interlaced and progressive in same video. how to make only progressive.

[OmniShadow]

sorry if this is too long to read =p
I do gameplay recordings. I use a Dazzle DVC100 (white) with s-video and Virtualdub to record.
I use the x264vfw codec on loseless, preset="faster", and Zero Latency is checked.
I don't use any filters while recording, and have only increased the sharp level from 2 to 4.
while reviewing footage to see what I wanted to use, I noticed that parts of the video are interlaced, and others are progressive
I am using VLC to watch, and have seen that the deinterlace mode is off. so it's not the player doing it,plus it would look like crap if it were the player. here are examples attached.

they are both from the same video, and about 10 min apart. I used an frame of high motion for both and interlacing can clearly be seen in one example, while the other is progressive.

so I figure that if it does some of the video progressive, the video is considered progressive if taken into a video editing program (sony vegas)
so how can I make it completely progressive when recording?

[jagabo]

Apply VirtualDub's deinterlacing filter while capturing.

[OmniShadow]

yea, I've tried all that before. it does one of 3 things. white specks on static images. the blend ghost. or color bleeding which is like the blend ghost, only slightly less noticeable but it reduces the color what ever is in motion. plus it makes me frame drop. I have tried multiple deinterlace filters from the smart deinterlace to something called Musken. the second screen is from the same video as the one above it, but for some unknown reason its progressive, as if I used a capture card that records in 720p, but the dazzle, as far as I know only outputs interlaced video. is this just some weird fluke?

[OmniShadow]

what Im trying to get at is. I only use an S-video cable with a standard TV and Wii. which cannot in any way send a progressive signal to the dazzle. YET im somehow recording parts of video as progressive. I just want to figure out what is causing this to happen, and how to make it permanent, as it doesn't need any deinterlacing, which makes the video look awful. the screens clearly show the BIG difference.

[manono]

...as it doesn't need any deinterlacing, which makes the video look awful.

Apparently it does, judging by the first picture. What do you plan on doing with the footage? If for something like YouTube, reencode it with a good conditional deinterlacer turned on ('conditional' meaning it only deinterlaces interlaced frames and leaves the rest alone).

...so I figure that if it does some of the video progressive, the video is considered progressive if taken into a video editing program (sony vegas)

No, it's perfectly normal for video to be encoded as interlaced even if 2 fields making up a frame are taken from the same point in time (meaning it doesn't display interlacing).

[jagabo]

Often when a console can't generate a new frame fast enough it will output the same frame a second time. The Wii may put out the same information in pairs of fields but it is still an interlaced video signal coming out of it. Fields are sent one at a time with standard interlaced sync signaling. Otherwise no TV could display it.

What may be happening is that the capture device is capturing with a different field order than the source device. For example if the Wii sends the top field first, then repeats the same information for the bottom field, and a capture device starts by capturing a top field then adding the bottom field to complete a frame, the frame will look progressive. But if the capture device starts by capturing a bottom field then adds the next top field the frame will look interlaced any time there is motion.

Another possibility is that the capture device sometimes is dropping a field. So it may start out capturing top field then miss a field and continue capturing bottom field first. When another field is missed it will go back to top field first.

After capturing a video try applying VirtualDub's Field Delay filter. Does that remove the comb artifacts from the output pane? Do the parts that appear progressive in the input pane now show comb artifacts in the output pane? If no, the problem is the former. If yes, the latter.

Why don't you upload a short sample that shows the issue you're having.

[OmniShadow]

...as it doesn't need any deinterlacing, which makes the video look awful.

Apparently it does, judging by the first picture. What do you plan on doing with the footage? If for something like YouTube, reencode it with a good conditional deinterlacer turned on ('conditional' meaning it only deinterlaces interlaced frames and leaves the rest alone).

...so I figure that if it does some of the video progressive, the video is considered progressive if taken into a video editing program (sony vegas)

No, it's perfectly normal for video to be encoded as interlaced even if 2 fields making up a frame are taken from the same point in time (meaning it doesn't display interlacing).

when i said it doesn't need deinterlacing, I was talking about the parts that are progressive. its obvious to me that the top screen needs it horribly. and I think I think i worded this wrong. while viewing the video in any player, it has the interlaced parts. and then it will go a whole session (battle) without any interlacing at all. and when imported to sony vegas, in the video properties, it says it is progressive. and what would be a conditional deinterlacer you would recommend?

now @jagabo
I will try that now to see what happens. I will come back with the results soon. thanks to the both of you for the info so far.

[jagabo]

A file can be flagged incorrectly as progressive even though it contains interlaced frames. Or vice versa. So what Vegas (or any other program) reports is of dubious value.

[manono]

...and what would be a conditional deinterlacer you would recommend?

AviSynth's TDeint(Full=False) is good and fast. Something like AviSynth's Vinverse will do the same and, even better, will deinterlace only the parts of the frame in motion, leaving the rest of the frame alone (useful when there's interlaced movement across a static background). However, it's a blend deinterlacer. With only a little bit of interlaced movement it can be quite useful.

[Guest34343]

Vinverse will do the same and, even better, will deinterlace only the parts of the frame in motion, leaving the rest of the frame alone

I'm pretty sure TDeint() does that too.

[OmniShadow]

this is a side-by-side comparison. both are from the same video source. hopefully it's long enough. but as you can see, more than just a single frame is progressive in the right side, and the left side is all kinds of interlaced.

[OmniShadow]

Often when a console can't generate a new frame fast enough it will output the same frame a second time. The Wii may put out the same information in pairs of fields but it is still an interlaced video signal coming out of it. Fields are sent one at a time with standard interlaced sync signaling. Otherwise no TV could display it.

What may be happening is that the capture device is capturing with a different field order than the source device. For example if the Wii sends the top field first, then repeats the same information for the bottom field, and a capture device starts by capturing a top field then adding the bottom field to complete a frame, the frame will look progressive. But if the capture device starts by capturing a bottom field then adds the next top field the frame will look interlaced any time there is motion.

Another possibility is that the capture device sometimes is dropping a field. So it may start out capturing top field then miss a field and continue capturing bottom field first. When another field is missed it will go back to top field first.

After capturing a video try applying VirtualDub's Field Delay filter. Does that remove the comb artifacts from the output pane? Do the parts that appear progressive in the input pane now show comb artifacts in the output pane? If no, the problem is the former. If yes, the latter.
Why don't you upload a short sample that shows the issue you're having.

ok, man. Im glad I came here. the parts that have the comb effect are progressive looking, and the parts that look progressive have the comb effect when the field delay filter is applied. so, with as nice as it looks, is there some way to make the capture card drop a field all the time? it looks much better than deinterlacing or using the discard filter.

[jagabo]

You should have uploaded a trim of the original video without reencoding, a section where it switches from progressive to interlaced or vice versa. But unless you can figure out how to get your capture device to stop dropping fields you can use an AviSynth filter like TFM() to recombine matching fields. It won't touch frames that are already progressive, only fix the interlaced frames.

[OmniShadow]

You should have uploaded a trim of the original video without reencoding, a section where it switches from progressive to interlaced or vice versa. But unless you can figure out how to get your capture device to stop dropping fields you can use an AviSynth filter like TFM() to recombine matching fields. It won't touch frames that are already progressive, only fix the interlaced frames.

ah, I see. ok, I will do the trim then. and since im not all that versed in avisynth, how do i use it. I know it has something to do with scripts, but that's it.

[OmniShadow]

the beginning has interlace, there are a lot of static images, so it's not too noticable. but if you pause in the middle of any movement you'll easily see it.
then at around the :27/:28 mark in the video, it goes into the "progressive" look.

[manono]

I'm pretty sure TDeint() does that too.

Yes, and thank you for the correction. Not sure what I was thinking there.

[OmniShadow]

it wouldn't upload due to the fact that it's over a GB.

[jagabo]

the beginning has interlace, there are a lot of static images, so it's not too noticable. but if you pause in the middle of any movement you'll easily see it.
then at around the :27/:28 mark in the video, it goes into the "progressive" look.

In that clip starts out as true interlaced video, 60 different fields per second. After the fade to white (about 11 seconds in) it switches to 30 fps progressive with fields out of phase so the frames look interlaced. At about 27 seconds in the picture freezes for a dozen frames and when it starts moving again the field are in phase and the frames look progressive. There are other places where the video freezes too. And places where there are sudden jumps. Some of those might be from the console itself (while it's loading data). But some of the problems may indicate capture problems. You need to work those out first.

You also have a problem where the frames are interalced but the video is encoded progressive. That causes problems with the chroma channels. Resulting in misplaced colors (look closely at the scrolling red frames in the early part of the video).

You're capturing with h.264 encoding? That's probably the problem. You need to capture with a much less CPU intensive codec to prevent dropping frames. Codecs like huffyuv are usually used in an AVI container. Sometimes MPEG 2 in an MPG container. If you insist on x264vfw, at least try the ultrafast preset. Once you have a clean caps you convert to your final compressed format. Clean caps will probably eliminate your field phase problem.

The true interlaced portions can't be field matched back to progressive frames because there are no matching pairs of fields. TFM() will end up deinterlacing them as best it can but motions won't be smooth. TMF() will work well for the later parts of the clip where the field phase changes. If you want to keep the smoothness of the early part of the video you could use a smart bob deinterlacer (doubling your frame rate to 60 fps) like QTGMC() in AviSynth.

[aedipuss]

did i miss where you said what your capture device is?

[OmniShadow]

In that clip starts out as true interlaced video, 60 different fields per second. After the fade to white (about 11 seconds in) it switches to 30 fps progressive with fields out of phase so the frames look interlaced. At about 27 seconds in the picture freezes for a dozen frames and when it starts moving again the field are in phase and the frames look progressive. There are other places where the video freezes too. And places where there are sudden jumps. Some of those might be from the console itself (while it's loading data). But some of the problems may indicate capture problems. You need to work those out first.

You also have a problem where the frames are interalced but the video is encoded progressive. That causes problems with the chroma channels. Resulting in misplaced colors (look closely at the scrolling red frames in the early part of the video).

You're capturing with h.264 encoding? That's probably the problem. You need to capture with a much less CPU intensive codec to prevent dropping frames. Codecs like huffyuv are usually used in an AVI container. Sometimes MPEG 2 in an MPG container. If you insist on x264vfw, at least try the ultrafast preset. Once you have a clean caps you convert to your final compressed format. Clean caps will probably eliminate your field phase problem.

so it starts as 60fps even though I only recorded at 29.97? is that even possible? now, it's not necessary to use the x264 encoder, but I use the faster setting, and virtualdub shows that Im only using 45 with bursts to 100 of cpu and say, i put it on medium or slow, the cpu usage can go up to 300+%, so I'd say that it's not too cpu intensive. any lossless codec will do. and what is the difference in a field and a frame? I guess that a field is one half of a frame and a frame is the fields combined. because virtualdub doesn't indicate frame drops when recording with the settings I have listed in the first post, but if I change from fast to slow or slower, then it will say that there are frame drops, as well as listing the cpu usage as taking up 300%, which im guessing is 3 of the 4 cores of my processor.

[OmniShadow]

did i miss where you said what your capture device is?

yes, it is in my first post. It's in the first line. I use a Dazzle DVC 100 (white) and use Virtualdub to capture.

[jagabo]

so it starts as 60fps even though I only recorded at 29.97? is that even possible?

Each frame of video can contain two fields. Each field is composed of every other scan line of the frame, one in all the even numbered scan lines, one in all the odd ones. When interlaced video is viewed each of those fields is to be viewed separately and consecutively (that's why you don't see the comb artifacts on TV). So 30 frames per second is seen as 60 fields per second, 60 different motion increments.

now, it's not necessary to use the x264 encoder, but I use the faster setting, and virtualdub shows that Im only using 45 with bursts to 100 of cpu

In my experience, once you get over 50 percent CPU usage you start dropping frames. VirtualDub may not detect the dropped frames. The content of your video clearly shows that something is going wrong.

[OmniShadow]

In my experience, once you get over 50 percent CPU usage you start dropping frames. VirtualDub may not detect the dropped frames. The content of your video clearly shows that something is going wrong.

I see. well I can attest for one of the stops in the beginning, with the rotating background, that happened on the TV as well from disk loading.
but now as I go through the video, I see little stops in between parts. I have tried using Lagarith and Huffyuv before, and generally had fluctuation between 15-70 as max CUP load. but it never stays a constant high on any codec I use unless it is trying to do a lot of compression on the fly. so now, once I do get the capture card fixed or use a codec that prevents it from field dropping, how can I get the same effect of the progressive input. I have tried so many different deinterlace filters, and all of them look nothing as good as what a field drop did.would I have to do a field delay to do it?

[jagabo]

If you get clean caps you may not have problems with out-of-phase fields. The frames may all look progressive -- except the true interlaced sections.

But to deinterlace or field match in AviSynth... First install AviSynth. TFM() is from an separate author so you have to download it separately. Get the TIVTC package from here:

http://bengal.missouri.edu/~kes25c/

Extract TIVTC.DLL from that archive and put it in AviSynth's plugins folder.

AviSynth is a script based program. You create plain text scripts with an editor like NotePad. Instead of .TXT use the extension .AVS. For your purposes the script will be as simple as:

AviSource("filename.avi")
TFM()

Open that AVS script in VirtualDub as if it was a video file, File -> Open Video File. Your test_1.mp4 after TFM() attached, encoded with the x264 CLI encoder.

[OmniShadow]

If you get clean caps you may not have problems with out-of-phase fields. The frames may all look progressive -- except the true interlaced sections.

But to deinterlace or field match in AviSynth... First install AviSynth. TFM() is from an separate author so you have to download it separately. Get the TIVTC package from here:

http://bengal.missouri.edu/~kes25c/

Extract TIVTC.DLL from that archive and put it in AviSynth's plugins folder.

AviSynth is a script based program. You create plain text scripts with an editor like NotePad. Instead of .TXT use the extension .AVS. For your purposes the script will be as simple as:

AviSource("filename.avi")
TFM()

Open that AVS script in VirtualDub as if it was a video file, File -> Open Video File. Your test_1.mp4 after TFM() attached, encoded with the x264 CLI encoder.

that looks pretty good, I can see there is still interlaced parts in the falling shuriken, so that would be considered true interlaced? I see that it didn't effect the progressive looking parts at all so that's great. I will do a test capture with Huffyuv, and try this avisynth filter. once that's done, I'll get back to you on the results. thanks for all the help so far.

[jagabo]

I can see there is still interlaced parts in the falling shuriken, so that would be considered true interlaced?

Yes, that section is 60 different fields per second. TFM() sometimes misses small details like that. You can try playing around with the different argumnts in TFM(). Also there is another filter called VinVerse() that usually does pretty well at eliminating residual comb artifacts like that.

AviSource("filename.avi")
TFM()
VinVerse()

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/External_filters

But generally, those small low contrast details are hard to deinterlace.

[OmniShadow]

while using Huffyuv, I am getting some audio issues. it slows down and speeds up randomly. would huffyuv multi-thread work better?

if you need to know comp specs, they are
win 7 home premum 64X
6GB ram
2.60GHZ AMD Athlon II
Geforce 9100 Cuda enabled GPU

Virtualdub timing settings are default.

[poisondeathray]

audio issues suggest a capture issue like frame drops

Try ut video codec , it's well multithreaded , faster than huffyuv or x264lossless (any setting)

Capture in 4:2:2 (uly2 for UT) to prevent the chroma issues

If you have another drive, try capturing to the other HDD (capturing to OS drive is ill advised)

Don't do other things when you are capturing (surf, virus scan, etc...)

[jagabo]

Much lesser systems than yours can capture standard definition video with huffyuv without problem. In my experience the multithreaded version isn't necessary. Are you compressing audio while capturing? That's usually a source of problems like you describe.

You can also play around with the sync settings in VirtualDub's capture module. Audio -> Timing... Try "Do not resync...". Also try the other settings until you find something that works. Start with huffyuv and uncompressed audio. Once you get that working perfectly you can try using other video and audio codecs.

And of course, there's all the stuff in the capturing sticky:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/104098-Why-does-your-system-drop-frames

[OmniShadow]

Much lesser systems than yours can capture standard definition video with huffyuv without problem. In my experience the multithreaded version isn't necessary. Are you compressing audio while capturing? That's usually a source of problems like you describe.

You can also play around with the sync settings in VirtualDub's capture module. Audio -> Timing... Try "Do not resync...". Also try the other settings until you find something that works. Start with huffyuv and uncompressed audio. Once you get that working perfectly you can try using other video and audio codecs.

And of course, there's all the stuff in the capturing sticky:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/104098-Why-does-your-system-drop-frames

no, I dont compress audio, just default with it. I'll try messing with the timing settings.