Seeing interlace lines after exporting from After Effects

[theguy1991]

I got a canon hfr10 camcorder and I shot a video in 60i. The video is 1920x1080 and has no interlace lines. I brought the footage into After Effects and edited it and I exported an H264 mp4 file that is 1920x1080. I selected upper field first in the render settings or whatever its called and the video runs smooth, but I can see interlace lines in the video especially when there is a lot of movement. I want the quality of my edited video to be identical to the original source footage. I'm not sure what to do about the interlace lines. Can anyone help me out?

[poisondeathray]

how are you playing back the original ? what software?

what were your exact render settings? exact comp settings? did you export a 1920x1080i60 format from AE or something else?

I want the quality of my edited video to be identical to the original source footage

Not possible. You are using lossy compression, and have a colorspace conversion in AE to RGB. If you use a high enough bitrate you can minimize the loss, but if you pixel peep, there will still be some losses

You should export uncompressed, then re-encode with another application. The h.264 encoder in AE is 1pass an low quality. If you insist on using AE to encode to the final format, use h.264 blu-ray preset and change 1920x1080, 29.97 fps, upper field first. The other h.264 preset is progressive only

[theguy1991]

I'm used Windows Media Player.
And these are pictures of the settings I was using

[theguy1991]

So.....does anyone know how I can get rid of the lines? Or what the cause was by looking at the pictures above?

[poisondeathray]

You're supposed to have lines if you export it as interlaced. Turn on your deinterlacer in your playback software.

Did you try the instructions above?

What does mediainfo say about your exported file?

[theguy1991]

You're supposed to have lines if you export it as interlaced.

My original video from camcorder was shot in 60i. So wouldn't that mean that its interlaced? I don't see any lines on it.

[poisondeathray]

yes it's interlaced. answer the questions above

what container did you export in? if you didn't use blu-ray .m2ts, it probably won't activate automatic deinterlacing

[theguy1991]

This is what mediainfo said about the original....

General
ID : 0
Complete name : C:\Users\Alex\Videos\Movies\Shootout\Shootout.m2ts
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 415 MiB
Duration : 3mn 32s
Overall bit rate : 16.4 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 18.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Duration : 3mn 31s
Bit rate : 15.5 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.249
Stream size : 390 MiB (94%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Duration : 3mn 32s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Video delay : -67ms
Stream size : 6.47 MiB (2%)

[poisondeathray]

what about the export? I asked about the export

Did you shoot in 60i (or 24p in 60i "cinema" mode)

[theguy1991]

It was shot on the cameras default setting. Which is 60i. Not the 24p option.
I'll put the mediainfo on the export up tomorrow. I can't get to my pc right now.
(I'm on an iPhone right now)
I've been sick and can't focus on hardly anything...

[theguy1991]

My failed export with the lines was an h264 file btw. Is that what u mean by container?

[poisondeathray]

I mean like .m2ts transport stream container, or .mp4 container , or was it a raw avc stream ?

Your original files are in a transport stream, and have the extension .m2ts . The container can have an effect whether or not deinterlacing is activated automatically, other wise you have to activate it manually.

It's still not clear if you exported an interlaced video , or if you deinterlaced it. If you use the suggestions above for I gave for blu-ray , it should work. (or if you do what adobe and I recommend, exporting uncompressed, and then encoding with another encoder later)

[theguy1991]

Uncompressed is when u click lossless and pick uncompressed avi right? Does it remain 1920x1080? And I would choose upper field first to keep it interlaced?
Also I did pick upper field on my failed export which means it's interlaced.Correct?

[poisondeathray]

yes, if all the other settings are the same as your screenshots it should be 1920x1080i60 with uncompressed avi

I don' t know about your failed export, when you render h.264 blu-ray there is a 2nd box where you have to choose upper field first instead of progressive. It's not showing that 2nd box in your screenshots. If you rendered as progressive, what you could be seeing is deinterlace artifacts.

The only way to know for sure is to look at the exported video, and examine the fields

[theguy1991]

Ok. Here is the mediainfo on the failed export. The was from just selecting "h264" and not "h264 bluray", which I am about to try. I'll also do an uncompressed and tell you how it turned out. Looking at the mediainfo below, it says "progressive" by "scan type". Not sure why since I picked upperfield first...


General
Complete name : C:\Users\Alex\Videos\TEST\Shootoutnosfx.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 644 MiB
Duration : 3mn 32s
Overall bit rate : 25.4 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-06-14 04:01:10
Tagged date : UTC 2010-06-14 17:17:07
©TIM : 00;00;00;00

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 3mn 32s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 25.3 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.407
Stream size : 640 MiB (99%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2010-06-14 04:01:10
Tagged date : UTC 2010-06-14 04:01:10
Color primaries : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4, SMPTE RP177
Transfer characteristics : BT.709-5, BT.1361
Matrix coefficients : BT.709-5, BT.1361, IEC 61966-2-4 709, SMPTE RP177

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 3mn 32s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 125 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 204 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Stream size : 3.17 MiB (0%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2010-06-14 04:01:10
Tagged date : UTC 2010-06-14 04:01:10