Is there any way to salvage this DVD series?

[franciscola]

Some time ago I bought the English-language version of the 1989 Japanese/Chinese documentary series The Silk Road, only to later find out that the video is the worst I've ever seen on a DVD. It looks like there are two videos one on top of another and they're synchronized a half a frame apart, so instead of motion being frame-by-frame it looks like one half moves in one frame and then the other half in the next. I've attached a sample (the entire 12-part series is like this). Is there any way to salvage this monstrosity or should I just toss it? It's somewhat rare and not cheap but there's no way I can watch it in this sorry state. I can't believe that something so broken was published in the first place.

[Selur]

I doubt this scene can be fixed:

the rest does not seem to have this issue.
Looks like the mixed interlaced content with different resolutions and messed up the interlaced resizing,... (downscaling and blurring helps a bit,..)

[franciscola]

I doubt this scene can be fixed:

the rest does not seem to have this issue.
Looks like the mixed interlaced content with different resolutions and messed up the interlaced resizing,... (downscaling and blurring helps a bit,..)

The main problem becomes a lot more pronounced when the video is deinterlaced. It actually doesn't seem to look that bad if it's just left interlaced, which I didn't realize before and I guess is some progress because it looks a lot more tolerable this way.

[lollo]

The main problem becomes a lot more pronounced when the video is deinterlaced. It actually doesn't seem to look that bad if it's just left interlaced, which I didn't realize before and I guess is some progress because it looks a lot more tolerable this way.

Are you watching the video on a CRT? Because, otherwise, somebody has to deinterlace the fields anyhow, being the player or the software or a post-processing operation.

[franciscola]

[QUOTE=lollo;2788956]

Are you watching the video on a CRT? Because, otherwise, somebody has to deinterlace the fields anyhow, being the player or the software or a post-processing operation.

I'm just opening it in IINA but any video player on my computer gives the same result, whether I turn on deinterlacing within the player itself or deinterlace it myself separately (and I've tried numerous different deinterlacing methods). Seemingly something is going very wrong in the deinterlacing process and how the video responds to it. I've deinterlaced thousands of videos using a multitude of methods and I've never had something look this broken. Just watching the video without deinterlacing it and just putting up with the combing artifacts seems to look 2x better, which again is not something I've experienced before.

[lollo]

Just watching the video without deinterlacing it and just putting up with the combing artifacts seems to look 2x better, which again is not something I've experienced before.

Not deinterlacing is bad (combing effects), but deinterlacing is worse

Try to apply some of the suggestions from Selur.

[jagabo]

Seemingly something is going very wrong in the deinterlacing

There's nothing wrong with the deinterlacing. The problems is the in the source. Someone has badly messed up. It looks like a field blended frame rate conversion along with a very strong temporal noise reducer. There's no good fix for that.

[pchan]

Alternatively, there another version on youtube but with Korean subs.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLILRQ_uVCaoOtZ6Q6egVvUyEMhbN7OG9y

Or buy a used set from ebay The Silk Road (NHK production, Kitaro music).

[franciscola]

Alternatively, there another version on youtube but with Korean subs.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLILRQ_uVCaoOtZ6Q6egVvUyEMhbN7OG9y

Or buy a used set from ebay The Silk Road (NHK production, Kitaro music).

I've seen the Korean version and it's not much better than this US release (from Central Park Media iirc). I'm most likely just going to keep the English audio and order the remastered version from Japan (no English on that release), but I'm trying to make sure that the audio will fit without too much editing. The reason I posted this thread actually was because I was about to order the Japanese version though Buyee and wanted to make sure that what I had wasn't salvageable before spending close to a hundred bucks for that and the shipping.

[pchan]

This seems to be the original DVD box set.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/396914564312?_skw=The+Silk+Road+NHK&itmmeta=01KD7JRX1345YZJAE...Bk9SR9LR4_LpZg

[franciscola]

This seems to be the original DVD box set.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/396914564312?_skw=The+Silk+Road+NHK&itmmeta=01KD7JRX1345YZJAE...Bk9SR9LR4_LpZg

Yeah that's the exact broken set I have and posted this thread about, so if anyone comes across this thread when searching for more information about this set, stay away. This is the good set that I plan on getting to replace this monstrosity: https://www.ebay.com/itm/386753220495