Deinterlace Conventional Playback vs Stream

[Candive]

I'm starting a new thread based on this one back in 2009 https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/312261-Should-deinterlace-VHS-captured-material

I understand the basic concept. If you are making a DVD and watching the video on a conventional DVD player and TV you leave the video interlaced. If you are streaming the video or watching it on your computer, you de-interlace (or you set your media player such as VLC to de-interlace on the fly).

Here is my scenario. I have a lot of 8mm and Hi8 analogue video which I digitised using a Sony camcorder which is able to play the analogue signal and convert it to digital transferring it via firewire to my computer as DV AVI files. These DV AVI files are interlaced. I do not plan to make DVD's. Rather, I am going to transfer the files to an external hard drive. This hard drive will then be connected to my Blu ray player via usb and I will watch the videos on my Plasma TV. Because the Blu ray does not read DV AVI, I will convert the videos to MP4 using Handbrake. Handbrake can de-interlace the video upon conversion.

So, under this scenario, do I interlace or de-interlace the video? My gut feeling is I leave the files interlaced because the Blu ray player and/or the TV de-interlaces the video on the fly. Am I correct in my assumption?

[LMotlow]

I have a lot of 8mm and Hi8 analogue video which I digitised using a Sony camcorder which is able to play the analogue signal and convert it to digital transferring it via firewire to my computer as DV AVI files.

What a shame. Oh, well, it's done.

It's also also a shame that your BluRay player must be so cheap it can't handle interlaced material. Do you deinterlace everything you play in that machine?

[Candive]

Hi LMotlow,
I'm a newbie to this forum and not an expert in video capture/output but I will try and answer your question. The purpose of the Blu ray player is to act as a conduit to the TV. The TV does not have a USB port, so I plug the hard drive into the Blu ray which does have a usb port. The Blu ray is then connected to the TV via HDMI.

I don't deinterlace anything at the moment. In fact this whole interlace/deinterlace concept is new to me; hence the question. And through the reading of the threads on this forum I'm trying to better educate myself on what is best practice.

Also, if you have an opinion on how to capture 8mm analogue via an alternative/superior process, I would be interested in your suggestion/recommendation. Nothing is ever done. I can easily recapture.

I look forward to your recommendation.

[poisondeathray]

It depends on the specific model.

Most newer BD players that accept USB input and file playback should be ok with interlace if file was encoded and flagged correctly

It's easy enough to run some quick tests - that's what you should do

[Candive]

Thanks poisondeathray,

I'll run some tests

[jagabo]

LMotlow's pessimism about DV capture is exaggerated. DV isn't the absolute best but with most material most people probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it and a lossless capture.

You're BD player probably can play interlaced video properly but Handbrake doesn't really support interlaced encoding. You can force it to encode interlaced by adding "bff" to the x264 extra options field. But it will screw up the chroma channels before the video gets to the encoder. This will blur the colors of the two fields together. Any other filtering done in handbrake will likely screw up interlaced video even more.

[johnmeyer]

I agree with jagabo: there is nothing wrong with digitizing using DV. The problems sometimes attributed to that codec, because of its 4:1:1 colorspace, when dealing with real-world video instead of pathological test cases, are no big deal. It has the advantage that each frame is compressed independently from other frames, so you avoid a whole host of other issue that you get when using a GOP-based codec.

What's more, unlike so many other capture methods which are sometimes difficult to get working without dropped frames, audio sync issues, and more, DV "capture" (it is actually just a file transfer, once converted by the camcorder to DV) is virtually bulletproof. In almost twenty years of transferring DV, 8mm, Hi-8, and all manner of analog video, I simply have had no problems at all.

I highly recommend using DV to capture analog tapes of all types, including S-VHS and Hi-8mm.

[Candive]

Thanks Jagabo and Johnmeyer for your additional input,
Regarding DV capture I have been involved with that specific topic in this thread https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/385988-Hi8-capture-best-quality#post2503032

But regarding this thread about deinterlace/Interlace, I didn't realise the issue with encoding with Handbrake. What I was planning to do was create two MP4 videos. The first with the Handbrake deinterlace setting turned off and the second with deinterlace Yadif setting turned on. I could also create a third test with "bff." to determine if that has an impact.

But if Handbrake doesn't really support interlace encoding; what software would you recommend which does?

[jagabo]

But if Handbrake doesn't really support interlace encoding; what software would you recommend which does?

I use the x264 command line encoder. And AviSynth for any filtering. Usually via a batch file something like:

start /b /low "x264" x264.exe --preset=slow --bff --crf=18 --keyint=50 --sar=10:11 --colormatrix=smpte170m --output %1.mkv %1

[Candive]

I was afraid you were going to say that. I realise many members of this forum use X264 and AviSynth but unfortunately I'm not familiar with the programs at this time. Its on my to do list.

But I can share with you the results of my tests. Using Handbrake, I encoded a video deinterlaced and then the same video with deinterlace turned off (interlaced). As previously stated I stored the files on a hard drive connected to my blu ray which is connected to my TV. It appears that the interlaced video was just passed through to the TV (no deinterlacing taking place) It was very apparent when I paused the video and would see the "comb effect." The video that was deinterlaced by Handbrake did not have this effect. So one may preliminarily conclude that the blu ray and or TV doesn't deinterlace the files streaming from the hard drive.

But playing a commercial DVD on the Blu ray, no combing effect was detected. Also, the hard drive contains all my videos from variety of video cameras I used throughout the years. My old SD camcorder which captured in MPEG-2 is interlaced; but no combing effect. And my current 4K camera films progressive so it doesn't have this problem.

Of course you mentioned that Handbrake has difficulty encoding interlaced and this my be the issue. I would like to try your suggestion of using "bff" in the extra options field. Unfortunately I have never used this field. Would you be kind enough to provide me with the exact syntax to enter.

Thanks again for your help

[sneaker]

/edit: wrong

But if what jagabo said about chroma problems is true then of course it would still be ill-advised to create interlaced video with HandBrake.

[jagabo]

I think HandBrake doesn't understand "bff", only "bff=1" (or "tff=1"). The log will show if it doesn't understand a parameter.

It will also show up in MediaInfo -- you'll MBAFF as the scan type, and "interlaced=bff" in the x264 encoding parameters metadata.

Just using bff in the extra parameters works. Make sure you use only lower case, not BFF or Bff, etc.

[sneaker]

Just using bff in the extra parameters works.

Ok, I tested and you are correct. Sorry for the confusion.

[Candive]

Hi Guys,
I entered bff and also tried bff=1 but in both cases I only get the following error
[Attachment 43862 - Click to enlarge]

If the extra options box is empty, I have no problem encoding. I must be doing something wrong. Any suggestions?

[jagabo]

You're using the "H.264 (x264)" encoder? I don't know if it works for any of the other encoders.

[Candive]

Here is a screen shot
[Attachment 43863 - Click to enlarge]

[jagabo]

Try selecting Constant Frame Rate, Same As Source.

[Candive]

Nope, same issue

I'm running version 1.0.7 (2017040900)

[jagabo]

I have the same version, 64-bit. I can't reproduce your problem. Try closing the preview window?

[Candive]

Mine is 64 bit as well. I think it is the source AVI file I'm using for testing. I tried another source file with bff and the encoding started to work. I went back to the original source file to rerun it but again it failed indicating that there were two errors or cancellations. There shouldn't be any material difference between the two source files since I basically used the same capture methodology. Looking at the error log I found "ERROR: ECMA 167 Volume Recognition failed" Not sure what that means and if it is the cause of the problem. But what I'll do is rerun the tests using a different source file and return with my observations.

Thanks for all your help and especially your patience.

[_Al_]

Could it be avi file type1 vs. type2 problem? What software did you use in your computer to capture it, is there type1 vs. type2 selection? Type1 might not compatible with VFW. Not sure what Handbrake uses to read that avi file.

Edit: ok, you say some of your files worked, so this is not it

[Candive]

Thanks for the suggestion Al
They are all type1 but I can easily convert the file into type2 to see if that fixes the error for that particular clip. Who knows, it might work.

[Candive]

Ok,
I further looked into this problem. Converting the AVI type to 2 didn't help as suspected by Al. But I have found what the problem is. For whatever reason my NTSC files work but my PAL files do not. I'm not sure if anyone can shed light on this issue and it may be a bug within Handbrake.

Regardless, Jagabo indicated that Handbrake had issues generating interlaced files anyway so I'm looking at MeGui to see if it can generate the appropriate interlaced MP4 file.

[jagabo]

PAL DV may be ok in Handbrake. PAL DV is interlaced YUV 4:2:0 whereas NTSC DV is interlaced YUV 4:1:1. Handbrake's conversion 4:1:1 to 4:2:0 for h.264 compression is where the problem happens. If Handbrake's DV decoder outputs 4:2:0 and sends that directly to x264 there will be no mixing of the chroma channels.

[Candive]

So Jagabo clarified that PAL DV doesn't require a YUV conversion so the chroma channels should be ok. That's great but forcing Handbrake to interlace PAL DV with the bff parameter DV doesn't seem to work although jagabo tried but couldn't recreate my problem (thanks for trying). I suspect jagabo was using a NTSC DV file.

I further investigated this weekend. The problem was either my computer, Handbrake or the actual PAL DV file I was using (actually all my PAL DV files). So I loaded a fresh version of Handbrake on another computer (my laptop) and I sourced a completely different PAL DV from another thread.https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/385717-Some-Noob-queries-regarding-AviSynth

jagabo actually helped the op in this thread regarding his issue. House_Sample.avi. Anyway, using this DV PAL sample, I recreated the error message. So I have concluded that Handbrake doesn't encode PAL DV using the bff parameter.

[jagabo]

I was able to convert a few PAL DV AVI files with Handbrake using x264 with the bff flag. I also verified that it doesn't screw up the chroma channels (I disabled all filtering).

[Candive]

Hi jagabo, I just read your post
Thanks for the further testing. Strange I even went back and installed an older version 1.0.2 32 bit version and I get the same error! Would you be so kind as to post your activity log so I can go through it and identify where there are differences?
Thanks