I'm doing something wrong with a pulldown from Pal -> Ntsc..

[zambuka42]

I encoded a Pal avi using CCE (without a change in framerate during the encoding process)

Afterwards I am trying to do a pulldown from 25fps -> 29.97 using both pulldown.exe and dgpulldown.exe.

After either pulldown process, my media players show the output m2v files as having changed from 1:42:11 to 0:52:22 (Although if I seek to the end of the file, it contains the entire movie). And when I eventually author it, the audio is out of sync as well.

Here are screen captures of Gspot for the input m2v and output m2v file.

Input:


Output:


Any help would be appreciated. tx -b

[jagabo]

Many media players and media info programs do not handle pulldown flags, especially unusual patterns, properly.

[zambuka42]

Many media players and media info programs do not handle pulldown flags, especially unusual patterns, properly.

I suppose I should have mentioned that the audio is also out of sync when it is eventually authored.

[jagabo]

You should have resized the frame from 720x576 to 720x480 before encoding with CCE. You didn't mention what you used to author the DVD -- maybe it resized and reencoded the video and messed up?

Resizing to 720x480, encoding with CCE at 25 fps, and adding pulldown flags with DG DgPulldown always works for me.

After encodig with CCE GSpot shows 25 pics/s, 25 frames/s, and 50 fields/s. After DGPulldown it shows 23.976 pics/s, 29.97 frames/s, and 59.94 fiels/s (the first two are wrong of course). The same as your posts.

[zambuka42]

as for the authoring, I tried ifoedit, nerovision, and dvdauthor. Same problem. But the problem appears to be observable prior to authoring.. so I don't think the problem is there. As for the frame size.. would that affect the audio sync and timing problems I'm having?

[jagabo]

The wrong frame size shouldn't cause audio sync errors. Are there sync errors with the 25 fps file from CCE?

[zambuka42]

no, the output from cce is perfect in regards to length of video and audio sync. So, the gspot information shown above for the INPUT file.. is what I need in the output.. however you can see the difference in the OUTPUT file's gspot info.

[jagabo]

no, the output from cce is perfect in regards to length of video and audio sync. So, the gspot information shown above for the INPUT file.. is what I need in the output.. however you can see the difference in the OUTPUT file's gspot info.

No, after DgPulldown GSpot shows the pics/s wrong. And the concept of frames/s doesn't really make sense when talking about progressive frames marked for pulldown.

Have you viewed your final video on a set-top DVD player? Is it out of sync there too? I ask because, as I mentioned earlier, software players often get this unusual type of pulldown wrong. Some set-top players do too.

You could perform a hard pulldown but I would do that as a last resort. 29.97 interlaced frames per second won't look ad good as 25 progressive frames per second with pulldown flags.

[manono]

As far as I know, Pulldown.exe can't do a 25->29.97fps pulldown. It couldn't the last time I used it, admittedly a few years ago. Are you sure you did it correctly using DGPulldown? Since the framerate as given by GSpot is incorrect, I'm not sure I'd trust it to give the correct length either.

After either pulldown process, my media players show the output m2v files as having changed from 1:42:11 to 0:52:22

You can't trust a player to give you the correct length.

The fault isn't in DGPulldown, but in something you did or didn't do somewhere along the way. A 720x576 NTSC DVD? Using Nero for anything DVD related? Come on now.

[zambuka42]

it is also out of sync on the dvd player. What is a 'hard pulldown'? And yes, obviously doing a normal pulldown is what is messing up the output.. are there other things I should do to the movie before I do the pulldown to keep this from happening?

[zambuka42]

as for the nero.. I just tried it because nothing else was working. and yes, I am sure that pulldown.exe AND dgpulldown were set to 25->29.97

[manono]

If it was OK after coming out of CCE, then it would be OK if you did the DGPulldown properly (i. e., didn't change the file length).

This out-of-synch audio, I take it it's a progressive asynch? It gets more and more off as the video goes along?

[manono]

What is a 'hard pulldown'?

A soft pulldown or soft telecine is what DGPulldown does. It sets the flags that tells the player how to add in the duplicate fields so that it outputs the 29.97fps as required for NTSC. But you've encoded only progressive 25fps. The rest is duplicated fields. Hard pulldown or hard telecine encodes those duplicate fields into the video. As jagabo says, it's far from an ideal solution.

How did you get this AVI into CCE originally? You just dropped it in? And you have the "For DVD" box still checked at the top of the main screen? Have you considered using AviSynth so you can do a proper resize on this thing?

[zambuka42]

I did use avisynth, and yes For DVD was checked. As for dgpulldown, I tried using it with every combination of settings it had. None of them outputted a correct file.

[manono]

If I've encoded for non-standard NTSC framerates (something besides 29.97fps or 23.976fps) once I've done it at least three hundred times, and not once - not once - have I had any audio synch problems or any playback problems. Well, once I mistakenly made it for 23.976->29.97, but when I did it over again it was OK.

My suggestion is to start over. Resize in your script for 720x480 and encode for 25fps. Make sure to uncheck the "For DVD" box in CCE. When done, run it through DGPulldown with that 25->29.97 setting ticked. Mux with Muxman (although I've used IFOEdit as well with no problems, but Muxman is way better). The script could be as simple as:

AVISource("C:\Path\To\Movie.avi")
Lanczos4Resize(720,480)#get the proper resize/addborders from FitCD
ConvertToYUY2()#for CCE

If the audio is AC3 originally, it's OK to use it untouched. Otherwise, when converting it make sure the length isn't changed.

[zambuka42]

ok, I've done what you suggested before you suggested it to no avail (except that for DVD was checked in CCE). Why would I not want to check for DVD?

[guns1inger]

If you check "For DVD" in CCE it will automatically resize the video to match the system the framerate belongs to. So if you resize to 720 x 480, and encode at 25 fps, and have For DVD ticked, CCE will resize it to 720 x 576 because it assumes you are creating a PAL DVD. Untick it, and you are simply creating an mpeg file and have full control over the settings without CCE second guessing your intentions.

[zambuka42]

ok I'll try that, but again.. isn't that just addressing a size issue, and not the issue of the length of the movie being altered by the pulldown?

[guns1inger]

It may all be tied up together. Until you actually have a correctly encoded video, at the right resolution, with the correct pulldown flags applied, you don't have a problem to solve. Get the process right, and if it fails, we can look at why. Until you have the process right and produce a correctly created video that doesn't work, we have no starting point. (Yes, I know that sounds confusing, but it does make sense, eventually)

[zambuka42]

ok, I'll do it again and get back. Thanks for the help

[manono]

You are sure the source AVI is really 25fps, aren't you? I'm not asking for a GSpot screen as proof, but at some point you've checked the framerate, haven't you?

Also, you might check the length of both the video and the audio at the beginning and when done, just to be sure. The audio is easy to get a before and after length. The source AVI is also easy (VDMod File->File Info, GSpot, play it in a player, etc.). The completed DVD can be tricky, but I use PowerDVD to test. I play it as a DVD (not a file), and have the OSD turned on and it gives an accurate length in the top left of the screen. The most accurate way is to make a new .avs from the pulled down M2V and get the length from VDub(Mod).

[zambuka42]

yes

[Alex_ander]

I am trying to do a pulldown from 25fps -> 29.97 using both pulldown.exe and dgpulldown.exe.

Are you using DGPulldown from its GUI, CL or what? The caps show the software assumed 23.976 (probably default value, your movie will be 4% longer) for input. How did you enter the 25fps value? Unless you do it yourself (e.g. from GUI), the encoded fps value doesn't matter for DGPulldown.

[zambuka42]

i didn't know that there was a cl DGpulldown, I'm using the gui.

[Alex_ander]

Well, try one more thing (if 25 ->29.97 checkbox doesn't work for some reason): check 'custom' and type input/output values manually, then open the result in GSpot.

[zambuka42]

you think there may be a problem with the gui passing the proper parameters? I'll give it a shot, but i'm re-encoding it for the 10th time right now.

[Alex_ander]

Maybe some companion file in DGPulldown directory is missing? I can't remember any bug using it. It should always give fps you type/check to the output video (despite the actual input fps).

[manono]

Hi Alex_ander,

GSpot always gives the wrong "base" framerate for these things. It always says 23.976fps, even if it was pulled down from 25fps. You can't rely on the GSpot information

[Alex_ander]

Hi manono,
just noticed Jagabo already had mentioned that GSpot effect. Never noticed this since I mainly used DGPulldown for 23.976 ->25 where 23.976 for 'pics/s' is correct. So it only checks for the presence of flagging and writes 23.976 if discovered. The difference in duration numbers on GSpot caps comes exactly from assuming 23.976 instead of 25. And what duration would it show for the same video after multiplexing it with original audio?

[jagabo]

With full file scanning enabled Gspot reports the running time by dividing the number of frames (really number of pics by its terminology) by the pics/s rate. Since it gets the pics/s rate wrong (23.976 instead of 25) the running time is wrong.

If you turn off full file scanning it just reports bizarre numbers for everything.