Did the company that transfered my laserdiscs do a good job?

[HitTheRoad]

A company specialised in video and film transfers, transfered two of my laserdiscs to DV.
I'm not sure if I'm happy with the way this was done. There are some speckles due to laserdisc rot. I can live with that. But through most of the film ugly horizontal lines appear.
Is this caused by laser rot? Are the lines originally printed on the laser disc? Or was it the company that did a lousy job?

By the way, there are also color artefacts (in this black & white movie). Is this normal? Or should the movielab have filtered those out?

[jagabo]

Laserdics is an interlaced medium like all standard definition TV. So comb artifacts are normal. When played correctly (and assuming the video was prepared correctly) you won't see them. But since you resized the frame in your screenshot we can't tell if the problems in the picture are from your resizing or in the file. And yes, color "rainbow" artifacts are normal in caps of black and white material. Should they have filtered it out? Did you ask for it to be filtered out? Are there color sections (studio logos, etc.) that you would not want reduced to black and white?

A short video sample (that has not been reencoded) that shows the issues would be more elucidating.

[Baldrick]

See also www.100fps.com for interlacing issues.

But as jagabo mentions we need short sample from the dv. Use for example makesample to cut a shorter clip.

[HitTheRoad]

Thank you for your quick response!

I'm aware of laserdisc being an interlaced medium. But to me these "comb artefacts" don't look normal.

I didn't ask the filmlab to filter the "rainbow" artefacts out, but I thought I didn't have to. And yes there are color sections at te beginning of the laser discs, but I don't care if they are reduced to black and white.

Anyway, I'm uploading a sample now from the DV to both Videohelp and YouTube. This may take some time. YouTube indicates 33 minutes.

[jagabo]

We don't need the Youtube version, they will resize and reencode. Just upload the DV AVI to this forum.

[HitTheRoad]

Jagabo, I uploaded to YouTube in case uploading to VideoHelp didn't work. I've never uploaded a video file to VideoHelp before. Should a progress indicator show up, or something? The only thing I see is a small yellow text bar "Uploading Files(s) - Please Wait." But things look pretty static, so I thought maybe it didn't work.

[Baldrick]

Nope. You wont see any progress bar. If you have a huge file it will take some minutes.

You could also use http://files.videohelp.com . It has a progress bar.

Or use other file hosting sites like www.mediafire.com

[jagabo]

In any case, the color cast and rainbow artifacts can easily be removed by converting to greyscale. Just about every video editor has that ability. Presumably you will be doing something with these videos like putting them on DVD so you can perform the filtering there. So the remaining questions are whether the interlacing is screwed up and if there are any other issues.

[HitTheRoad]

Uploading didn't succeed. I'm trying again...
Meanwhile in reaction to Jagabo: Won't converting to greyscale or other editing actions degrade the picture and/or sound in other ways?

[Baldrick]

How big is the file? And what extension?

[jman98]

The sound will not be degraded by converting to greyscale.

You will have to find a way to make your upload here work or else get something uploaded to a file sharing service as suggested. Your YouTube upload is useless for anyone here to help you. There are size limits here so maybe your clip is too big. 10-15 seconds is usually enough in a sample clip.

[HitTheRoad]

Here it is:

http://files.videohelp.com/u/203833/sample.dv

Please let me know what you think.

[smrpix]

Looks like improperly resized interlacing -- the bars are uneven widths. Also a frame rate change, looks like 6 good fields followed by 4 mixed ones. That may be simply 24->30 or it may have had a PAL life in there somewhere.

Don't know enough about LD to know what the original would have been.

[jagabo]

I've only seen a few seconds at the beginning of the file (it's still downloading) but I agree, the interlacing is screwed up. The video was improperly resized and the two fields are co-mingled. There's no fixing this.

[HitTheRoad]

Since I don't have a laser disc player I'm not able to check how the original laserdisc looks. But... any idea if there's somethig wrong with the laser disc or with the way it was transfered to DV? Maybe a PAL player was used to play a NTSC disc? It must be a NTSC disc. It's fabricated in the US.

[jagabo]

Since I don't have a laser disc player I'm not able to check how the original laserdisc looks. But... any idea if there's somethig wrong with the laser disc or with the way it was transfered to DV?

There is no way a commercial laserdisc would ever be released with this problem. Whoever made the video resized the frame for some reason (and didn't know what he was doing).

Maybe a PAL player was used to play a NTSC disc? It must be a NTSC disc. It's fabricated in the US.

Otherwise it appears to be normal 3:2 pulldown of a film source.

[HitTheRoad]

Thanks very much for your information. I will talk this over with the movielab. If they can tell me what they did wrong, I will let you guys know.

[jagabo]

How did you prepare the sample? Is it possible you screwed it up?

[HitTheRoad]

I didn't prepare anything. The original has exactly the same defect (when played from the external drive the filmlab gave me) as the sample I uploaded.

[dphirschler]

This isn't normal interlacing. Looks like they scaled it for some odd reason. Here is one of the fields.


Darryl

[vhelp]

so, you are not in NTSC area. PAL, i guess.

what is the title of this source ?
and is it from a movie ?
that will tell us if this is an NTSC (720x480/30i or PAL (720x576/25i) or a conversion from an original.

however, i agree with everyone else, that source interlace is screwed up due to an additional conversion somewhere. probably was a 576/25i and they resized it down to 480/30i. i don't even know why this would be done since you live in a PAL region.

[lordsmurf]

No, they did a $hit job, and you should either

(1) get refunded.
(2) they need to redo it

That's terrible. Whoever did that is a video amateur. Not a pro.

Please let me know who that was.

[HitTheRoad]

I have to apologize to you guys. I misinformed you. Like Jagabo suspected, it was I who screwed up the sample.

To make a sample I fed the original file to MPEG Streamclip. I then selected a film segment and pushed the "export to DV" button. Since the original file is a DVC wrapped in a .mov container, I thought I would get the same DVC, but without the .mov container. I know now I didn't get the same DVC. MPEG Streamclip converted the original PAL DVC to a NTSC DVC!

I don't know why this happened. But could this have to do with a mistake the videolab made? I asked them to convert my NTSC laserdiscs to DV NTSC, since I thought it's probably best to maintain the native format (although I live in a Pal region). In stead of this the filmlab converted the NTSC laserdiscs to a PAL DVC.

This is a sample of the original file:

http://files.videohelp.com/u/203833/original%20laserdisc%20caputure%20file.mov

I just checked. It's PAL DVC like the complete original file.

[Cornucopia]

Another example of MPEGStreamclip screwing things up. Even if you "helped it along" by not knowing what you had and what it was going to end up being.

But if you asked them (the studio) to maintain NTSC, they should have done that, or told you they couldn't do that!

Scott

[jagabo]

So now the question is why does the video have a PAL frame size but NTSC frame rate. Maybe the laserdisc was PAL and he kept the superior frame size, but decided you needed NTSC frame rate (23.976 fps progressive with hard 3:2 pulldown) to play it?

Other than that, the black level is too high, there is some chroma noise, and lots of spots. A tracking problem causes the frame to jump around frame 160. But most of that can be fixed without causing much damage to the video. What is your final destination? DVD? MP4/MKV file?

A quick cleanup attached. NTSC film frame rate and DVD frame size.

[lordsmurf]

Converting NTSC to PAL?

I repeat...

No, they did a $hit job, and you should either

(1) get refunded.
(2) they need to redo it

That's terrible. Whoever did that is a video amateur. Not a pro.

Please let me know who that was.

[HitTheRoad]

Whoever did that is a video amateur. Not a pro. Please let me know who that was.

It's a Europe based Dutch company. I don't want to name and blame. I first want to give him the opportunity to redo the job.

Another example of MPEGStreamclip screwing things up.

I edited other DV's without any problem. Could it be things went wrong this time because an NTSC laserdisc was transfered to DV PAL?

A quick cleanup attached. NTSC film frame rate and DVD frame size.

That's amazing! The video looks way better. The speckles (laser disc rot?) have disappeared. The picture looks sharper.

What is your final destination? DVD? MP4/MKV file?

Since all Media Players can handle DV I thought I would keep things DV. However I'd like to chop the DV up, in order to be able to play each musical performance seperately.
By converting DV to MPEG2 (DVD) the picture loses quality, isn't it?

Other than that, the black level is too high, there is some chroma noise, and lots of spots. A tracking problem causes the frame to jump around frame 160. But most of that can be fixed without causing much damage to the video.

Do you recommend the videolab does a new capture? Or does it merely have to cleanup the picture the way you did? Can the black level, chroma noise and spots be fixed during the capturing of the laserdisc? Or can this only be done after the capturing of the laserdisc?

I uploaded another sample from another laserdisc capture (done by the same filmlab). It's from a Japanese NTSC laserdisc. As you can see the aspect ratio is widescreen, but there are black bars all around. I therefore asked to get rid of the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. But they are still there:

http://files.videohelp.com/u/203833/Ventures%20sample.mov

[jagabo]

A quick cleanup attached. NTSC film frame rate and DVD frame size.

That's amazing! The video looks way better. The speckles (laser disc rot?) have disappeared. The picture looks sharper.

Yes, I adjusted levels and gamma, forced greyscale, sharpened a bit, used a spot remover (it missed a few), replaced a few jumpy frames, inverse telecined back to film frames, and resized the frame to NTSC standard 720x480.

What is your final destination? DVD? MP4/MKV file?

Since all Media Players can handle DV I thought I would keep things DV.

Only software players on computers. Standalone media players, Blu-ray/DVD players and TVs that can play media files -- I've never seen or heard of one that can play DV.

By converting DV to MPEG2 (DVD) the picture loses quality, isn't it?

Generally, yes. But since the video has other problems that need addressing you're probably going to reencode anyway. MPEG 2 at high bitrates (8000 to 9000 kbps for DVD) won't lose too much.

Other than that, the black level is too high, there is some chroma noise, and lots of spots. A tracking problem causes the frame to jump around frame 160. But most of that can be fixed without causing much damage to the video.

Do you recommend the videolab does a new capture? Or does it merely have to cleanup the picture the way you did? Can the black level, chroma noise and spots be fixed during the capturing of the laserdisc? Or can this only be done after the capturing of the laserdisc?

You can fixed much of what's wrong with your current file. But they should at least capture your NTSC disc as NTSC DV, not some weird NTSC/PAL hybrid (upscaling interlaced video from 720x480 to 720x576 causes some artifacts). They should probably get the black level corrected during capture too. I wouldn't expect them to remove spots and fix the jumping frames unless you're paying extra for that.

I uploaded another sample from another laserdisc capture (done by the same filmlab). It's from a Japanese NTSC laserdisc. As you can see the aspect ratio is widescreen, but there are black bars all around. I therefore asked to get rid of the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. But they are still there:

That's a 2.35:1 source encoded in a 4:3 display aspect ratio frame. The black bars above and below the picture are on the laserdisc. But the darker black bars at the left and right are added by your player to fill your 16:9 screen. It's not realistic for you to expect them to deliver DV with no borders top and bottom. DV only supports two display aspect ratios: 4:3 and 16:9. Since the film source was wider than both of those the top and bottom must have black borders to fill out the frame. Unless you zoom and crop the frame (in which case you'll lose the left and right edged of the picture. Zoomed and cropped to 16:9:



But this should be done after IVTC to progressive film frames, not while it's interlaced.

[HitTheRoad]

That's a 2.35:1 source encoded in a 4:3 display aspect ratio frame. The black bars above and below the picture are on the laserdisc. But the darker black bars at the left and right are added by your player to fill your 16:9 screen. It's not realistic for you to expect them to deliver DV with no borders top and bottom. DV only supports two display aspect ratios: 4:3 and 16:9. Since the film source was wider than both of those the top and bottom must have black borders to fill out the frame. Unless you zoom and crop the frame (in which case you'll lose the left and right edged of the picture.

I understand it wouldn't have been realistic to expect them to deliver DV with no borders top and bottom. But couldn't they've made a capture like this:



If they'd done it this way there would have been no need for my player to add black bars at the left and right to fill my 16:9 screen. And in that case I would have had more picture and less black bars.
In fact this is what I have asked them to do. But maybe it isn't possible to do this during capture?

[jagabo]

They could provide a 16:9 DAR DV file like you've pictured. But that requires that they crop part of the black borders and resize vertically. Since they are scaling interlaced frames using a simple algorithm (separate fields, resize, and reinterlace fields) they are creating nasty artifacts at sharp horizontal edges. Since this is a film source it would be better to inverse telecine back to progressive film frames, upscale, then reinterlace (if necessary). If it was me, and I wanted DV, I'd have them deliver a 4:3 NTSC DV -- that's closest to what's on the laserdisc. Then I'd do the filtering myself.

The issue for you is whether you want invest the time to learn the filtering tools and techniques (and cost if you want to use commercial tools) or if you are willing to accept second rate scaling by them.