how to convert NTSC 23.976 with 2:3 pulldown -> 29.97 progressive ?

[hydra3333]

I have a few (legal) mpg files where MediaInfo says they are 23.976 with 2:3 Pulldown.
Being in PAL country, I'm not sure what to do with them to make them 29.976 progressive h.264.

Can it be done with ffmpeg, and if so then how ?

Thanks

Sampled_Width                            : 720
Sampled_Height                           : 480
Pixel aspect ratio                       : 1.185
Display aspect ratio                     : 1.778
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 23.976
Frame rate                               : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
FrameRate_Num                            : 24000
FrameRate_Den                            : 1001
Frame count                              : 2
Resolution                               : 8
Resolution                               : 8 bits
Colorimetry                              : 4:2:0
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Scan type                                : Progressive
Scan order                               : 2:3 Pulldown
Scan order                               : 2:3 Pulldown
Interlacement                            : PPF

[jagabo]

Don't apply the pulldown (or apply the pulldown then IVTC) and speed video (and audio) from 23.976 fps to 25 fps.

[hydra3333]

Thanks, I'll google ffmpeg and pulldown and IVTC.
(I'm happy to leave the result as NTCS 29.97).

[TubeBar]

That's a progressive video slowed down to 23.976. The pulldown is just a flag that is optionally used when outputting 480i which is 29.97 interlaced. No need to do anything treat it as progressive and ignore the pulldown it's just a flag in NTSC DVD specs. If you apply the pulldown then you have 480i video and need to deinterlace, it's pointless and degrades the quality. I'd encode the video at 24fps (correct film speed) or leave it as 23.976 progressive.

[hydra3333]

OK, I'll try that, leave it as 23.976 progressive.

Of interest, I now see 2:3 pulldown and its interlacing is described under "2:3" here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down

[TubeBar]

OK, I'll try that, leave it as 23.976 progressive.

Of interest, I now see 2:3 pulldown and its interlacing is described under "2:3" here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_down

Yeah that's the side effect of NTSC Film is 24fps so for PAL they just speed it up to 25fps, the side effect is running 4% to fast and pitch being off. NTSC is another beast w/ the nasty pulldown causing judder and to the trained eye it looks pretty bad. Fortunately your video is not interlaced and does not contain a hard coded (baked in) pulldown. In that case you need to deinterlace PLUS remove the pulldown.

[Bwaak]

23.98 and 24.00 are valid frame rates for HD ready devices in 50 Hz land.

Ah, you have 480p. How do you want to watch them though? I thought that hardware media players don't care, and just convert to 50 Hz or 60 Hz on output.

[hydra3333]

23.98 and 24.00 are valid frame rates for HD ready devices in 50 Hz land.

Ah, you have 480p. How do you want to watch them though? I thought that hardware media players don't care, and just convert to 50 Hz or 60 Hz on output.

I thought I'd pop the results onto a USB thing and plug it into the telly.

I guess I'll have to google ffmpeg and how to ignore pulldown flags and save as 23.976

[TubeBar]

23.98 and 24.00 are valid frame rates for HD ready devices in 50 Hz land.

Ah, you have 480p. How do you want to watch them though? I thought that hardware media players don't care, and just convert to 50 Hz or 60 Hz on output.

They don't and format wise there is no reason to convert unless he can't stream MPEG2 (like AppleTV and Itunes is noted for) and needs to convert to h264, or wants to shrink the size of the file down. Personally since I use AppleTV I have to convert everything to h264 but most people should not have to.

[TubeBar]

23.98 and 24.00 are valid frame rates for HD ready devices in 50 Hz land.

Ah, you have 480p. How do you want to watch them though? I thought that hardware media players don't care, and just convert to 50 Hz or 60 Hz on output.

I thought I'd pop the results onto a USB thing and plug it into the telly.

I guess I'll have to google ffmpeg and how to ignore pulldown flags and save as 23.976

As long as your TV supports MPEG2 you should be good to go. Your TV is not going to apply the pulldown it's progressive display, it will ignore them.

[hydra3333]

ok ta.
filesize counts in this instance, so h.264 @ 23.976 works for me

[jagabo]

Keep in mind that 23.976 fps video displayed on a 50 Hz display will usually deliver two little jerks every second. Or at 60 Hz, 2:3 duplicate judder.

[TubeBar]

ok ta.
filesize counts in this instance, so h.264 @ 23.976 works for me

Since you are re-encoding anyway and based on what jagabo said I'd do h264 @ 24fps. Film speed is 100% correct at 24 anyway, only reason for 23.98 is for NTSC interlaced playback which you don't need or want and trust me you don't want to deal w/ Judder.

Personally I usually encode ALL films at 24fps since it's the correct speed and I am re-encoding anyway, not sure 23.976 matters for me since I am in NTSC land but it technically it is not the correct speed that's all I know.

[jagabo]

Judder will be about the same for 24.000 fps and 23.976 fps videos on 59.94 and 60 Hz displays. The advantage of encoding at 23.976 fps is that he can use the original audio.

[TubeBar]

Judder will be about the same for 24.000 fps and 23.976 fps videos on 59.94 and 60 Hz displays. The advantage of encoding at 23.976 fps is that he can use the original audio.

True, didn't think about audio as no need to re-encode that.

A bit off topic but many times I wind up w/ say iTunes or Amazon downloaded files already heavy compressed w/ h264.I hate the speed issue when it's 25 (23.976 I just leave alone). Forget about incorrectly encoded 29.97p files that's a mess I don't know how to fix or what moron does those. Regardless is there a tool or editor to simple change the speed w/o re-encoding? Isn't speed pretty much variable anyway and a flag more or less?

The audio I know I'd have to re-encode but it's a small price to pay for me.

[jagabo]

Forget about incorrectly encoded 29.97p files that's a mess I don't know how to fix

When from film sources those usually go through 3:2 pulldown to 29.97 interlaced frames per second analog video, then captured and deinterlaced to 29.97 progressive digital frames per second. The result is usually a duplicate every 5th frame, or two blended frames out of every 5. The former can be decimated back to 23.976 fps film frames, usually pretty cleanly. The latter can be deblended back to 23.976 film frames, but not as cleanly. Of course everything on youtube is overcompressed and having to filter and reencode again may further degrade the video.

[TubeBar]

Forget about incorrectly encoded 29.97p files that's a mess I don't know how to fix

When from film sources those usually go through 3:2 pulldown to 29.97 interlaced frames per second analog video, then captured and deinterlaced to 29.97 progressive digital frames per second. The result is usually a duplicate every 5th frame, or two blended frames out of every 5. The former can be decimated back to 23.976 fps film frames, usually pretty cleanly. The latter can be deblended back to 23.976 film frames, but not as cleanly. Of course everything on youtube is overcompressed and having to filter and reencode again may further degrade the video.

I have some content (mainly cartoons) by HB (i.e. original Smurfs series) I bought from iTunes. We know those were made on film but yet WB has them encoded as 29.97 Progressive. How can you fix that? I think some Spongebob are too I have, maybe Spongebob was done at 30 but kind of doubt it. It's incorrect encoding.

My guess is the masters are 29.97 Interlaced 720x480 and whoever is doing the iTunes mp4 encode is setting the output as 29.97 progressive. I can do that in compressor too and results are the same. Bunch of dupplicate frames but nothing is flagged as interlaced, so how could you detect and fix that?

Forget YouTube that's a transcoded mess.

[TubeBar]

Oh I have an Anime movie, the US DVD again is 29.97 Progressive. The BD was fixed to be 23.976 but again how can you fix erroneous encoding like that? You really can't that I know of.

[jagabo]

To remove those with 1 duplicate in every 5 frames you just TDecimate. Those that are blend deinterlaced can be deblended with filters like FixBlendIVTC.

[TubeBar]

To remove those with 1 duplicate in every 5 frames you just TDecimate. Those that are blend deinterlaced can be deblended with filters like FixBlendIVTC.

With ffmpeg? What would be syntax? I'm not an ffmpeg expert but like to fix those that are messed up like that.

[jagabo]

For simple 1 in 5 decimation in ffmpeg use "-vf decimate". The default is 1 in 5. To be more explicit "-vf decimate=cycle=5"

I don't know if there's the equivalent of FixBlendIVTC().

[hydra3333]

I wish this forum had a thumbs-up function on posts, I'd be clicking it a few times along the way to denote thanks.

[TubeBar]

For simple 1 in 5 decimation in ffmpeg use "-vf decimate". The default is 1 in 5. To be more explicit "-vf decimate=cycle=5"

I don't know if there's the equivalent of FixBlendIVTC().

Thanks I really appreciate it. Will be doing some testing and hopefully finally clean up some of those vids.

[TubeBar]

I wish this forum had a thumbs-up function on posts, I'd be clicking it a few times along the way to denote thanks.

Yeah we do need that, be nice to add that feature. You learn a lot on here, lots of helpful people who are experts w/ video. I remember when they started as VCDhelp lol I've been coming here that long...time flies. Back then when DVD-R were expensive everyone wanted to convert them to VCD, uh what terrible format I always hated it (VHS looks better).

[hydra3333]

I still have circa 200 30yo VHS-C cassettes of family starting and growing up, to convert (to DVD).

I ended up buying a cheapie VHS/DVD player which had a VHS-to-DVD recorder built in; press a couple of buttons and off it goes to record a tape to DVD; now to find the motivation ...

Resulting DVD quality is reasonably low, however "good enough" as value-for-money and value-for-time given the source and how many times we would watch it (probably once or twice in a lifetime).

[TubeBar]

I still have circa 200 30yo VHS-C cassettes of family starting and growing up, to convert (to DVD).

I ended up buying a cheapie VHS/DVD player which had a VHS-to-DVD recorder built in; press a couple of buttons and off it goes to record a tape to DVD; now to find the motivation ...

Resulting DVD quality is reasonably low, however "good enough" as value-for-money and value-for-time given the source and how many times we would watch it (probably once or twice in a lifetime).

I have heaps of VHS circa 80's and 90's still not transferred Not to mention lots of cool retro commercials etc. TV recordings. I don't have the time and motivation to do it quite yet. I'm kind of a perfectionist and want best quality. Every time I start to read up on it, I get depressed and move onto other things.

As for fam stuff, true probably never watch it lol

A friend of mine transferred some tapes for me a few years back w/ one of those VHS to DVD recorders. It didn't look bad basically looked like unmastered VHS which I guess there is only so much you can get out of those tapes. Esp the ones recorded on slow 6 hour EP speed to save tape, terrible quality! lol