Help with possible interlaced pal avi source

[h2p000]

Ok, heres my dilemma. I have a pal avi that I am trying to convert to a 720x480 resolution mpeg 2 so I can use dgpulldown to convert 25-29.97. The file is a movie that I know was made for tv. Its a sci fi original movie and the only copy I could find of it is pal.

Now the avi file looks fine @ 640x352. Its not until I re-encode the file to a 720x480 25 fps mpeg 2 file that I start to see artifact lines in motion that look like interlaced sample screenshots that I have seen. Now I read on the dgpulldown site that if a source is interlaced it must be deinterlaced before re-encoding.

After fishing around on the forums for a bit about deinterlacing I decided to try out the smart deinterlace plug in for virtualdub as I am familiar with the program, but it seems like I have tried all the options in the filter config to no avail. I tried all the advanced options one by one and then all combinations and all 3 with motion processing disabled. Then I tried all three of the motion processing options with default settings, but I still get the interlace artifacts after re-encoding to 720x480 25 fps mpeg2.

Is there something else I need to change in the smart deinterlace filter settings? Is there another simple way to do this?

I got another suggestion in another thread about trying weaving of which I have no clue about. After searching the forums about weaving it seems the only thing I see referring to it is with avisynth which I have no experience with. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance for any help...

[manono]

Hi-

If the 25fps AVI source isn't interlaced, then what makes you think that using a deinterlacer on it is going to do anything but ruin it? If it's interlaced, then something between the source progressive AVI and the output interlaced it, and deinterlacing the AVI won't do anything to change that fact.

Its not until I re-encode the file to a 720x480 25 fps mpeg 2 file that I start to see artifact lines in motion that look like interlaced sample screenshots that I have seen.

This suggests to me that you encoded not for 25fps, but for 29.97fps. You can open the resulting M2V in such programs as GSpot, DGIndex, BitRate Viewer, or ReStream to find out the framerate. Or you can cut a small 10 second section for upload somewhere so we can have a look.

Also useful might be a description of exactly how you went from a 640x352 AVI to the 720x480 M2V you got after encoding.

[h2p000]

The resulting mpeg 2 file is 25 fps, I set it that way in mainconcept mpeg encoder as Pal which defaults to 25 fps. The only things I changed are the bitrate for the video, changed the resolution to 720x480, set it to 16:9, and teaked the search method and range a bit. Also I set the close gop to 1, which I do for the dvd authoring software I use.

I usually check fps in media player classic file properties while the video is playing and using gspot. Im just assuming the source is interlaced thats why I put possible in the subject of my post, as I really didn't know for sure

Also I read somewhere that interlaced video doesn't show artifacts at lower resolutions, which is another statement that pushed my assumption, but im not an expert so at this point im not pushing one way or the other.

I don't have the time right now, but I do have a small cut from the source that I was using to test smart deinterlacer. I will try to get a sample of that encoded from mainconcept up later today, as well as try to answer in detail some of the other info you requested.

Thanks

[manono]

Im just assuming the source is interlaced thats why I put possible in the subject of my post, as I really didn't know for sure

Assuming the original encoder knew what he was doing (a big assumption sometimes, I know), that XviD AVI is almost by definition progressive. If some idiot left in the interlacing, it's already been ruined and deinterlacing at this stage won't fix it. You can check if the source AVI is interlaced by opening it in VDub or one of its varients and scrolling to a place where there's movement. Advance a frame at a time. If you don't see interlacing, it's not interlaced.

If the source isn't interlaced and the resulting M2V is interlaced, I have a little trouble picturing how that could happen if you encoded for 25fps. I'll await a sample.

[h2p000]

Sorry, I meant to get back to you...

Actually, I was reading on another forum that people just use Mainconcept mpeg encoder to do a strait pal to ntsc converion with that program alone. I didn't know you could, so I tried it.

I loaded my whole pal avi right into Mainconcept did an ntsc encode on both the video and audio, and it came out perfect.

Thanks for your time trying to help me out, I appreciate it.