Converting video frame rates

[hello_hello]

Okay.... so I gave the latest VidCoder beta a spin. If you choose Bob for de-interlacing and set the output framerate to 50fps, it does output a "real" 50fps encode.

But anyway.... VidCoder 1.1.14 beta will definitely de-interlace to 50 fps.

[KyleMadrid]

Thanks, hello_hello. I will give it a go now. If you like, I can upload a sample of the finished product when I'm done, and perhaps you can judge for yourself whether or not I've encoded to a proper 50fps.

Thanks again, you've been very helpful

[hello_hello]

No worries. I edited out a lot of my previous post as I think I got some of what I said about VidCoder's bob de-interlacing wrong, except for the part where I said it will de-interlace to 50fps. That was correct at least. This is the output which seems to result from the following combinations of bob de-interlacing and output frame rate:

Bob + Same As Source + Variable frame rate = 50fps.
Bob + Same As Source + Constant frame rate = 25fps.

If you select either 50fps or 25fps as the output, what you select is what you'll get regardless of the variable/constant frame rate setting.

Personally I'd select Bob + 50fps + Constant frame rate, for a 50fps de-interlaced output. I'd not use the variable frame rate setting unless I knew for sure the source video has different frame rates and I wanted to keep it that way. It generally only applies to NTSC DVDs which can sometimes be a mixture of 23.976 and 29.970, but for PAL it'll always be a constant frame rate. Same PAL video may be a mixture of progressive and interlaced but generally most/all of it is one or the other, so I'd stick with keeping the frame rate constant. I don't know how likely using the variable frame rate setting would be to cause playback problems with some hardware players, but there doesn't seem much point in taking a chance.

PS. If you want a high quality output, don't use anything other than the VidCoder/HandBrake High Profile preset and use a CRF value somewhere between 18 and 22. Forget bitrates.
Vidcoder also has a couple of options under the video tab which HandBrake doesn't yet, such as the ability to select an x264 speed preset and tuning. Select the appropriate tuning if you like, and the slowest speed preset you can stand. The default of medium is fine, but a slower preset may increase the quality a little for a given CRF value. If you're in a hurry though, just leave it on medium.
The speed preset automatically changes x264s advanced options to give you a balance of quality/speed. Ideally when you change the x264 speed preset, the appropriate settings under the Advanced tab should change accordingly, but that doesn't seem to happen with Vidcoder. Have I mentioned MeGUI yet?

[KyleMadrid]

ok, thanks. I just encoded a small part of the original video doing exactly what you said and there is definitely a noticeable difference in smoothness. It looks very nice.

I said before that I was content with 25fps and being able to do a proper 50fps encode would just be a nice bonus, but now that I've actually done it and seen a noticeable difference, I think I will do this for all my encodes of football (soccer) matches from now on.

Oh, and I know I said I would provide a sample of the finished product but the sample is is still quite large in size, so it might take a while to upload and my upload speed isn't the best. Wish I had the new NBN here where I live.

What about you, is it in your area yet?

[jagabo]

VidCoder's bob de-interlacing

How good is it? Simple bob like Bob() in AviSynth? Something better like Yadif(mode=1) in AviSynth? QTGMC()?

[hello_hello]

VidCoder's bob de-interlacing

How good is it? Simple bob like Bob() in AviSynth? Something better like Yadif(mode=1) in AviSynth? QTGMC()?

From the log file:
[12:10:26] + filters
[12:10:26] + Deinterlace (ffmpeg or yadif/mcdeint) (15)

It doesn't seem to tell you what actually happened, just what might happen, but when I compared a small encode using VidCoder's Bob de-interlacing and Yadif+Bob with AVISynth, the output looked pretty much identical.

[jagabo]

when I compared a small encode using VidCoder's Bob de-interlacing and Yadif+Bob with AVISynth, the output looked pretty much identical.

Thanks for the details.

[hello_hello]

Oh, and I know I said I would provide a sample of the finished product but the sample is is still quite large in size, so it might take a while to upload and my upload speed isn't the best. Wish I had the new NBN here where I live.

What about you, is it in your area yet?

I wish!
I'm in Narre Warren, and unfortunately about as far away from an exchange as you can get, so the most stable connection I can manage is ADSL (not ADSL2) and it's fairly slow. And there's a few computers in this house with a few users so when we're all online it sometimes slows to a crawl.

I've had cable for the last ten years as I've always lived closer to the city, until recently, and while the cable speed here isn't anything to get excited about, it's definitely a big step down to ADSL when you're about 4kms from an exchange.

I gather even if the NBN has reached your area it's still pretty expensive, not like the virtually unlimited downloads you get for a decent price on ADSL now.... more like the good old days when Telstra were promising the wonders of broadband speed and then robbed you blind if you had the audacity to use it. Maybe by the time the NBN gets here, whenever that'll happen (I haven't looked at their site for quite a while), it'll be more reasonably priced. I hope so....

[KyleMadrid]

Oh, and I know I said I would provide a sample of the finished product but the sample is is still quite large in size, so it might take a while to upload and my upload speed isn't the best. Wish I had the new NBN here where I live.

What about you, is it in your area yet?

I wish!
I'm in Narre Warren, and unfortunately about as far away from an exchange as you can get, so the most stable connection I can manage is ADSL (not ADSL2) and it's fairly slow. And there's a few computers in this house with a few users so when we're all online it sometimes slows to a crawl.

I've had cable for the last ten years as I've always lived closer to the city, until recently, and while the cable speed here isn't anything to get excited about, it's definitely a big step down to ADSL when you're about 4kms from an exchange.

I gather even if the NBN has reached your area it's still pretty expensive, not like the virtually unlimited downloads you get for a decent price on ADSL now.... more like the good old days when Telstra were promising the wonders of broadband speed and then robbed you blind if you had the audacity to use it. Maybe by the time the NBN gets here, whenever that'll happen (I haven't looked at their site for quite a while), it'll be more reasonably priced. I hope so....

Well, I live in a suburb called Albion Park, and we don't have it yet but Kiama apparently does, and it's not too far from where I live, only about a 20 minute drive. But I doubt we will get it any time soon.

I'm pretty sure we have ADSL2+ (I'm not the one paying for the internet in my household so not 100% sure). But I do know that our maximu download speed is 800kbps and upload maximum is 40kbps... Wish I lived in Europe...

[hello_hello]

I'm pretty sure we have ADSL2+ (I'm not the one paying for the internet in my household so not 100% sure). But I do know that our maximu download speed is 800kbps and upload maximum is 40kbps... Wish I lived in Europe...

kb/s or kB/s?
I don't know what our "official" speed is but I think we get about 200kB/s, or maybe 250kB/s on a good day. Well I'm the only one using the internet at the moment and my torrent program peaked at about 210kB/s. And upload speed.... I try not to think about it.

Recently I spent a week house sitting for a friend and her ADSL2 connection was just pure luxury compared to what I'm used to here. My biggest problem is not speed, just the stability of the connection. I pretty much can't download anything unless it's a torrent because invariably the connection will drop for a second or two and I've got to start again..... and again......
I probably should look at installing some sort of download manager.

Edit: I just looked, and iinet advertise their maximum speeds as being roughly 8000kb/s (or 1000kB/s) for ADSL and 20,000kb/s (or 2500kB/s) for ADSL2+. I think the last cable connection I had was speed limited to about 15,000kb/s. At least when I first got it. I think Optus bumped it up to 24,000kb/s at one stage to compete with ADSL2+.

If you meant 800kB/s and that's the speed you achieve, then you're getting reasonable speed if you're on ADSL, and about 4x the speed I do!

[KyleMadrid]

I'm pretty sure we have ADSL2+ (I'm not the one paying for the internet in my household so not 100% sure). But I do know that our maximu download speed is 800kbps and upload maximum is 40kbps... Wish I lived in Europe...

kb/s or kB/s?
I don't know what our "official" speed is but I think we get about 200kB/s, or maybe 250kB/s on a good day. Well I'm the only one using the internet at the moment and my torrent program peaked at about 210kB/s. And upload speed.... I try not to think about it.

Recently I spent a week house sitting for a friend and her ADSL2 connection was just pure luxury compared to what I'm used to here. My biggest problem is not speed, just the stability of the connection. I pretty much can't download anything unless it's a torrent because invariably the connection will drop for a second or two and I've got to start again..... and again......
I probably should look at installing some sort of download manager.

Edit: I just looked, and iinet advertise their maximum speeds as being roughly 8000kb/s (or 1000kB/s) for ADSL and 20,000kb/s (or 2500kB/s) for ADSL2+. I think the last cable connection I had was speed limited to about 15,000kb/s. At least when I first got it. I think Optus bumped it up to 24,000kb/s at one stage to compete with ADSL2+.

If you meant 800kB/s and that's the speed you achieve, then you're getting reasonable speed if you're on ADSL, and about 4x the speed I do!

sorry, kB/s.. 800 kB/s is my max for downloading and 40 kB/s for uploads. I feel sorry for you with that connection... I wouldn't be able to survive with a connection like that. I download almost every day.

[hello_hello]

sorry, kB/s.. 800 kB/s is my max for downloading and 40 kB/s for uploads. I feel sorry for you with that connection... I wouldn't be able to survive with a connection like that. I download almost every day.

I've got a PC running 24/7 doing just that. I've got to speed limit the torrent program to 150kB/s downloading, otherwise it's like being on dialup getting a web page to open, and it's one file at a time. If someone else wants to download something I try to get them to let me do it, so that way we've not got multiple PCs trying to download at the same time. It's slow, but it gets there. On the bright side.... I can't download fast enough to ever exceed the maximum download limit per month, so I don't need to worry about that.

And I cheat a little. My ex doesn't do a hell of a lot of downloading and she's got a fast connection, so every so often I email her a list of links, and then get the files from her when I see her.

[KyleMadrid]

so every so often I email her a list of links, and then get the files from her when I see her.

Yeah, that's a good idea. Up until about 9 months ago I had a limit of 25GB/month, but now I've got 200GB/month and, well, I couldn't live without it now. For example... I just finished downloading a 30GB torrent 2 days ago, and it took me abut 2 days to download with a decent speed, although I never reached my max. But if I did that with 25GB/month, haha well, it obviously just would not happen.

[hello_hello]

Damn! You prompted me to visit the NBN site and look up the construction in our area. When I typed in our address:
"The NBN is coming to your place; however construction hasn't commenced in your area as yet."

There's new estates popping up to the north and south of us which have construction under-way.... that pisses me off.... because we're already here we have to wait longer. I guess it's easier to put it into new areas than to replace the existing copper wiring, or pointless using copper wiring only to have to rip it all up again, and because where I am it's all underground maybe that'd make it harder too.

The nearest suburb for which I could find anything more specific was Dandenong, and I suspect we'll get it around the same time construction starts there, as it's fairly close and the nearest "main suburb".
Fibre Construction to commence within three years - we will commence construction from Sep 2014 in phases with last construction scheduled to commence in Sep 2015.

So if I'm correct, I guess it's lucky I haven't been holding my breath in anticipation. Looks like we might be on the list of the last places to get it.

[KyleMadrid]

Damn! You prompted me to visit the NBN site and look up the construction in our area. When I typed in our address:
"The NBN is coming to your place; however construction hasn't commenced in your area as yet."

There's new estates popping up to the north and south of us which have construction under-way.... that pisses me off.... because we're already here we have to wait longer. I guess it's easier to put it into new areas than to replace the existing copper wiring, or pointless using copper wiring only to have to rip it all up again, and because where I am it's all underground maybe that'd make it harder too.

The nearest suburb for which I could find anything more specific was Dandenong, and I suspect we'll get it around the same time construction starts there, as it's fairly close and the nearest "main suburb".
Fibre Construction to commence within three years - we will commence construction from Sep 2014 in phases with last construction scheduled to commence in Sep 2015.

So if I'm correct, I guess it's lucky I haven't been holding my breath in anticipation. Looks like we might be on the list of the last places to get it.

Oh man... I really feel sorry for you, honestly. That sucks. Slow internet is just one of those things that can really irritate people. But what more can I say really, other than, we live in Australia... EVERYTHING is slow in Australia. It takes me 3 hours to get to Sydney by train, whereas it only takes 1 and a half hours by car... We are so far beind the rest of the world...

[hello_hello]

A big county with a small population I guess..... the price you pay for having lots of space.

I haven't used public transport in so long I wouldn't even know how to buy a train ticket these days. I was watching a documentary the other day which mentioned some high speed train-line in China. No wheels.... it uses magnetic levitation and has a theoretical maximum speed of around 500kms per hour. However the train line isn't long enough for that so it only runs at an average speed of about 250kms per hour.

Could you imagine a train line like that here running from one end of the country to the other? We don't even seem to be able to manage a high speed line with trains running on wheels.

[KyleMadrid]

Wow, that's incredible. The trains here in Australia are so, so old. I hate using them. Maybe one day we will start to slowly catch up to the rest of the world...

trains in Australia are also late to arrive at their destination far too often. I heard that in China, or maybe Japan, if you're train is late by even a minute, you get some sort of ticket, or slip, that you can show to your boss when you arrive at work, haha. Good idea I think.