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  1. I'm trying to play a Doctor Who Blu-ray in VLC. It's from the classic series, so it's original 576i50 video that's meant to have the smooth "live video" look, upscaled to 1080i50.

    Normally, I'd just turn on deinterlacing in VLC and set the deinterlace type to "Bob". This works perfectly for DVDs - I get the correct video motion, with the 50i video bobbed to 50p.

    But this isn't working with Blu-ray. The video still looks filmised. Is there something different about the way Blu-ray handles interlaced video compared to DVD?

    MediaInfo tells me that the source video stream from the Blu-ray is 25fps, top field first. That's the same info I'd get from a DVD. So why doesn't VLC bob-deinterlace Blu-ray video the same as DVD?

    I've even tried ripping an episode with MakeMKV and throwing it into Handbrake, set to bob-decomb to 50fps - and I just get horrible juddery video output. So there's definitely something weird going on.

    Of course, if I play the disc in a standalone Blu-ray player, it all looks correct - I get the fluid "live video" motion.

    Can anybody point me in the right direction?
    Last edited by AVR2; 26th Jul 2021 at 10:42.
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  2. Try Yadif (2x) instead of Bob.
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  3. Already been through all the options, none of them work.
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  4. If it's the original series, the analog video was 405 lines/50Hz so it would already be upscaled to 576i50. Possibly the interlacing isn't line by line any longer.

    Brian.
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  5. The original series was only 405 lines until 1967, when it switched to 625-line monochrome (and then 625 colour in 1970). None of the 405-line stories exist in their native form anyway, they're all 16mm film recordings (kinescopes).

    I can throw the ripped video into ffWorks (a macOS front end for ffmpeg) and bob-deinterlace it to 50fps successfully. So no idea why VLC and Handbrake don't want to do it.
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  6. VLC sometimes gets the field order wrong, even if it's properly flagged.
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  7. Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    VLC sometimes gets the field order wrong, even if it's properly flagged.
    Yeah, sounds like that's what's happening. But it seems to do it with *all* Doctor Who Blu-rays for some reason.
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  8. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Could the problem be vlc itself ? It is not a fully-functional blu-ray player. Have you tried software that is such as PowerDVD Ultra or DVDFab Player ? Even these, I guess, could choke if the actual issue is the up-scaling.


    BTW (Out of curiousity) You said 'Classic' Doctor. Can you be more specific ? (Not a great fan. I only have the early William Hartnell dvd box set plus 'A Christmas Carol' since Katherine Jenkins was in it )
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  9. As far as VLC is concerned it's just a stream of AVC video. It doesn't deinterlace it properly whether it's being played off the disc or from a ripped MKV.

    "Classic DW" is understood to mean anything from 1963-89. Specifically, it's the Blu-ray of season 18 from 1980-81.
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  10. Originally Posted by AVR2 View Post
    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    VLC sometimes gets the field order wrong, even if it's properly flagged.
    Yeah, sounds like that's what's happening. But it seems to do it with *all* Doctor Who Blu-rays for some reason.
    Well, they're all probably encoded the same. So if it has problems with one it will have problems with them all. Can you upload a short (not reencoded) segment that shows the problem?
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  11. Member DB83's Avatar
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    I'm probably off the planet right now but if I read correctly there is some confusion in the BD terminology. There is no such thing as 1920*1080i50 (= frames). These 'frames' are actually fields and the correct description is 1920*1080i25


    Source:


    http://www.hughsnews.ca/faqs/authoritative-blu-ray-disc-bd-faq/4-physical-logical-and-...ifications#4.5


    (I probably watched Tom Baker back in the day. Got a little silly after that - apart from Katherine Jenkins )


    Could this be the key to the issue ?
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  12. Originally Posted by DB83 View Post
    I'm probably off the planet right now but if I read correctly there is some confusion in the BD terminology. There is no such thing as 1920*1080i50 (= frames). These 'frames' are actually fields and the correct description is 1920*1080i25
    Of course. Unfortunately it has become common practice to call it i50 or 50i (i60 or 60i for NTSC). It's just marketing inflation.
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