NTSC FILM 23.976 help

[kwdl23323]

while trying to encode avi files 23.976 format to dvd compiant mpegs the end results are a slightly jerky picture . any ideas please

[LeeBear]

23.976 is not a compliant DVD frame rate. You must use pulldown to make your 23.976 film rate to a compliant 29.97 video rate.

-LeeBear

[CyeN]

23.976 is not a compliant DVD frame rate. You must use pulldown to make your 23.976 film rate to a compliant 29.97 video rate.

-LeeBear

I dont agree with leebear. 23.976 is an official framerate its called NTSC Film.

Which Encoder are you using?

If its TMPGENC. Try this:

Go to environmental setting and VFAPI plugin.

Move avi2(opendml) to the top (its 3 in mine)
and move Directshow to 0.

It worked for me.

All my 23.976 movies were jerky as hell until i did that.
Either way let us know if it worked for you.

[Xesdeeni]

I thought LeeBear was mistaken as well, but take a look at the DVD FAQ, question 3.4 (http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.4):

MPEG-2 progressive_sequence is not allowed, but interlaced sequences can contain progressive pictures and progressive macroblocks. In the case of 24 fps source, the encoder embeds MPEG-2 repeat_first_field flags into the video stream to make the decoder either perform 2-3 pulldown for 60Hz (59.94) displays or 2-2 pulldown (with resulting 4% speedup) for 50Hz displays.

So you can encode it progressively, but for DVD to recognize it, you have to put a "repeat_first_field" flag onto every other frame so that the resulting frame rate is actually 29.97. This may actually be semantics, but it seems to be required for the DVD player to play back the video correctly.

Which begs one more question: If my camcorder can capture 30 progressive frames per second (it can), and I encode the video as progressive (which will encode better than interlaced), how do I modify this stream so that a DVD player will be happy with it?

Xesdeeni

[kwdl23323]

thanx all for your answers , just got in from work going to try them now , i will let you know

[kinneera]

Which begs one more question: If my camcorder can capture 30 progressive frames per second (it can), and I encode the video as progressive (which will encode better than interlaced), how do I modify this stream so that a DVD player will be happy with it?

Encode progressive and do not apply the pulldown flag. Since the framerate will be compliant, it should be perfectly happy to play a fully progressive stream.

[kwdl23323]

23.976 is not a compliant DVD frame rate. You must use pulldown to make your 23.976 film rate to a compliant 29.97 video rate.

-LeeBear

I dont agree with leebear. 23.976 is an official framerate its called NTSC Film.

Which Encoder are you using?

If its TMPGENC. Try this:

Go to environmental setting and VFAPI plugin.

Move avi2(opendml) to the top (its 3 in mine)
and move Directshow to 0.

It worked for me.

All my 23.976 movies were jerky as hell until i did that.
Either way let us know if it worked for you.

tried that but still no luck .......so frustrating

[kwdl23323]

I thought LeeBear was mistaken as well, but take a look at the DVD FAQ, question 3.4 (http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.4):

MPEG-2 progressive_sequence is not allowed, but interlaced sequences can contain progressive pictures and progressive macroblocks. In the case of 24 fps source, the encoder embeds MPEG-2 repeat_first_field flags into the video stream to make the decoder either perform 2-3 pulldown for 60Hz (59.94) displays or 2-2 pulldown (with resulting 4% speedup) for 50Hz displays.

So you can encode it progressively, but for DVD to recognize it, you have to put a "repeat_first_field" flag onto every other frame so that the resulting frame rate is actually 29.97. This may actually be semantics, but it seems to be required for the DVD player to play back the video correctly.

Which begs one more question: If my camcorder can capture 30 progressive frames per second (it can), and I encode the video as progressive (which will encode better than interlaced), how do I modify this stream so that a DVD player will be happy with it?

Xesdeeni

how do i put a repeat first field flag in

[LeeBear]

That's what I've been saying all along To get your 23.976 to 29.97 goto the Tools section on the side and look for a program called suprise surprise "pulldown.exe"

-LeeBear

[CyeN]

kwdl23323, are you saying your encoded mpgs are jerky all the time, or are they jerky on your DVD player but not on your PC?

What are you using to encode them and play them with?

[kwdl23323]

the mpeg2 is jerky on the pc aswell as the dvd

[vince]

If your source is 23.976fps, just use ntscfilm template. you won't have any problem. I have done it many times. If you still have problem, it could be something wrong with your dvd player or your bitrate may be too high (low).

[kwdl23323]

If your source is 23.976fps, just use ntscfilm template. you won't have any problem. I have done it many times. If you still have problem, it could be something wrong with your dvd player or your bitrate may be too high (low).

there is no ntsc film tmplate in tmpegenc for dvd mpeg2 encoding and ive already said the mpeg 2 is jerky aswell as in the dvd player so it isnt the dvd player

[Bel]

Select 3:2 pulldown, and also check inverse telecine. Other then that, don't know what to tell ya, should be working.

[LeeBear]

kwdl23323: The reason there isn't a NTSC film template for DVD MPEG2 is like I have said before 23.976 fps isn't a valid DVD framerate. This is what you should do to get rid of your jerky playback.

This is assuming your source is a 23.976 fps film:
1) Load the "NTSC DVD MPEG2) template
2) Load the "unlock" template so you can change the settings
3) Go into the video tab and change "Framerate" to "23.976"
4) encode to get an MPEG2 file with a 23.976 framerate
5) download the program "pulldown.exe" from the tools section
6) run the program, it adds the RFF/TFF flags into the MPEG2 file to make it a 29.97 fps stream... a valid DVD compliant framerate.
7) your video should not be jerky anymore

-LeeBear

P.S. if humour everyone and actually try downloading the pulldown program please.

[kwdl23323]

LeeBear
Thank you for that ,ive now got a beautiful non jerky mpeg2 but can you advise me on pulldown to convert it to 29.97. Would be very greatful , sorry for being a bit thick

[LeeBear]

I'm glad I could help kwdl23323. Okay to do the pulldown process it should be pretty easy if you are familiar with command line programs, if you are not I suggest you download the GUI for it.

Here's what you would do:

1) Goto the Tools section, download "pulldown.exe" and the GUI "Pulldown Batch FE"
2) Run the GUI
3) For the "Input File" select your previously converted 23.976 fps MPEG2, for the "Output File" select a name you want
4) Hit process, and wait awhile, that should be it, the "output" file should now have a framerate of 29.97 fps. Note your original file has not changed so when you are authoring your SVCD/DVD remember to select the new file not the original one.

-LeeBear

[kwdl23323]

thanx leebear thats great. i realy appreciate your help

[kwdl23323]

am i thick or what . loaded mpeg into the gui changed options to 29.97 press process screen pops up and straigh back down ... nothing procesed ?????? if god only gave me brains

[Bel]

Leebear,

How can you tell if an mpeg you have is "native" 29 fps, or 23 fps with pulldown? I've been using Mpeg Properties, when that tells me something is 29 fps, does that mean there is no pulldown and it is natively 29 fps? If I understand this whole thing (and I think I'm beginning to) you wouldn't want to convert a native 29 fps to 23 and enable pulldown because you'll get jerkiness in the picture from the 6 ripped away frames, correct? Thanks.

[LeeBear]

kwdl23323: Your problem sounds like you don't have the "pulldown.exe" in the same folder as the GUI. You do have "PullDown.exe" and "PullDownBatchFE.exe" in the same folder right?

Bel: To tell if your MPEG is 23fps film, load the VOB file (I'm assuming your MPEG from DVD) in DVD2AVI. Make sure it's the VOB that contains the actually movie and not the trailers and special features (it's usually the biggest VOB files and most parts). Then goto "Options" click statistics. I window pops up on the side. Click "Options" then "preview" and if you watch the statistics window and where it says "Video Type" it'll be NTSC or Film. If it's Film 95% or more then it's 23fps if not it's 29. Just remember to let the preview go through the video a bit because sometimes DVD's start off as NTSC (usually at the beginning where you get the studio logo's etc) then switch to film when the movie starts.

You are correct with your other question. If the MPEG is real 29fps then you would't want to use force film because it'll be jerky since you're taking out real frames. Basic rule is DVD's that are movies are usually 23fps, and DVD's that are like from TV (like TV episodes collections) are 29fps. It's not always the case but 95% of the time you'll be correct.

-LeeBear

[kwdl23323]

LeeBear

Thanks i thought that but i do have them both in the same folder but will remove and try again

[kwdl23323]

LeeBear

Thanks i thought that but i do have them both in the same folder but will remove and try again

No retried both in same folder but just dosent want to know

[ZenZen]

I also got the same results using Pulldown GUI as did kwdl23323 above.

So, I ran Pulldown.exe from the dos prompt (without the GUI interface) and it reports the following:

Pulldown v099d
Source= Test.mpg Target=Pulldown.m2v
-Enabling 2:3 pulldown
File is not an Mpeg video stream.

My scenero: I live in a PAL country. I have captured an NTSC DVD "Earth to the Moon" and created an AVI from it. The AVI is jerky, probably for the reasons already mentioned in this post. So following LeeBear's instructions, I encoded a small segment of this AVI with TMPGenc's SVCD-NTSC template, and also SVCD-NTSC-FILM template. Both the resultant MPEG2's are still jerky, so downloaded Pulldown, and came up against the "File is not an Mpeg video stream" error ????

Where do I go from here ?? And even if I get Pulldown to work, and it creates only the M2v file, how do I finally get it back as a complete Mpeg2?? Thanks in advance for your help and assistance.

[LeeBear]

ZenZen: If you use the "SVCD NTSC Film" template then you do not need to use pulldown because it should already be done in TMPG (TMPG can do 3:2 pulldown to). You can tell if it's being done if in the framerate section it says "23.976fps (29.97fps internally)" like the default SVCD Film Template. That's why pulldown isn't working for you. But I believe your jerkiness is a different problem. If your AVI is choppy or jerky pulldown's not going to fix that, you need a better AVI capture.

kwdl23323: there's 2 reasons I can think of why pulldown's not working.

1) This is unlikely but you can try to demux the MPEG file to get a pure video(mv2) and a pure audio stream (mp2). Then try running pulldown on the m2v file. If it works you can remux it back together with TMPG. Demuxing and muxing can be found in TMPG under "MPEG Tools"

2) This is the more probable case and it involves my previous instructions of encoding the MPEG stream. I think pulldown's not working because your video stream is interlaced and not progressive. Pulldown only works on progrssive streams not to get into the details but basically when you do a pulldown to add the extra frames the information it needs has to come from a progressive frame. I just realize the default "DVD NTSC" template uses interlace frames so that might be your problem. Try encoding like before but change the encode mode to "Non-interlace" then try running pulldown after that. Also you may also want to try to let TMPG do the pulldown for you so you don't have to do it after the encode. To do this change the "encode mode" to "3:2 pulldown when played back" and the "framerate" to "23.976fps (internatlly 29.97fps)". Both should do the same thing, but sometimes TMPG has problems when dealing with different framerates so people like to do the pulldown manually afterwards with pulldown.exe (my persnal preference). Anyways that should take care of your problem I hope. And I'm sorry I forgot to put that part in before. I just hope you're not wasting your time encoding the entire movie... I hope you just did a small part to try it out

-leeBear

[kwdl23323]

Thanks Leebear that seems to work now changing pulldown in tmpg but still wont run pulldown the other way but at least i can now write these films. Thank you#

kwdl23323

[kwdl23323]

by the way changing my vfapi plugins totally screwed up my other settings so thanx to all for that advice. BEWARE

[CyeN]

by the way changing my vfapi plugins totally screwed up my other settings so thanx to all for that advice. BEWARE

Your welcome.
I'll remember to help you next time since you were so polite.

As i said. Those settings worked for me. And I have been told they worked for others. So regardless of what kwdl23323 thinks. This might also solve the problem for anyone reading this who has problems encoding movies in 23.976. Although apparently not for DVD compliant movies, which i do not do myself.