1080p 25fps (PAL) to 1080p NTSC?

[digitalfreaknyc]

Here's a question about rendering a file that starts at, effectively, 25fps (PAL) 1080p to NTSC. What's the best way to present a smooth looking final product? I'm using TMPGENC Video Mastering Works 5. Should I use 29.97? 23.976?

[KarMa]

If there is a large chunk of progressive material at 29.97fps, then it's better to have duplicate frames than dropping frames. So 29.97fps for the entire thing. And maybe telecine the 25fps parts to 29.97fps, if your software supports such things.

[poisondeathray]

Usually a PAL slowdown would be done. Everything is just slowed down to 23.976, so duration is longer. Audio is slowed down too (+/- pitch shift) .

[LigH.de]

Why do you believe that you have to convert it at all, in times of TV sets which adapt automatically to all usual frame rates?

Every kind of norm conversion will hurt the quality of at least the vide or the audio. But modern TVs play them all without conversions.

[digitalfreaknyc]

Why do you believe that you have to convert it at all, in times of TV sets which adapt automatically to all usual frame rates?

Every kind of norm conversion will hurt the quality of at least the vide or the audio. But modern TVs play them all without conversions.

I'm burning to blu-ray. Has to be NTSC.

If there is a large chunk of progressive material at 29.97fps, then it's better to have duplicate frames than dropping frames. So 29.97fps for the entire thing. And maybe telecine the 25fps parts to 29.97fps, if your software supports such things.

There's no "part." It's one file that is 25fps. My apologies for my wording.

Usually a PAL slowdown would be done. Everything is just slowed down to 23.976, so duration is longer. Audio is slowed down too (+/- pitch shift) .

Doesn't need to be slowed down because it's video sourced material. It's not film. There is no speed-up to begin with.

So in TMPGENC, when I change the framerate to 29.97, it changes progressive to interlaced, unless I perform a 2:2 pulldown. Is that correct?

[poisondeathray]

Usually a PAL slowdown would be done. Everything is just slowed down to 23.976, so duration is longer. Audio is slowed down too (+/- pitch shift) .

Doesn't need to be slowed down because it's video sourced material. It's not film. There is no speed-up to begin with.

So in TMPGENC, when I change the framerate to 29.97, it changes progressive to interlaced, unless I perform a 2:2 pulldown. Is that correct?

Slow down is used because it's better than the alternative(s) .

Think of how you are making up 25 => 29.97 frames. Usually a combination of frames , or blended frames are inserted. That makes playback no longer smooth because you have a non regular cadence - you get little jerks in the motion. Also for BD, 1920x1080p29.97 isn't officially supported. It's encoded "interlaced" PAFF , or MBAFF. Native progressive at 1920x1080 frame dimensions is supported at 24p and 23.976p. With 24p, or 23.976p, you keep the original frames, nothing inserted or dropped, so playback is smooth (assuming the original was ok to begin with of course)

There are other ways to re-time using optical flow (in between frames are generated) , but it can be very problematic with nasty artifacts. It's typically only used for special shots with lots of manual tweaking, not an entire production

I don't know what TMPGEnc is actually doing, I just know there is no "smooth" way to get from 25 to 29.97 , or without lots of artifacting

[digitalfreaknyc]

Usually a PAL slowdown would be done. Everything is just slowed down to 23.976, so duration is longer. Audio is slowed down too (+/- pitch shift) .

Doesn't need to be slowed down because it's video sourced material. It's not film. There is no speed-up to begin with.

So in TMPGENC, when I change the framerate to 29.97, it changes progressive to interlaced, unless I perform a 2:2 pulldown. Is that correct?

Slow down is used because it's better than the alternative(s) .

My understanding is that the slow-down is wanted because it was originally sped-up. Why would you slow something down to an unnatural level?

[poisondeathray]

My understanding is that the slow-down is wanted because it was originally sped-up. Why would you slow something down to an unnatural level?

Yes. It's more commonly the other way around. There are more productions originating in North America/ Hollywood, it's a larger market, then sped up for 50Hz regions like the UK. To get back the original - you slow it back down.

Do you see this is the reverse situation? You have 50Hz produced (UK) video intended for 60Hz areas (e.g. North America)

Blame the "unnaturalness" on the engineers and world standards. You're doing this to make it work with a certain standard

[digitalfreaknyc]

My understanding is that the slow-down is wanted because it was originally sped-up. Why would you slow something down to an unnatural level?

Yes. It's more commonly the other way around. There are more productions originating in North America/ Hollywood, it's a larger market, then sped up for 50Hz regions like the UK. To get back the original - you slow it back down.

Do you see this is the reverse situation? You have 50Hz produced (UK) video intended for 60Hz areas (e.g. North America)

Blame the "unnaturalness" on the engineers and world standards. You're doing this to make it work with a certain standard

No I completely understand the need or interest in a change in speed to get it back to the original. However, in this case, it is 25fps video which is the same "tempo" as it originated, just a different frame-rate.

I'm just trying to get what I want accomplished in the best way possible.

Also, TMPGENC doesn't change the speed when changing the frame rate. That's a total aside that doesn't apply here.

[poisondeathray]

No I completely understand the need or interest in a change in speed to get it back to the original. However, in this case, it is 25fps video which is the same "tempo" as it originated, just a different frame-rate.

Yes, and do you understand why it was changed in the first place? To conform to a different standard

I'm just trying to get what I want accomplished in the best way possible.

Also, TMPGENC doesn't change the speed when changing the frame rate. That's a total aside that doesn't apply here.

If the FPS changes 25=>29.97 , but duration doesn't change, this means you have inserted frames. Within the same timeframe , you add 4.99 frames every second. Thus you get little jerks in playback because of duplicate frames every 6th frame. Some programs try to "smooth" it by inserting a blended frame instead of a pure duplicate, but then you get "strobey" blurry jerky playback.

Now if you had an evenly distributed number, that would playback smoothly. For example 25 => 50 is easy because you just insert a duplicate frame after every frame. It's a regular pattern and they are "evenly spaced" apart. There is no jerky cadence. Thus you get smooth playback (well as smooth as the original) . Do you see those numbers 25 and 29.97 don't work very well ? A simple speed up doesn't work there because it's too far apart 19.88% - not only is the visual speed too different, the audio is too far part as well. In contrast, 25 and 23.976 is a lot closer and acceptable 4.27%. That is why "slowdown" is usually the lesser of evils. There are more "pros" than "cons". But go ahead and try it out. You asked for "smooth playback", and that's how you get smooth playback. There is no way 25=>29.97 will give you smooth playback under most situations, or if you use optical flow you will have lots of artifacting most likely. You might prefer doing it one way or another for some reason, or there might be some other details you haven't addressed, so do some mini tests and see for yourself

[KarMa]

I have a clip from a NTSC source, but is truly a PAL source. When bobbed (deinterlaced), you get 59.94fps with 25 unique fps. There is no field blending, which I see done in these situations, something that I'm not really fond of.

The attachment thing glitched on me so you'll have to click on the link. The sample was cut out of a longer program so the first second's GOP is a bit damaged. Nothing but clean fields in my sample.

https://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=36338&stc=1&d=1459294178

Edit: Looks like TFM() can field match my source just fine so it can be IVTC. How a Bluray player would deal with it (deinterlace vs IVTC), I don't know.

[poisondeathray]

I have a clip from a NTSC source, but is truly a PAL source. When bobbed (deinterlaced), you get 59.94fps with 25 unique fps. There is no field blending, which I see done in these situations, something that I'm not really fond of.
The attachment thing glitched on me so you'll have to click on the link. The sample was cut out of a longer program so the first second's GOP is a bit damaged. Nothing but clean fields in my sample.

https://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=36338&stc=1&d=1459294178

Edit: Looks like TFM() can field match my source just fine so it can be IVTC. How a Bluray player would deal with it (deinterlace vs IVTC), I don't know.

Yes, this is 3:2:3:2:2 - this is a not too common (but not obscure either) delivery method for 25p for NTSC regions

The "pros" are the duration is the same, no slowdown. It's suitable for audio oriented pieces, maybe a concert or something

The "negatives" are it's not quite as smooth, and it's "interlaced", on many setups you lose 1/2 the vertical resolution (but some setups support 3:2:3:2:2 cadence detection and field match properly), the encoding quality will be worse (progressive encoding will be better than PAFF, or MBAFF at a given bitrate). Native progressive such as with the slowdown method will give full resolution on all setups.

[KarMa]

It also works the other way around. I have programs that started as NTSC material, but were then broken down into fields and then put back together into an interlaced PAL video. Meaning that some of the original NTSC progressive frames were represented by a single field on the PAL version. It obviously hurt the resolution and there was no easy option for IVTCing back to NTSC besides bob-deinterlacing. But it kept the fluid motion, the original tempo, and the audio was untouched.

[poisondeathray]

Pros/cons to any method. Best is no conversion, but it's not an option for his scenario.

There are various patterns, even more obscure. Sometimes you got to wonder if people go out of their way to do something different. I would be wary of using obscure cadences because of potential playback issues (it's hardware dependent, varies by unit) . You can look at various published AV tests for equipment - typically a bunch of cadences are tested (obviously 3:2, but 3:2:3:2:2 is a fairly common one for the tests) . Ballpark estimate is maybe <50% support it properly. In reality it's probably a lot lower, because reviews don't reflect the number of actual units sold. There is probably a larger bias towards less expensive models in terms of consumer purchases, and mainly the cheaper models do not support other cadences. It's not mandated in the BD specs , so you can cut corners or add value depending on how you look at it from a manufacturer standpoint. But 24pN and 23.976pN is universally supported, even in "PAL 50Hz" models - because they are stipulated in the BD specs

[digitalfreaknyc]

No I completely understand the need or interest in a change in speed to get it back to the original. However, in this case, it is 25fps video which is the same "tempo" as it originated, just a different frame-rate.

Yes, and do you understand why it was changed in the first place? To conform to a different standard

I'm just trying to get what I want accomplished in the best way possible.

Also, TMPGENC doesn't change the speed when changing the frame rate. That's a total aside that doesn't apply here.

If the FPS changes 25=>29.97 , but duration doesn't change, this means you have inserted frames. Within the same timeframe , you add 4.99 frames every second. Thus you get little jerks in playback because of duplicate frames every 6th frame. Some programs try to "smooth" it by inserting a blended frame instead of a pure duplicate, but then you get "strobey" blurry jerky playback.

Now if you had an evenly distributed number, that would playback smoothly. For example 25 => 50 is easy because you just insert a duplicate frame after every frame. It's a regular pattern and they are "evenly spaced" apart. There is no jerky cadence. Thus you get smooth playback (well as smooth as the original) . Do you see those numbers 25 and 29.97 don't work very well ? A simple speed up doesn't work there because it's too far apart 19.88% - not only is the visual speed too different, the audio is too far part as well. In contrast, 25 and 23.976 is a lot closer and acceptable 4.27%. That is why "slowdown" is usually the lesser of evils. There are more "pros" than "cons". But go ahead and try it out. You asked for "smooth playback", and that's how you get smooth playback. There is no way 25=>29.97 will give you smooth playback under most situations, or if you use optical flow you will have lots of artifacting most likely. You might prefer doing it one way or another for some reason, or there might be some other details you haven't addressed, so do some mini tests and see for yourself

Yep. I get all that. I understand all of it. However, I'm not slowing it down. Full stop. Not happening. That's not an acceptable alternative.
But, again, EVEN IF IT WERE, TMPGENC doesn't do it that way. No slowing down. It just changes the frame rate.
So I'm going with 29.97.

[poisondeathray]

Sure - there are times when you can't, or don't want to change the speed for various reasons

At 1920x1080 29.97 for BD, it has to be encoded or flagged interlaced . It cannot be native progressive. "Flagged "interlaced can cause many problems with authoring tools and some players. So likely you are going to be converting it to interlaced. Likely that's what TMPGEnc is doing a straight 25p to 29.97i (59.94 fields/s) conversion. You DON'T want to use the 23.976 option in TMPGEnc if the duration is unchanged. Because that would mean it's dropping 1 frame per second. This is very noticable. It looks like a cyclical glitch. So if your question was 29.97 or 23.976 in TMPGEnc only - you really don't have any options. Choose 29.97

[dellsam34]

Have you thought about creating a region free Blu-ray disc, It should work with any region BD player, I have never created one myself but I have a commercial region free disc from France that worked on my US Blu-ray player.

[digitalfreaknyc]

Sure - there are times when you can't, or don't want to change the speed for various reasons

At 1920x1080 29.97 for BD, it has to be encoded or flagged interlaced . It cannot be native progressive. "Flagged "interlaced can cause many problems with authoring tools and some players. So likely you are going to be converting it to interlaced. Likely that's what TMPGEnc is doing a straight 25p to 29.97i (59.94 fields/s) conversion. You DON'T want to use the 23.976 option in TMPGEnc if the duration is unchanged. Because that would mean it's dropping 1 frame per second. This is very noticable. It looks like a cyclical glitch. So if your question was 29.97 or 23.976 in TMPGEnc only - you really don't have any options. Choose 29.97

I'm not sure what you're talking about but the Hauppauge always records 1080p at 29.97, for the most part. And, right now, I'm encoding with progressive 29.97 on TMPGENC. I didn't want to go from progressive to interlaced.

[poisondeathray]

One last thing to make sure of :

Make sure that TMPGEnc isn't BLENDING the conversion. If it does it cleanly with intact fields duplicated, it will look ok (it will look very good in players that field match, it will look lower resolution in players that deinterlace). BUT if it does a blend conversion instead - it will be a blurry/strobey mess. For example , most NLE's usually have blending on by default. Make sure you disable blending if you can. Or if you export a small test segment with motion someone can check for you what it's doing.

[poisondeathray]

Sure - there are times when you can't, or don't want to change the speed for various reasons

At 1920x1080 29.97 for BD, it has to be encoded or flagged interlaced . It cannot be native progressive. "Flagged "interlaced can cause many problems with authoring tools and some players. So likely you are going to be converting it to interlaced. Likely that's what TMPGEnc is doing a straight 25p to 29.97i (59.94 fields/s) conversion. You DON'T want to use the 23.976 option in TMPGEnc if the duration is unchanged. Because that would mean it's dropping 1 frame per second. This is very noticable. It looks like a cyclical glitch. So if your question was 29.97 or 23.976 in TMPGEnc only - you really don't have any options. Choose 29.97

I'm not sure what you're talking about but the Hauppauge always records 1080p at 29.97, for the most part. And, right now, I'm encoding with progressive 29.97 on TMPGENC. I didn't want to go from progressive to interlaced.

I'm talking about blu-ray compatibility. 1920x1080p29.97 isn't compatible for BD

[digitalfreaknyc]

Sure - there are times when you can't, or don't want to change the speed for various reasons

At 1920x1080 29.97 for BD, it has to be encoded or flagged interlaced . It cannot be native progressive. "Flagged "interlaced can cause many problems with authoring tools and some players. So likely you are going to be converting it to interlaced. Likely that's what TMPGEnc is doing a straight 25p to 29.97i (59.94 fields/s) conversion. You DON'T want to use the 23.976 option in TMPGEnc if the duration is unchanged. Because that would mean it's dropping 1 frame per second. This is very noticable. It looks like a cyclical glitch. So if your question was 29.97 or 23.976 in TMPGEnc only - you really don't have any options. Choose 29.97

I'm not sure what you're talking about but the Hauppauge always records 1080p at 29.97, for the most part. And, right now, I'm encoding with progressive 29.97 on TMPGENC. I didn't want to go from progressive to interlaced.

I'm talking about blu-ray compatibility. 1920x1080p29.97 isn't compatible for BD

They play back on all the players I've tried.

[poisondeathray]

Sure - there are times when you can't, or don't want to change the speed for various reasons

At 1920x1080 29.97 for BD, it has to be encoded or flagged interlaced . It cannot be native progressive. "Flagged "interlaced can cause many problems with authoring tools and some players. So likely you are going to be converting it to interlaced. Likely that's what TMPGEnc is doing a straight 25p to 29.97i (59.94 fields/s) conversion. You DON'T want to use the 23.976 option in TMPGEnc if the duration is unchanged. Because that would mean it's dropping 1 frame per second. This is very noticable. It looks like a cyclical glitch. So if your question was 29.97 or 23.976 in TMPGEnc only - you really don't have any options. Choose 29.97

I'm not sure what you're talking about but the Hauppauge always records 1080p at 29.97, for the most part. And, right now, I'm encoding with progressive 29.97 on TMPGENC. I didn't want to go from progressive to interlaced.

I'm talking about blu-ray compatibility. 1920x1080p29.97 isn't compatible for BD

They play back on all the players I've tried.

1920x1080p29.97 is not compatible. Many newer players can playback non compliant spec video. They can even playback things like MKV container. It's not blu-ray compatible. It will fail every BD check, fail every strict authoring tool

1920x1080p29.97 content has to be encoded interlaced (ie. PAFF), or MBAFF (which is slightly better) . So you would have to convert 25p to 29.97p and encode PAFF or MBAFF, or you can convert it to 59.94 fields/s, such as that 3:2:3:2:2 discussion above, or the slowdown to 24pN (native progressive)

[digitalfreaknyc]

1920x1080p29.97 content has to be encoded interlaced (ie. PAFF), or MBAFF (which is slightly better) . So you would have to convert 25p to 29.97p and encode PAFF or MBAFF, or you can convert it to 59.94 fields/s, such as that 3:2:3:2:2 discussion above, or the slowdown to 24pN (native progressive)

Look, you can argue with me until you're blue in the face. If it plays in my player, it works.
I use TMPGENC to encode, when I'm not using the Hauppauge to directly record. I've burned hundreds of discs. It may not be in spec but, tbh, I don't care about that. All I care about is being able to play it back.
And, btw, they play back on my PS3 from 2006.

[poisondeathray]

1920x1080p29.97 content has to be encoded interlaced (ie. PAFF), or MBAFF (which is slightly better) . So you would have to convert 25p to 29.97p and encode PAFF or MBAFF, or you can convert it to 59.94 fields/s, such as that 3:2:3:2:2 discussion above, or the slowdown to 24pN (native progressive)

Look, you can argue with me until you're blue in the face. If it plays in my player, it works.
I use TMPGENC to encode, when I'm not using the Hauppauge to directly record. I've burned hundreds of discs. It may not be in spec but, tbh, I don't care about that. All I care about is being able to play it back.

I'm just providing facts. Sure, it works in your player an maybe a few others. But it's not BD compatible according to BD specs. 100% for certain. It will fail BD verification 100% for certain. It's up to you what you want to do with the facts.

I would double check, because if you selected a "BD" profile in TMPGEnc at 1920x1080, 29.97 , it's actually probably using MBAFF, not progressive. You probably don't care as long as it plays. If it's encoding progressive, the program need a major overhaul

[digitalfreaknyc]

1920x1080p29.97 content has to be encoded interlaced (ie. PAFF), or MBAFF (which is slightly better) . So you would have to convert 25p to 29.97p and encode PAFF or MBAFF, or you can convert it to 59.94 fields/s, such as that 3:2:3:2:2 discussion above, or the slowdown to 24pN (native progressive)

Look, you can argue with me until you're blue in the face. If it plays in my player, it works.
I use TMPGENC to encode, when I'm not using the Hauppauge to directly record. I've burned hundreds of discs. It may not be in spec but, tbh, I don't care about that. All I care about is being able to play it back.

I'm just providing facts. Sure, it works in your player an maybe a few others. But it's not BD compatible according to BD specs. 100% for certain. It will fail BD verification 100% for certain. It's up to you what you want to do with the facts.

I would double check, because if you selected a "BD" profile in TMPGEnc at 1920x1080, 29.97 , it's actually probably using MBAFF, not progressive. You probably don't care as long as it plays. If it's encoding progressive, the program need a major overhaul

I have absolutely no idea what it's using. I just tell it what to do and it does it. And, yes, it's absolutely Blu-ray profile.

And it's most certainly more than "a few others." I have many players...and I also sell discs that I make. I've never had a complaint.

[poisondeathray]

It's using 2:2 pulldown (as it says in that screenshot) . 2:2 pulldown just means it's outputting a 59.94 interlaced fields/s signal. If it's soft pulldown, it's progressive encoding, progressive content, just flags are used to make it compatible. This is better for encoding efficiency. If it's hard pulldown, it's either fields (PAFF), or macroblock adaptive (MBAFF). Those are less efficient. Recall I said you can use fake interlace. x264 (which you are using) can use the --fake-interlace flag and encode progressive, but flag interlaced. However --fake-interlace can cause problems with some authoring programs and some BD players, so it's typically not used that often in production

Open up a video with mediainfo (view=>text) what does it say ?

Native progressive (no pulldown) is always the best because it's always treated as progressive 100% of the time, and not deinterlaced. With various pulldown patterns, there is a risk of deinterlacing (degraded picture, jaggy edges, artifacts). Unfortunately , 1920x1080p 29.97 isn't supported for native progressive for BD

[poisondeathray]

I'll attempt to clarify, but it might be more confusing Sorry in advance.

Content can be progressive or interlaced. Encoding can be progressive or interlaced. Content and encoding are separate and independent categories. (Native progressive usually implies progressive content as well, but it's not necessarily the case)

"Native progressive" encoding means no pulldown. 1920x1080 at 29.97 is not supported for native progressive by BD ie "29.97pN" isn't supported

Pulldown patterns are used to repeat fields to output an interlaced signal. This is done for compatiblity purposes with various equipment. Because 1920x1080 at 29.97 requires a 59.94 fields/s interlaced signal according to BD specs. Similarly, In "PAL" land 1920x1080 25pN (native) isn't supported for BD. It requires a 50 fields/s interlaced signal.

"Soft" pulldown means flags are used to repeat fields. This is preferable because the encoding is progressive (higher quality, more efficient) . "Hard" pulldown means the repeat fields are physically encoded into the bitstream. This results in lower quality because you're wasting bits on physically encoded repeated fields, and both PAFF and MBAFF are less efficient in the first place than progressive encoding

Equipment reviews will often run various pulldown cadence tests. Here are a few just example so you know what we're talking about, but you can find them anywhere
http://www.audioholics.com/blu-ray-and-dvd-player-reviews/oppo-dv-983h/video-measureme...-viewing-tests
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/ps4-201312173519.htm
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/xbox-review-201312013475.htm

PASS means the cadence is handled properly. FAIL means it's not handled properly and deinterlaced (in simple terms you basically lose 1/2 vertical resolution). Note FAIL doesn't necessarily mean it won't play. It just means it's played at low quality at best, or doesn't play at worst

2:2 is quite common and should pass everywhere theoretically - but it fails in some e.g. PS4 is terrible for everything, the old oppo surprisingly failed

3:2:3:2:2 was the one discussed above, fail in the PS4 and xbox one, but pass in the old oppo

Native progressive means it will pass everywhere because there is no room for mistaking a cadence (there is no pulldown). So full resolution in every player. That's one of the big reasons why people "like" the slowdown method and it's the most common. 24p is 24pN in BD (native progressive). That's the highest native progressive framerate at 1920x1080 supported by BD

[dellsam34]

Creating region free Blu-ray disc not an option for your customers?

[digitalfreaknyc]

Creating region free Blu-ray disc not an option for your customers?

Region coding and framerate are two totally different things

[dellsam34]

Creating region free Blu-ray disc not an option for your customers?

Region coding and framerate are two totally different things

Maybe for DVD, But for HD Blu-ray the region coding is exactly the difference in frame rate and that's all what differs a US Blu-ray disc from a European Blu-ray disc, Frame rate only, Off course we all know the raisons behind region coding but the files inside every disc are all 1080x1920 with different frame rates. What's your raison behind converting from a European standard to a US standard, Isn't it compatibility with Blu-ray players, If so why the hassle of messing up the frame rate when there is a way to make the disc playable on every player in the world.