deinterlacing help needed for xvid conversion

[spiritgumm]

I have a dvd of an "arthouse" (amateur) 16mm movie, where the film speed varies in different scenes (for
arty effect). I'm not sure how good the transfer was done since it's half-resolution (352x480). I've
tried different scripts, but what seems okay in one scene might not look as smooth in another scene
with a different film speed. I'm attaching a scene that appears normal film speed.
I initially tried Separatefields & Selecteven, then Yadif, then QTGMC & Selecteven.
VTS_01_1.m2v

[poisondeathray]

Looks like 3:2 pulldown

MPEG2Source()
AssumeBFF()
TFM()
TDecimate()

[spiritgumm]

oh. Guess I was barking up the wrong tree. I'll give it a shot tomorrow- thanks in advance.
How does resizing effect half-resolution? Would mod16 (ie 512X384) make it worse by expanding the width?

[jagabo]

How does resizing effect half-resolution? Would mod16 (ie 512X384) make it worse by expanding the width?

That makes the resolution worse by decreasing the height. I'd enlarge the frame to 640x480 crop the borders, then encode with sufficient bitrate.

[spiritgumm]

How does resizing effect half-resolution? Would mod16 (ie 512X384) make it worse by expanding the width?

That makes the resolution worse by decreasing the height. I'd enlarge the frame to 640x480 crop the borders, then encode with sufficient bitrate.

I mean if you increase when resizing half-res video - 352-> 704 (dvd) or 640 (xvid). Isnt this a no-no, since you're making something out of nothing?

[poisondeathray]

The other option is to encode it as is (352x480) and use the 4:3 xvid flag instead of square pixels. Personally, I would do it jagabo's way

[spiritgumm]

I'm just trying to get an explanation about resizing half-res. I realize resizing any normal dvd video to 512x384 can look worse than 640x480.
My question is about expanding half-res width in general (when resizing). Are we puffing up the pixels with empty space (sort of), which I guess the dvd player or TV does on the fly?

[poisondeathray]

Yes it gets resized to 4:3 during playback

There are pros/cons to either way you do it. The difference is it takes higher bitrate for larger dimensions vs. the quality of scaling. Either you do the resizing or let the player do the resizing

Also, some players might not accept "non square pixel" xvid's but 1:1 is always accepted if encoded using a xvid/home profile settings

[jagabo]

I mean if you increase when resizing half-res video - 352-> 704 (dvd) or 640 (xvid). Isnt this a no-no, since you're making something out of nothing?

It's not a no-no if you use sufficient bitrate and an appropriate resizing filter.

[spiritgumm]

are there particular resizers and bitrate settings appropriate for converting from half-res dvd video? Or do you mean just what's appropriate for the original video and intended conversion?
Speaking of bitrate, I previously settled on the bit-per-pixel method (aiming for a min 0.18 bpp) to calculate a bitrate, but manano didnt think it was wise. Any suggestions for alternatives?

[manono]

are there particular resizers ... appropriate for converting from half-res dvd video?

Maybe the best (and slowest) is Nnedi3:

nnedi3_rpow2(rfactor=2,cshift="lanczosresize",fwidth=704,fheight=Height)

I use it for upscaling VCD to DVD. But I don't really think it makes a whole lot of difference in your case - Lanczos4, Spline36, whatever.

Any suggestions for alternatives?

A 1-pass quality (or quant) based encode.

[spiritgumm]

A 1-pass quality (or quant) based encode.

Instead of calculating a bitrate ahead of time for doing an xvid 2-pass encode? I had read 2-pass was usually the best.

[manono]

I had read 2-pass was usually the best.

Maybe you read it was better than a 1-pass CBR encode? Which wasn't what I suggested.

[jagabo]

Instead of calculating a bitrate ahead of time for doing an xvid 2-pass encode? I had read 2-pass was usually the best.

Look at the videos in this post:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/295672-A-problem-for-video-experts?p=1811057&viewfu...=1#post1811057

Compare the bitrates and bpp.

[spiritgumm]

I've used the default quant 4 for very short videos (trailers) instead of 2 pass. I tried it with this movie, and the results seemed comparable to the 2 pass (although file size was only half the larger file). Both xvids show macroblocking (I think is the term) - I'm wondering if that's partially a result of having to resize the half-res? I used Lanczos4 to resize. Aside from just making a larger file upload, is there a treatment for that?

When doing 1-pass via Vdub, the status window has a "Projected file size" line - is that usually accurate, approximately?

The dvd also had a local TV access channel interview with the director. Looks like combing, but I dont think it's interlaced or telecined (I tried deinterlacing and ivtc). I ended up blending it by resizing it twice- (320,240) followed by (640,480). Here's the original video if anyone can diagnose it - not alot of action, so you have to watch the left guy's hands.
clip.m2v

[jagabo]

Your source video is full of blocky artifacts. Lanczos4 is a sharpening resizer. Blocks in your source will be accentuated. You have to deblock it before resizging and compression. The video also has a problem where the two fields have slightly different intensity. So even after IVTC you seem alternating line artifacts. You can use VInverse() to get rid of those.

The new video is fully interlaced video -- 60 different fields per second. If I cared about quality I'd use QTGMC() and encode at 60 fps: