Enterprise/B5 25fps?

[drak23]

Does anyone know the transmitted frame rate for shows such as Babylon 5 and Enterprise? Specifically, are they different from Farscape (a sadly endangered species). I do an inverse telecine on my Farscape caps and they look great, but the same process on Enterprise and B5 results in a lot of jerkiness.

I'm wondering if its because perhaps Farscape is recorded to film at 29.97 fps, and the other two may be done at ~25?

Thanks-

[snowmoon]

In the US ( I don't know about other places ).

B5:

Mostly shot at 23.976 and converted to video 29.97. CGI is done at 29.97fps. Due to this mix, IVTC is NOT recommended. The best filter I have found for B5 is telecide to restore progressive frames, but not kill the smoothness of the CGI.

Enterprise/StarTrek:

Shot at 23.976 and converted to video and then editted. It will have bad patterns, but TMPGenc's automatic detection works very well, but takes a long time.

Farscape:

Depends on the season. I believe the first few seasons are shot for PAL 25fps. I Beleive later seasons are a MIX of 23.976 and 29.97 like B5.

Many shows are edited on video or are shot in a mixed format that really does not encourage IVTC. Even shows that are 100% 23.976 and just edited can show problems on fades and mixes as it's possilbe to fade video with two diffrent patterns together, but IVTC hates that it basicly has to decide which pattern to keep and which to make look like crap.

Because of all of the reason above I've given up and now use CCE exclusivly because it handles interlacing perfectly.

[drak23]

Thanks for the info - you just saved me a lot of time experimenting with IVTC variations. I've only been capturing Farscape's latest season, so maybe I've just been lucky with it (though it works well for SG1 also). But I think I'll check out CCE and see if that is something that can help.

Regards,
Drak

[drak23]

By the way, is there a way to tell how a show was filmed? Where is this information obtained?

Thanks-

[snowmoon]

trial and error.

If you know what the telecine pattern looks like you can scrub through the time line to see if it's a regular patter or irregulr. You also have to be careful with trouble spots like... fades, cgi, intros, station overlays and other anomlies as such.

Sometimes its easier to tell. Fox film all of it's new productions 480p so it's safe to assume that it will more than likley have a clean telecine pattern.

Cheers

[bani]

first/second season farscape NTSC broadcast is near impossible to ivtc. its something like film->pal->ntsc and really screwy.