hassle. Futurama and early Family Guy and The Simpsons seasons are asked about constantly. In short: the DVD's suck.

[Geardan]

Ok, I was just curious if there was something easy/obvious that I was doing wrong due to my inexperience. I'll check out Avisynth, but it's a little overwhelming at first glance. Now that I've got the interlacing figured out (even if it's not perfect) I think the quality is good enough for my purposes. It's probably not worth digging into crazy IVTC routines.

Thanks for the advice!

[LMotlow]

Bear with me, as I am pretty much a total newbie to video stuff. I'm ripping Futurama from NTSC DVDs I bought forever ago using Handbreak

We could tell that right away because you don't know what ripping is, and ripping isn't what you're doing.

Where do people see terms like "ripping" used for anything and everything in video?

[jagabo]

Where do people see terms like "ripping" used for anything and everything in video?

Everywhere.

[Geardan]

We could tell that right away because you don't know what ripping is, and ripping isn't what you're doing.

I don't really follow. I thought ripping was just the process taking digital content from an optical medium like a CD or DVD and putting it on a hard drive, usually (in my case) encoding it so that the resulting file is smaller. I've called it that since I started ripping my physical CDs to mp3s in the 90s. I guess I don't know what else you might call that.

If I'm wrong, I'll probably keep using it that way anyhow because I'm old, and the distinction in this context seems entirely academic.

[davexnet]

We could tell that right away because you don't know what ripping is, and ripping isn't what you're doing.

I don't really follow. I thought ripping was just the process taking digital content from an optical medium like a CD or DVD and putting it on a hard drive, usually (in my case) encoding it so that the resulting file is smaller. I've called it that since I started ripping my physical CDs to mp3s in the 90s. I guess I don't know what else you might call that.

If I'm wrong, I'll probably keep using it that way anyhow because I'm old, and the distinction in this context seems entirely academic.

I would say that the site regulars know that when the term is used by a poster incorrectly in their (our?) minds
we also know what the poster really means and is trying to describe. I've been a little pedantic myself in the past,
but have since realized it's not helpful, sometimes it's better by way of a carefully crafted reponse to draw a disticntion that way.
Just my 2 cents

[manono]

I would say that the site regulars know that when the term is used by a poster incorrectly in their (our?) minds
we also know what the poster really means and is trying to describe. I've been a little pedantic myself in the past,
but have since realized it's not helpful, sometimes it's better by way of a carefully crafted reponse to draw a disticntion that way.
Just my 2 cents

Well put.

I thought ripping was just the process taking digital content from an optical medium like a CD or DVD and putting it on a hard drive...

That's what ripping is. The rest might be converting or reencoding or something else.