how to interlace video in avisynth?

[FelipeArchives]

Hello, I've been capturing VHS tapes and I want to keep them in MPEG interlaced, I want to know if is possible to resize a video (for removing dot crawl) then interlace back? and encode to MPEG with xmedia encode, thank you

[davexnet]

Did you try Avisynth's Checkmate?
This can be run while the video is still interlaced

http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Checkmate

[jagabo]

With (smart) bobbed video:

SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()

For 23.976p:

ChangeFPS(60000,1001)
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()

Though for 23.976p you should encode progressive with pulldown flags for better quality.

[FelipeArchives]

Did you try Avisynth's Checkmate?
This can be run while the video is still interlaced

http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Checkmate

I can keep it 25fps for archiving and if later I want to restore them, convert to 50fps?

[FelipeArchives]

With (smart) bobbed video:

SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()

For 23.976p:

ChangeFPS(60000,1001)
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()

Though for 23.976p you should encode progressive with pulldown flags for better quality.

If later I want restore the footage, I will cant make it 50 fps?

[jagabo]

You can encode MPEG 2 at 50 fps progressive. But it's not DVD compatible -- if that's what you're looking for. And if you don't need DVD compatibility why use and ancient codec like MPEG 2? There are much better choices now.

[FelipeArchives]

You can encode MPEG 2 at 50 fps progressive. But it's not DVD compatible -- if that's what you're looking for. And if you don't need DVD compatibility why use and ancient codec like MPEG 2? There are much better choices now.

which one you recommend me? I want to preserve the best quality for maybe future restoration, I tried h264 with avisynth to xmedia enconde, it do a very good work

[jagabo]

You should capture with a fast lossless codec (like huffyuv) and archive that for future restoration. The files will be large (about 35 GB/hr). If you use a lossy codec you will lose fine detail and create compression artifacts -- that's not good for restoration.

[FelipeArchives]

You should capture with a fast lossless codec (like huffyuv) and archive that for future restoration. The files will be large (about 35 GB/hr). If you use a lossy codec you will lose fine detail and create compression artifacts -- that's not good for restoration.

I cant keep these files its like 400 tapes, so I want to preserve them lossy codec but the best one

[manono]

The better the quality, the larger the file size. Apple's ProRes is lossy but top quality and is designed for editing. Perhaps the 'best' mainstream codec is h.264. It has a lossless setting but slightly lossy settings are available. It's not really designed for editing, though. You'll get different opinions as to "best". That might depend of the file sizes you want for your archived videos.

[FelipeArchives]

The better the quality, the larger the file size. Apple's ProRes is lossy but top quality and is designed for editing. Perhaps the 'best' mainstream codec is h.264. It has a lossless setting but slightly lossy settings are available. It's not really designed for editing, though. You'll get different opinions as to "best". That might depend of the file sizes you want for your archived videos.

I would like 6-9GB as maximun for 80-120 minutes, so h.264? which are the best setting for xmedia encode?

[davexnet]

The better the quality, the larger the file size. Apple's ProRes is lossy but top quality and is designed for editing. Perhaps the 'best' mainstream codec is h.264. It has a lossless setting but slightly lossy settings are available. It's not really designed for editing, though. You'll get different opinions as to "best". That might depend of the file sizes you want for your archived videos.

I would like 6-9GB as maximun for 80-120 minutes, so h.264? which are the best setting for xmedia encode?

Xmedia encode uses the same x264 as all the other GUI's.
The settings are the same as you would normally see - you pick a preset and a quality factor (CRF)

Mpeg-2 to AVC seems poor, better to capture as HuffyUV 422 chroma (or Lagarith or UT codec) then convert to
something else latter. Depends on the capabilities of your capture flow.
Are you capturing at typical SD (720x480 or 720x576)

[jagabo]

It's a mistake but for interlaced VHS caps this should get you in the size/bitrate range your are looking for:

--preset veryfast
--crf 15
--keyint 1
--tff or --bff, whichever is appropriate for your source

If you can't capture directly with these settings then capture lossless and encode after.

[pm-s]

You should capture with a fast lossless codec (like huffyuv) and archive that for future restoration. The files will be large (about 35 GB/hr). If you use a lossy codec you will lose fine detail and create compression artifacts -- that's not good for restoration.

I cant keep these files its like 400 tapes, so I want to preserve them lossy codec but the best one

h264 at high settings

[cliveontoast]

better to capture as HuffyUV 422 chroma (or Lagarith or UT codec) then convert to
something else latter.

This is what I've done. Recorded 20 VHS tapes in 2012 with Huffyuv going to 2.5TB of HDD

This year 2022, converting them to
h265 interlaced - to maintain as best I can, the original pixels
h264 progressive - to playback chromecast

Check out https://video.stackexchange.com/a/35611/39113 for my ffmpeg x264 and x265 methods.

[davexnet]

better to capture as HuffyUV 422 chroma (or Lagarith or UT codec) then convert to
something else latter.

This is what I've done. Recorded 20 VHS tapes in 2012 with Huffyuv going to 2.5TB of HDD

This year 2022, converting them to
h265 interlaced - to maintain as best I can, the original pixels
h264 progressive - to playback chromecast

Check out https://video.stackexchange.com/a/35611/39113 for my ffmpeg x264 and x265 methods.

Nevermind