Frame shenanigans - how to deal with it

[armyofquad]

I enjoy Mr. Bean. I've bought the entire episodes of Mr. Bean now 5 times now.

US issued VHS tapes - which includes a few extra scenes in a few episodes that were added back in for US markets. Rebought a 2nd set of them, dirt cheap, after finding these extra scenes were missing from the 2003 DVD set.
2003 US issued DVD set of The Whole Bean - with mono soundtrack and tightly edited transitions between act breaks on some episodes. 29.97 fps - timing lines up with VHS set.
2015 US issued DVD set of The Whole Bean - with extra scenes included as extra features. Episodes are complete with act breaks and stereo soundtrack. Episodes play slower than previous sources - the sound has artifacts of time expansion. 23.976 fps
British DVD set of Bean's Brilliant Boxset - in PAL 25 fps. Lines up with VHS and 2003 DVD set.

Seems to me what happened is that the original formatting was in PAL 25 fps, which created problems once bringing it to the US market. The companies that put together the VHS set and 2003 DVD set kept the integrity of the original program and converted the material to a 29.97 framerate somehow. Although - the 2003 DVD set used some questionable sources, being that some episodes had sloppy edits to cut act break title cards, and had mono soundtrack where a stereo one existed. But....at least they didn't decide to start screwing with the timing. The 2015 set I guess was prepared by someone that considered keeping the original frames playing at a "barely noticeable" different rate is somehow more pure....despite the complete change in timing, and the horrible distortion the time expansion in the audio created. Sure, it has the original frames....but at the cost of mangling everything else! Ridiculous.

Anyways, the PAL set has mostly what I want - except that it does have a few of the act break title cards edited out. And then there's also the matter of the extra scenes that were added in for the US market - I want them edited back in. So, the 2015 DVD set, with it's mangled frame rate "fix", may be a good source of video to patch things back together.

Question is....could I modify a 23.976 fps mpg I ripped from the DVD, to think it's a 25 fps file? I know in Vegas I could set the properties to disable resample, and adjust the playback rate to 1.043. But.....that doesn't get it there perfectly, since the playback rate would need to be at 1.04270937....., but the playback rate only allows to 3 decimal places, which leaves the frames of the 23.976 file not lining up to a perfect 25 fps, and it drifts over time.

Perhaps that's close enough for my small edits....but I am still curious if there's a better way to do this. I should be able to bring the file in and basically say, take these frames as they are, and play them at a different framerate, instead of giving it an approximation with a playback rate.



Btw.....usually when I post here, I get a whole bunch of replies that are along the lines of "well see, what you really want to do is...." and then explanations of things I don't want to do. To the point that I'm expecting it. Please prove me wrong and don't do that, and stick to the specific thing I'm asking here.

[poisondeathray]

Question is....could I modify a 23.976 fps mpg I ripped from the DVD, to think it's a 25 fps file? I know in Vegas I could set the properties to disable resample, and adjust the playback rate to 1.043. But.....that doesn't get it there perfectly, since the playback rate would need to be at 1.04270937....., but the playback rate only allows to 3 decimal places, which leaves the frames of the 23.976 file not lining up to a perfect 25 fps, and it drifts over time.

Perhaps that's close enough for my small edits....but I am still curious if there's a better way to do this. I should be able to bring the file in and basically say, take these frames as they are, and play them at a different framerate, instead of giving it an approximation with a playback rate.

Is it soft pulldown 23.976 ? If it's hard pulldown 23.976=>29.97 NTSC DVD , you're probably going to have additional problems doing it this way. You'd have to IVTC it first to do it properly

But to answer the question, assuming it's soft pulldown -
You can try tsmuxer and checkmark change framerate, remux into a transport stream

Other options are DVD Patcher or restream on a elementary video stream (you'd have to demux, process, remux back into mpeg-ps)

Another option if you have problems with the other methods is avisynth , AssumeFPS(25) . You can use avfs to import a virtual file into vegas, or you can encode an intermediate to import

[manono]

Question is....could I modify a 23.976 fps mpg I ripped from the DVD, to think it's a 25 fps file?

Like pdr, I wonder how you got a 23.976fps MPG out of a 29.97fps DVD. If you really have one and you're willing to demux (DGIndex is one way), you can use DGPulldown to add soft pulldown flags to make it 25fps. Then you can remux as an MPG without having to stretch the audio. No reencoding of either audio or video.

[armyofquad]

Question is....could I modify a 23.976 fps mpg I ripped from the DVD, to think it's a 25 fps file?

Like pdr, I wonder how you got a 23.976fps MPG out of a 29.97fps DVD. If you really have one and you're willing to demux (DGIndex is one way), you can use DGPulldown to add soft pulldown flags to make it 25fps. Then you can remux as an MPG without having to stretch the audio. No reencoding of either audio or video.

Ok, I don't deal with video all that much, I'm more of an audio person, so getting deep into the video stuff is not my area, and where I may be making assumptions.

But, I don't believe I've "got a 23.976fps MPG out of a 29.97fps DVD".

There were 2 US DVD sets of Mr. Bean, one released in 2003 by A&E, one released in 2015 by Shout Factory.

I've used dvd vob2mpg (in combination with dvdfab passkey) to extract the mpg from both DVD sets - so I should have mpg exactly as it was encoded to the DVD.

When I check the extracted mpg of the 2003 DVD in mediainfo, it shows the video portion as 7 451 kb/s, 720*480 (4:3), at 29.970 (30000/1001)FPS, MPEG Video (NTSC)(Version 2)(Main@Main)(CustomMatrix/BVOP)

Checking the extracted mpg of the 2015 DVD in mediainfo shows - 7 007 kb/s, 720*480 (4:3), at 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS, MPEG Video (Version 2)(Main@Main)(CustomMatrix/BVOP)

While the UK set shows - 5 741 kb/s, 720/576 (4:3), at 25.000 FPS, MPEG Video (PAL)(Version 2)(Main@Main)(CustomMatrix/BVOP)

I'm making an assumption that the UK DVD set is the format this material was originally prepared for, being that Mr. Bean is a British show.

The VHS sets, and the 2003 DVD sets, align timingwise with the UK DVD set - I assume some process was done to convert the 25fps PAL material to a 29.970 NTSC format - whatever was done, it preserved the integrity of the original timing. But it would have required doing something to the video.

So, when I found that the 2015 set was off in the timing, and was slower than the other sources, that started my investigating, and that's when I found that set has the 23.976 fps framerate, rather than the typical 29.970 framerate that I typically find on US DVD sets. I read a forum post where someone recommended the UK set as a better option to this US set with the timing being off, so I picked that up, and found it contained PAL at 25 fps. So, that's where I've come up with the theory that, in 2015, someone in shout factory decided, rather than put the video through a process that would convert the 25 fps to 29.970 fps, they would just slow down the 25fps material to playback at 23.976 instead, preserving the original frames, but destroying the timing and audio in the process, completely destroying the integrity of the material in the process. But, hey, the original video frames are there, unaltered. Sometimes I don't understand video people - putting the importance of original frames above the complete integrity of the whole package.

But....ok, that is an assumption I'm making there. But I do find if I do the process I referenced above - create a Vegas session with the UK extracted mpg to create a session that's set to those settings - 25fps PAL, drag in the extraction from the 2015 DVD, set the 2015 mpg in the properties to not resample and playback at 1.043, the frames mostly align, except that they do drift over time since 1.043 is an approximation. So that seems to support my theory - the 2015 DVD contains the original video frames of the content, simply set to playback slower, to use a video format supported by US DVD, and preserve the original frames at the expense of everything else.


So, if I try some of the suggestions to set the content to playback at 25fps, that should bring the video portion back to being accurate. The sound is already destroyed, but, I can work around that - I just need some of the act break transitions from a few of the episodes which are only available on the 2015 DVD set - the audio I believe is the same for all episodes, so I can pull that out of other episodes from the other sets that have the full act breaks preserved.



Let me know if I'm misunderstanding anything in here - but that should answer any questions as to how I got my video sources - I don't believe I got a 23.976 fps out of a 29.970 DVD, I believe the 2015 DVD contains 23.976 fps material, always has, and so that's what comes off of it.

[armyofquad]

Ok, I think I got what I needed.

I tried the tsmuxer option - I added an mpg from the 2015 dvd, and it showed up there as 29.97 (pulldown). Not sure what that means? I know the mpg I extracted shows as 23.976, and pulls into Vegas that way. I don't know how this stuff works, but I gather it's basically storing the video with a film framerate, but with a setting to set it to playback at 29.970 with a pulldown? Anyways, my first attempt to set it to change the framerate in tsmuxer generated some errors. But then I saw the remove pulldown checkbox. So I tried it again with that checked. Boom - video file with the frames set at 25 fps, pulls into Vegas and aligns with the PAL video perfectly. It appears the picture on the 2015 DVDs are a little clearer than the PAL DVD. It's a shame they ruined the timing and sound. But, now that I've extracted the frames out, they can actually be synced up to the sound off the PAL DVDs to make a better version.

[poisondeathray]

I added an mpg from the 2015 dvd, and it showed up there as 29.97 (pulldown). Not sure what that means?

pulldown is a method to output other frame rates such as 23.976 to 29.97 , required by all NTSC DVD's to make it compatible with equipment.

When mediainfo shows 23.976, it's usually soft pulldown - meaning fields are repeated by repeat field flags - they are not "physically" encoded and repeated . When they are actually encoded with repeats , it's called "hard" pulldown and mediainfo will usually show 29.97

It appears the picture on the 2015 DVDs are a little clearer than the PAL DVD.

Make sure it's not being inadvertently deinterlaced by vegas

[hello_hello]

The only way I can imagine the original version being converted to 23.976 fps is if they digitised it, de-interlaced, slowed it down and then added pulldown for a 29.97fps DVD, because the original episodes were mostly shot on video, from memory, not film, so it'd be interlaced. The 2015 US release was apparently "digitally remastered", so maybe that's how it was done.

armyofquad,
Have you neglected to add the 2010 "digitally remastered" PAL version to your collection?
According to the info on this site, the NTSC remastered version has cuts, whereas the 2010 PAL version doesn't.
http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=3638
A google seems to indicate it was originally released in 2010, then as a box set in 2015.

If you have the motivation would you mind uploading a small sample from the 2015 US version? I'm curious to see what was done. I've seen some old BBC video (Doctor Who comes to mind) where the original PAL video was converted to NTSCo by some method that takes the original PAL video scan-lines and converts them to NTSC scan-lines at 29.97fps, but the end result is still interlaced 29.97fps not progressive 23.976fps.

[armyofquad]

I can post a segment of video - but the way the 2015 set didn't encode the episodes separately. What's the best tool these days to split an mpg without any rendering or processing? I had a tool some time ago, but I'm not sure what happened to it, or if it would play nice in Windows 10.

I only see the UK set referenced as the 20th Anniversary Edition, is that what you are referring to as the one released in 2010? That's the PAL set I have. It has the episodes as they aired originally in the UK - so perhaps that's what they mean by no cuts. Like the other DVD sets I have, the episodes do not include the extra scenes that were added in for the US market.

[davexnet]

I can post a segment of video - but the way the 2015 set didn't encode the episodes separately. What's the best tool these days to split an mpg without any rendering or processing? I had a tool some time ago, but I'm not sure what happened to it, or if it would play nice in Windows 10.

I only see the UK set referenced as the 20th Anniversary Edition, is that what you are referring to as the one released in 2010? That's the PAL set I have. It has the episodes as they aired originally in the UK - so perhaps that's what they mean by no cuts. Like the other DVD sets I have, the episodes do not include the extra scenes that were added in for the US market.

Use DGindex, [ and ] to cut a section
File/save project and demux video

[armyofquad]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u7naphqqfhzpqa4/2015%20whole%20bean%20sample.m2v?dl=0

[davexnet]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u7naphqqfhzpqa4/2015%20whole%20bean%20sample.m2v?dl=0

The underlying frame rate appears to be 23.976. It's a little bit fuzzy in places, but not too bad.
What do you want to do with it?

[armyofquad]

Correct it to playback at the correct speed, and sync up sound to it from other sources that weren't compromised with time expansion.

[davexnet]

Correct it to playback at the correct speed, and sync up sound to it from other sources that weren't compromised with time expansion.

Do you want to do a speed up of this file > 25 fps?
Or do you want it to play at 25fps but keep the same timing?

What exactly do you need help with ?

[armyofquad]

Speed up.

[jagabo]

Speed 23.976 fps to 25 fps, video and audio, pitch will rise about one semitone:

v = Mpeg2Source("2015 whole bean sample.d2v", CPU2="ooooxx", Info=3)
a = SomeAudioSource("audio.ext")
AudioDub(v,a)
TFM(d2v="2015 whole bean sample.d2v")
TDecimate()
AssumeFPS(25, sync_audio=true)
Spline36Resize(width, 576) # if you need a PAL frame size

[davexnet]

Speed up.

Here's a simple Avisynth script to effect the speedup

LoadPlugin("J:\MeGUI-2715-32\tools\dgindex\DGDecode.dll")
vid=mpeg2source("C:\Users\davex\Desktop\source_video.d2v")           # load the d2v index file created with DGindex
aud=LWLibAVAudioSource("C:\Users\davex\Desktop\souce_audio.ac3)      # load audio created from DGindex
vid=vid.AssumeTFF()          # set top field first
vid=vid.tfm().tdecimate()    # decimate to 23.976
audiodub(vid,aud)
AssumeFPS("pal_film", sync_audio=true).ResampleAudio(48000)         # speed up and resample audio

This script would frameserve the modified stream to an encoder of your choice -
eg. AVStoDVD to create a new mpg file


EDIT - jagabo beat me to it. I was looking at something else, instead of sync_audio and resample audio,
use Timestretch to keep the pitch as-is, according to the doc. Not sure what the quality is like, but it's an alternative

aud=aud.TimeStretch(tempo=100.0*25.0/(24000.0/1001.0))
vid=vid.Assumefps(25)
audiodub(vid,aud)