Interpolating missing frames in jaggy footage

[Raga]

I have some clips recorded with a crappy digital camera that outputs in 640x480 25fps, though the actual rate images have been captured appears jaggy, most likely 20fps or something like that.

Sample clip with 2x10 seconds: here (2 MB). The issue is more accentuated in the first with more movement, a bit less in the second with a person sitting still and talking, but still noticeable.

Any suggestions on how I'd start unraveling this?

[thecoalman]

It's 25FPS, but it looks to me like every couple frames is 2 or 3 duplicate frames. Don't think there's much you can do with that. Removing the duplicates should help a little. That's my diagnosis someone else might know what to do with it.

[Raga]

Yes indeed, now that I look at it, it goes as follows:

1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-2

Duplicating every second frame... Let me clean those out first.

[junkmalle]

Every second frame is duplicated in your clip:

before: 1,2,2,3,4,4,5,6,6,7,8,8,9...

You need to throw out every third frame to get:

after: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9...

Open the file in VirtualDub (or one of the variations). Select Video -> Frame Rate... In the middle box (Frame Rate Conversion) select "Convert to fps" and set the value to 16.667. VirtualDub will now throw away every 3rd frame (change from 25 to 16.667 fps) -- but you don't know which of the three frames it will throw out. You can control that by setting Video -> Select Range function. With your sample file setting the starting frame to 1 eliminated all the duplicate frames. You may have to change the starting frame to 0, 1 or 2 depending on the exact pattern. And you may have to adjust the frame rate a little with longer segments is 16.667 isn't accurate enough.

[lordsmurf]

Steadyhand filter wouldn't hurt either.

[bugster]

Every second frame is duplicated in your clip:

before: 1,2,2,3,4,4,5,6,6,7,8,8,9...

You need to throw out every third frame to get:

after: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9...

Open the file in VirtualDub (or one of the variations). Select Video -> Frame Rate... In the middle box (Frame Rate Conversion) select "Convert to fps" and set the value to 16.667. VirtualDub will now throw away every 3rd frame (change from 25 to 16.667 fps) -- but you don't know which of the three frames it will throw out. You can control that by setting Video -> Select Range function. With your sample file setting the starting frame to 1 eliminated all the duplicate frames. You may have to change the starting frame to 0, 1 or 2 depending on the exact pattern. And you may have to adjust the frame rate a little with longer segments is 16.667 isn't accurate enough.

You can do this a lot more accuratley (and probably easier) with avisynth and 'select every()'