Star Wars Conversions-Hit me with your best shot...

[Mythos2002]

I still need to buy TmpEng. I have the free version that doesn't allow Mpeg-2. I was wondering how you can do 5-pass VBR. Which version number did you use? Mine only has 2-pass and manual VBR.

Did you put the film on one or two discs? Did you ever find out if there is a large loss of quality by placing the film on one disc?

That's awesome, that you are just about finished. I hope to get started soon. I ordered another 80 gig hard drive which I will format with NTFS and do all of my capturing there. Is it recommended to have Virtual Dub on the same hard drive you are capturing to or is it better if it is on a separate drive? Thanks.

Mythos

[wwaag]

Flaninacup.

I'm confused. From your latest post, I take it that you used Tempgen for your noise filtering and then frameserved to CCE for your 5-pass encode. Is that correct? If so, how did you do it? I have the latest version of Tempgen plus and it allows only a 2-pass VBR. Please clarify. Thanks.

wwaag

[menace]

Well, I am now done In the end, keeping it simple was the best. To summarize:

Captured the widescreen edition laserdiscs (the ones that were cleaned up, but not messed with) in virtualVCR 720x480, huffyuv, 29.97
edited in virtualdub, using direct stream copy for both audio and video, then, joined all three clips together, also in virtualdub (55GB file avg.)
audio and video in sync--no probs

As an aside, i tried using IVTC in virtualdub for the enhanced qaulity and although it looked good, the scenes where virtualdub guessed wrong were apparent and combine this with the fact that i couldn't get an authoring program to recognize 23.976fps with 3:2 pulldowns, it just wasn't worth doing.

I encoded with tmpgenc, 2-pass VBR (5 would have been beautiful!) 29.97fps 4000-4500 avg bitrate 8000 max, default settings otherwise. I used noise reduction and only clipped ESB, due to subtitles, which I didn't want to have to deal with.

Authored with music and background screen shots in ulead movie factory 2 with chapter points every 10 minutes (3 minutes just seemed like too many since I have NEVER walked out on star wars halfway ). Burned image with nero (mostly because I'm making my brother a copy--freeloader!)

Results: I'm happy, quality is good, no blocks, no pixelation, no audio de-synch--sweet

Happy i could help with the laserdisc chapter points--SV-trinity--nice job putting them in writing (its nice to see that not everyone is as lazy as I am). Indiana jones here I come!

[Mythos2002]

That's awesome Menace. I'm getting ready to start capturing since I bought another 80gig drive and formatted it with NTFS. I had a small question. How did you handle the THX Logo and 20th Century Fox? They are in fullscreen. I'm asking because I think you said you cut out the black bars on Empire. Thanks.

Mythos

[MJPollard]

I had a small question. How did you handle the THX Logo and 20th Century Fox? They are in fullscreen. I'm asking because I think you said you cut out the black bars on Empire.

FWIW, when I did my VHS captures, I edited the AVI so that the movie starts with the opening 20th Century Fox fanfare, followed by the Lucasfilm logo. I chopped off the THX logo and the 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment thing, the latter of which I actually did end up using as the "first play" video on the DVD.

[Mythos2002]

I'm sorry. I was mistaken. The logos are letterbox too. I had to experiment with cropping because part of the blue box that surrounds the THX logo was cutoff on the top.

I'm still experimenting with small clips in TMPEng. Does anyone have a concise guide (filters they used, etc.) for Virtual Dub and TMPEng? I did a 30 second clip and TMPEng took 8 minutes. I did 4000 minimum, 4500 average, and 8000 maximum bitrate. I also did 2 pass VBR and the highest quality setting that states it takes the longest time.

As far a Virtual Dub, the only thing I used there was Huffyuv and capped audio at 44,000 Stereo. I always have to convert it later to 48,000 Stereo because it sounds sped up if I capture it that way. If I capture at 44,000 and convert to 48,000, it comes out fine. Thanks.

Mythos

[DJRumpy]

Mythos, I ran into the same problem. The THX logo was 4:3, and the rest was widescreen. Use AVISynth and the Trim command to convert that section to widescreen with the rest. The result looks good.

I'm curious as to why your trying such high minimum bitrate. If your using VBR, then your only reducing the range of bitrate the VBR engine can use to encode with. Try a low setting, like 0. Set your Max to 9000. Set the AVG according to the movie length, using a bitrate calculator. That way you utilize VBR to it's maximum affect.

I can't speak for TMPGenc filters, but I would definately suggest a temporal smoother on low setting, even for the LD version of Star Wars. These older movies have a very grainy appearance, with a lot of ananlog noise in them. I don't know if production methods have just changed that much or what, but I've seen this, even on store bought DVD's. Old movies just look bad

[menace]

For empire, I ended up cutting off the top and bottom of the THX logo--I wasn't really concerned with that enough to go to extra lengths to keep it--its on screen for maybe 10 seconds? As far as filters went i only used the noise filter-I suppose I could have used more, but I wasn't really sure what effects they would have on the picture. The bad thing about the big screen is that it naturally softens the picture compared to a tube type so any grainyness is softened already--i didn't want to mess with it more than I had to--I considered sharpening at the 30 level (i read somewhere that is a good starting opoint) but in the preview window the effect wasn't to my liking. You of course may be completely different and want everything I didn't--thats the beauty of this--you can customize your viewing experience!

[energy80s]

I'm curious as to why your trying such high minimum bitrate. If your using VBR, then your only reducing the range of bitrate the VBR engine can use to encode with. Try a low setting, like 0. Set your Max to 9000. Set the AVG according to the movie length, using a bitrate calculator. That way you utilize VBR to it's maximum affect.

A lot of DVD players don't like bitrates below 2Mbps from DVDRs. I don't like going below that myself as the MPEG2 picture degrades quite a bit. Remember that MPEG1 is for bitrates below 2Mbps and MPEG2 for bitrates above 2Mbps.

[flaninacupboard]

Mythos,
I didn't use TMPGenc for the actual MPEG encoding, just the noise filter. The program i used for the 5 pass VBR was Cinema Craft Encoder (CCE)
As for two discs, with 5 pass i didn't see the need, but the first 2 pass encode i did would have benefited being split across two. if you have the time for four (or more!) passes, then one disc is fine.
Wwag,
i used TMPGenc with the noise filter set on, and saved a .tpr project file. i then opened this in the VFAPI reader (look in tools) which outputs a "fake" .AVI file, which i opened in CCE, and did my encode. if you search for "frame serving to CCE" you'll find a guide that'll take you through it.
Energy,
I've plenty of commercial DVD's where the bitrate drops lower than 2mbps, or is it only an issue with DVD-R's? i've been setting all my encodes with 500 min and 9500 max, so i hope this isn't the case!

I got rid of the THX logo altogether, it just gets in the way of my star wars viewing experience! and anyway, it was outside the clipping for the rest of the movie and my DVD isn't THX certified, so it's kind of a lie. i kept the 20th logo though. i like the way you go from big orchestral sound to the silent "A long time ago" it sets you up nicely for "Dahn! Dahn dahn dahn, dann dann dahnnn dahn dahn dah dah!" damn. i'm going to have that stuck in my head all day now!
I'm writing the subs for New Hope tonight, i'll post them up tomorrow complete with timecodes, useful for PAL users, but you NTSC guys will need to adjust them slightly.

[Mythos2002]

I'm still working away on my project. I envy you guys that are finished and happy with the results. I'm still trying to work out issues with the camera pans and some of the motions not being smooth.

I'm also trying to determine the best Virtual Dub filters and whether it is better to capture without the filters and then run the captures back through Virtual Dub with filters. I have to run the captures back through Virtual Dub anyway to unsample them from 44,000 to 48,000. If I capture directly at 48,000 the audio plays too fast and goes out of synch. If I capture at 44,000 and unsample to 48,000, the audio turns out fine and in synch.

I have AVISynth (sp??), but I haven't used it yet. I'm also going to purchase TMPEng Plus since my trial period expired.

As far as capturing, I've been capturing at 740x480 with Huffyuv 2.1.1 predict median under YUY2 and convert to YUY2 under RGB Compression Method. I also cropped the black bars and leaving it interlaced. I cropped the bars enough to allow the THX logo to be intact.

Should I deinterlace if my goal is to make DVD's for my stand alone DVD Player?

I also encode with TMPEng at 16:9 (525). I chose Non-Interlace for video type and NTSC Film for content. I may try NTSC Video instead of NTSC film. For other settings, I did Mpeg2, 16:9 Display, 29.97 framerate. I also did 2pass VBR with 4000 minumum, 4500 average, and 8000 maximum bitrates. The P & B Picture spoilage settings were grayed out. I don't know what those do. I left Profile & Level alone. Video format NTSC. I also didn't know what to do with VBV buffer size as it was grayed out. Encode mode 3:2 pulldown. YUV Format 4:2:0. DC component precision 9 bits. Motion search precision set on highest quality. I also used progressive, NR at 8 1 12 like Flaninacupboard suggested and included High quality mode. For MPeg setting I did: Non-Interlace (Progressive), Top Field First (Field A), 16:9 525 Line (NTSC), Full Screen(Keep Aspect Ratio). Under that, I choose: Inverse Telecine, Ghost Reduction, Noise Reduction, Deinterlace(None), and 3:2 Pulldown.

Is there anything I'm not doing correctly? I have the NTSC Definitive Collection LD's and using a GForce 4 Ti4200 with 128 megs of DDR for capturing using the S-Video connector. My PC is a 1.6Ghz Athlon XP and I have 512megs of DDR. Thanks.

Well, I finally bought TMPEng Plus. I'm still learning how to use it, but I did find out I wasn't actually activating the filters before. I was putting checks in the boxes, but wasn't double clicking to setup the filters.

I had one other question. Is it better to capture first without filters and then run it back through Virtual Dub with the filters? or Is it better to capture with the filters you want to begin with?

Mythos

[tedkunich]

Great thread here guys

I'm wondering if someone with the SW SE LD box set can help me figure out a problem. Can you check to see if you get some chroma blooming at time index 52.34.09, chapter 31, side 2 of StarWars. On my player (Pioneer DVL-919) I get sudden changes in the color saturation in Lea's face - there are other sections of the movie that do this as well (compactor scene is one). I can single step the frames and see the transition. I noticed this AFTER I completely captured and mastered a DVD with 5.1AC3 and noticed it when I played it on my TV - I thought it was my capture card initially, but I now see it in the original source.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
T

[flaninacupboard]

ted,
haven't checked the timecode, but i have seen the problem you describe. i remember it most vividly in the tatooine scene where r2d2 and c3po argue. as far as i am aware it's a problem with the degraded/remastered special edition stock. not much you can do about it, and i suppose it would have been too much work for them to correct at the time

as promised, from the first frame of the scene where han meets greedo, copy and paste, save as .ssa and use in vdub. they look a lot nicer than my original subs!

!SRT a SSA Conversor, por Feñiz 2.001
Synch Point: Side 1 0m00s
Collisions: Normal
Timer: 100.0000
Style: Default,Arial,24,16777215,16777215,16777215,0,-1,0,2,2,2,20,20,90,0,0
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:01.16,0:00:02.72,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Going somewhere, Solo?
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:7.80,0:00:09.40,Default,NTP,0000,000 0,0000,!Effect,It's too late.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:9.68,0:00:12.04,Default,NTP,0000,000 0,0000,!Effect,You should have paid him when you had the chance.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:12.40,0:00:15.28,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Jabba's put a price on your head so large...
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:15.48,0:00:18.20,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,...every bounty hunter in the galaxy will be looking for you.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:18.68,0:00:20.28,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,I'm lucky I found you first.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:22.84,0:00:26.12,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,If you give it to me, I might forget I found you.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:29.40,0:00:31.04,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Jabba's through with you.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:32.20,0:00:35.76,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,He has no time for smugglers who drop their shipments...
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:35.92,0:00:37.52,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,...at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:41.0,0:00:44.72,Default,NTP,0000,000 0,0000,!Effect,You can tell that to Jabba. He may only take your ship.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:46.92,0:00:48.12,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,That's the idea.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:00:48.52,0:00:52.04,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,I've been looking forward to this for a long time.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:02:37.4,0:02:40.48,Default,NTP,0000,000 0,0000,!Effect,Solo, come out of there, Solo!
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:02:46.68,0:02:48.24,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Have you now.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:02:52.72,0:02:56.60,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Han, my boy, you disappoint me.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:02:57.0,0:02:59.08,Default,NTP,0000,000 0,0000,!Effect,Why haven't you paid me...
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:02:59.16,0:03:01.68,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,and why did you fry poor Greedo?
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:06.72,0:03:09.64,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Han, I can't make exceptions.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:10.16,0:03:12.64,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,What if everyone who smuggled for me...
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:13.0,0:03:15.08,Default,NTP,0000,000 0,0000,!Effect,dropped their cargo at the first sign...
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:15.84,0:03:17.96,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,of an Imperial starship?
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:18.60,0:03:20.08,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,It's not good business.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:32.84,0:03:37.72,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Han, my boy, you're the best.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:38.28,0:03:40.64,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,So, for an extra twenty percent...
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:42.68,0:03:44.20,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,Okay, fifteen percent.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:44.72,0:03:46.36,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,But if you fail me again...
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:46.88,0:03:49.56,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,I'll put a price on your head so big...
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:49.80,0:03:53.32,Default,NTP,0000,00 00,0000,!Effect,You won't be able to go near a civilized system.
Dialogue: Marked=0,0:03:58.0,0:03:58.72,Default,NTP,0000,000 0,0000,!Effect,Come on!

[DJRumpy]

Mythos2002, it should just be telecined, not interlaced (assuming your in NTSC land of course). That is, unless of course, all LD are interlaced. I have no idea. Flaninacuboard?

I would definately look at inverse telecine to restore it to the original 23.976 frames per second. The output looks much better, but you may have to tweak your filter settings, depending on the noise in your capture, to make sure it doesn't miss on detecting the 2:3 pulldown pattern. If it misses, you'll get a noticable 'jump' in the video. After spending long hours playing with various filters, and settings. I definately like the look of an IVTC film, as opposed to leaving it telecined.

I also tried a 2-D filter, spatial, and temporal filtering. The spatial filter left odd 'stepping' on the sky scenes, making a very ugly digital appearance. The 2-D filter, given the poor quality of the source, even at a lower setting, removed too much detail. The temporal filter gave me the best results (3 frame range, 2 radius).

[flaninacupboard]

Well, all LD is interlaced, in as much the player presents field A and then field B, but if the source is progressive (PAL film for instance) then when viewing on a progressive display (such as a PC) the material looks progressive. The film has to be teleclined, but it may have a very funky pattern, especially if it's CAV (active play) because CAV pulldowns are controlled by flags in the first few lines of the signal, so there is no logical reason for the pattern to be set in the same way all through the movie. on top of this, it looks like some of the wipes (and effects like laser blasts!) were fiddled with for LD presentation. certainly on my PAL copies the scenes with wipes are interlaced (i guess they must have re cut the effect using a vision mixer, as opposed to the actual hard wipes, don;t see how else it could -be- interlaced) while all other scenes are purely progressive. this could be your problem, it's possible the films are teleclined in a very strict way to ensure smooth motion in the wipes and effects, so a very good adaptive filter would be needed. the IVTC filter i was really happy with was the one included in [damn i must be getting old or something! i just had to look the name up!!] Dscaler, which you can use in the capture program showshifter. it runs the IVTC in real time so your captured file will be 23.976fps, give this a go and see how it turns out.

[Mythos2002]

Thanks for the information. I've tried to use ShowShifter and DScaler. Showshifter capture didn't look so hot and DScaler wouldn't let me capture. I used TMPEng's IVTC filter in manual mode. The results were pretty good except for two things. 1.) For some reason, the picture was considerably darker after encoding than my captured one. I didn't use any other filters but noise reduction set on 8 1 12. 2.) There was a little jumpiness when the Star Destroyers made a fly by, but that is probably just my inexperience with IVTC.

I just wish I knew why TMPeng made the picture darker without any color adjustments made in the program.

Mythos

[flaninacupboard]

check that in TMPGenc in the quantize tab you don't have "Output YUV data..." checked, as this will make your movie slightly darker.
do you have the CAV star wars sets? if so you could set up a program which only captures say 5fps, and an infrared transmitter to advance the frame on the LD player 5 times a second. when viewing a CAV LD frame by frame it will only produce 24fps, giving you a progressive capture! neat, eh?

[DJRumpy]

The jump you noticed is due to the special effects footage. I think someone noted that some of the scenes are true interlaced, or with wierd telecine patterns, like they were put together by hand. The IVTC filter has a hard time with some of the scene's like this.

The darkenss issue could due to a setting on the 'Quantize Matrix' tab. Try changing the setting used under the 'Special Setting' section at the bottom. Specifically the 'Output YUV data as Basic YCbCr not CCIR601. If your going to a TV for your final output, you would normally leave this option selected. This setting affects the luminance range of your output. If you disable this setting, it will 'squash' the output to 235 luminance levels. If your input is already using 235 luminance levels, then it will squash it even further, making your darks darker, and your light areas lighter.

[Mythos2002]

check that in TMPGenc in the quantize tab you don't have "Output YUV data..." checked, as this will make your movie slightly darker.
do you have the CAV star wars sets? if so you could set up a program which only captures say 5fps, and an infrared transmitter to advance the frame on the LD player 5 times a second. when viewing a CAV LD frame by frame it will only produce 24fps, giving you a progressive capture! neat, eh?

I didn't have it checked. I do have the CAV discs and am very interested in your idea, but I don't know how to do that. I would love to be able to try it though.

The darkenss issue could due to a setting on the 'Quantize Matrix' tab. Try changing the setting used under the 'Special Setting' section at the bottom. Specifically the 'Output YUV data as Basic YCbCr not CCIR601. If your going to a TV for your final output, you would normally leave this option selected. This setting affects the luminance range of your output. If you disable this setting, it will 'squash' the output to 235 luminance levels. If your input is already using 235 luminance levels, then it will squash it even further, making your darks darker, and your light areas lighter.

I put a check there. It was turned off.

I do have a question about the IVTC. I set it to 24fps and have flicker power display checked. I'm trying to do the IVTC manually and found this frame pattern: 1 interlaced, 2 noninterlaced, 1 interlaced, 1 noninterlaced, 1 interlaced, 2 noninterlaced.... Is that a normal pattern?

Thanks for all of the help. I'm going to try again since I checked that option to see what happens.

Mythos

[DJRumpy]

I can't answer that one. Flaninacupboard probably can though. I don't own a LD .

[Mythos2002]

I tried the settings, but they were still a little dark, so I tried again by brightening it a little and that was fine. As far as the jerkiness, I changed the setting on the screen where you can choose CBR or VBR from 29.97fps to 23.97fps. After that, I didn't notice any jerkiness. I wonder if that will cause any other problems though.

Mythos

[DJRumpy]

It won't. You need to set TMPGenc under the VIDEO tab to "3:2 Pulldown When Playback" for the Encode Mode. This will telecine your output MPEG to 29.97 fps during playback.

[Mythos2002]

I realized why my picture looked so dark all of a sudden and feel pretty stupid. My monitor's contrast and brightness were turned down. Oops. When I posted before, I brightened the picture with TMPeng's Simple Color Correction.

It won't. You need to set TMPGenc under the VIDEO tab to "3:2 Pulldown When Playback" for the Encode Mode. This will telecine your output MPEG to 29.97 fps during playback.

So, if I capture it at 29.97 fps in VirtualDub, I can still change that setting in TMPeng for the IVTC?

Sorry for the amount of questions. I've checked out some of the guides, but they always seem to leave something out.

Mythos

[Robster]

Hi.
I'm very new to all this capture/conversion malarky so a lot of the stuff talked about here is going right over my head.

I've had LDs for years, but my Japanese CLD-HF9G player is showing it's age now and reparing would be too costly. I've just bought a Canopus ADVC-1394 to take captures from (primarily) the SW LDs (original THX versions).

I have the captures sitting on my hard drive, but what I'd like is a list of the best settings to use in TMPGEnc to perform the encoding. I've not been happy with the tests I've done so far - odd combing effects when objects move on-screen (particularly bad with fire). People are talking about Inverse Telecine, but what is the reasoning for doing this?

Anyone with good settings, please let me know!

Ta
Rob

[Scandy]

Slightly off topic but I'm transfering the extras from the executor box set onto DVDR.

Got making of Star Wars, Empire & Jedi done. Just playing with the menus.

Great thread BTW!

Andy

[Robster]

Well, OK, after trying a test run with IVT I can see why it's used. Talk about night and day difference! The motion 'blur' comb effect has now gone and the transfers are looking clean and crisp. Very impressive.

[Mythos2002]

Robster,
I'm working on the same thing. I'm still experimenting with TMPEnc's settings too. How did you capture and encode?

I used Virtual Dub to capture 720x480 with Huffyuv compression at 29.97 fps and 44,100 for audio. I have to remux the audio at 48,000 since my built-in sound card is flakey about capturing at 48,000 directly. I'm not sure if I have to change the fps in TMPEnc to 23.97 or just choose IVTC and 3:2 pulldown for it to work correctly.

Mythos

OT: There is a big petition to try to get Lucas to release the original versions of the original Star Wars Trilogy at www.originaltrilogy.com . So far they have over 30,000 signatures. I don't know if it helped to convince him, but The Digital Bits and a couple of other big DVD sites sent a petition to Lucas with around 38,000 signatures asking for Star Wars on DVD now instead of 2006 (his original date for any Star Wars film to come to DVD). It seemed that a short time later, Phantom Menace was announced.

[vhelp]

I for one, no longer care weather they release it on DVD or not. I REALLY
don't care anymores.

I mean, I've seen it MANY MANY times, and for lucas to pull this kind of
stunt (probably for a last minute reach for publicity or something) is beyond me.

He can keep his ST Wars DVD and stick'em up his .. .. for all I care. It's
just plain Anal of them to hold this one only DVD. I'm not gonna be danggled
around by a coward hehe.. Move'n on.

@ Robster..
I'm glad you finally seen the light w/ IVTC. Now that you've gotten this
far, you can surely apply this newly found process to your other video
capturing endeavors. You only need to figure out HOW to distinquish what
is Interace vs. what is Telecined (ie, 3,2 pattern)
Just remember, that not all sources that seem to follow the Telecine pattern
will be IN that pattern. Lots of materials that are from Broadcast relm are
poorly Telecined. Unfortunately, you'll know when you THINK you've got a
3,2 pattern, but yet, your final encode studders or something similar.
IF a pattern is NOT, and I repeat, NOT COMPLETELY 3,2 pattern ALL THE WAY,
then it's a safe bet that you'll have issues stated above. So, please bare
that in mind when you play around some more w/ your new IVTC toying

Be good all, and have a nice day
-vhelp

[Mythos2002]

I'm trying to figure out how to IVTC properly. I captured at 29.97 fps in Virtual Dub. Then I changed the fps setting in the TMPEnc wizard to 23.976 fps. Should I have done that? I also went to the IVTC filter and choose 24fps flicker prioritized deinterlace (none). I choose auto setting and IVTC now before I encoded. I did not apply 3:2 pulldown because I combined that and IVTC once and the result was very jumpy.

The only things I haven't tried yet was leave the 29.97 fps setting in TMPEnc alone and check 3:2 pulldown without the IVTC filter.

I also wonder if I should try to capture at 23.976 or 24 fps. I also wonder if I should try to change the 29.97 fps setting in the TMPEnc wizard to 24fps instead of 23.976 fps since in IVTC I'm choosing 24fps flicker prioritzed. I also haven't tried motion prioritized. The only bad thing is that it takes 10-12 minutes to encode this 30 second test clip I have.

Mythos

[DJRumpy]

Mythos, forgive me if I get these wrong. Hopefully someone will correct me, as I don't use TMPGenc for encoding. The settings should work though.

Capture frame rate: When you capture, you should capture at 29.97 fps (or whatever framerate your source is). If you attempt to capture at 23.976, you'll simply be dropping frames. You need those frames to reconstruct the progressive film via the IVTC (Inverse Telecine) process.

On your Advanced tab, select the Inverse Telecine filter. Make sure your Field Order setting is correct on that tab (whatever field order your capture device captures in), as it affects this filter directly. On the VIDEO tab, set your 'Encode Mode' to "3:2 Pulldown when playback". You then set the Frame Rate to "23.976 fps (internally 29.97 fps)". You must select the Encode Mode first, befor the Frame Rate option will be available. These options will only be available for MPEG-2.

This should give you an MPEG-2 that is progressive, with 3:2 pulldown flags added to make it appear as if it was 29.97 fps (telecined). Encode a small clip, and verify.

If you want to see the effect of the IVTC filter, you can also set the "Encode Mode" to "Non-Interlace", and your Frame Rate to "23.976 fps", and verify your output is completely progressive. Use the Source Range filter on the Advanced Tab to encode a small clip, and verify that no interlaced frames are present in your output. Remeber that some special effects shots in this film seem to be true interlaced, which will remain, even after the IVTC process.