To Interlace or not ? - please help

[daznic]

I want to put some footage recorded on my JVC mini DV cam onto SVCD, so far i`ve had good results using the template in tmpgenc 2.5
I`ve noticed that in the de-interlace settings the first still frame of the video shown has a bad combing interlace effect. If i select odd field the frame improves a lot. Should i use this option to encode the entire video or will i loose quality or sharpness. I`m playing my svcds on a standalone dvd player & during fast Pan movements the video seems to slightly jerk or stutter, will de-interlacing improve this ? By the way i`m working with PAL equipment.
Any advice appreciated !

[Bastian]

interlaced source = interlaced encoding

an interlaced svcd needs 3,5 mb/s to become a good quality
an interlaced cvd (352 x 576) needs 2,5 - 3 mb/s
non-interlaced/de-interlaced 2,5mb/s

but if you de-interlace, the fast movements become unsharp and its pretty had to watch it on tv (de-interlace the vid if you watch it on pc).

it depends on your standalone.

[Barnabas]

Use Inverse 3:2 pulldown for encoding, it seems to be the best choice for interlaced video that will look good on both the computer and on a TV.

[tuco1979]

Use Inverse 3:2 pulldown for encoding, it seems to be the best choice for interlaced video that will look good on both the computer and on a TV.

Does this work for truly interlace sources (i.e. tv capture) to do a inverse 3:2 pullown? I know if I use mpeg2 I won't have this problem but would this work with mpeg1 files?

[homerpez]

I would keep things simple, if it's Interlaced IN, make it Interlaced OUT when doing SVCD.

You'll have WAY too much of a headache doing it any other way. I should add that you DON'T need 3.5MB/sec to make good quality Interlaced, I have no idea where that came from... you'd use the same bitrate to make either progressive or interlaced look good, it's just that each format does it DIFFERENTLY.

For me, I do interlaced SVCD with CCE, MIN 300, AVG 1100-1600, MAX 2520, and it looks as good as the source I capped from.

And I also don't know where people get the notion that Interlaced looks "bad" on the PC, either... when you play back SVCD's (or Interlaced DVD for that matter) on most software players, you won't be able to tell if it is interlaced or not, as it will not show lines when the interlace format's supported (MPEG-2).

[homerpez]

Oh, and you can't use 3:2 pulldown, nor Interlaced, with MPEG-1. Only MPEG-2.

You can have Interlaced 23.976 material with 3:2 pulldown applied, and it still looks fine using MPEG-2, if that's what you were wondering.

[mb1]

daznic

By the way i`m working with PAL equipment.

People please read the initial questions !
Inverse 3:2 pulldown is useless for PAL and not supported.

homerpez

I should add that you DON'T need 3.5MB/sec to make good quality Interlaced

You never encoded dv video, am I right ?
Your words can be underlined for professional studio equipment which has then recorded interlaced.
But it's nonsense for private dv recordings (as initial requested).
Even with 3.500 kbps you don't get good quality svcd from interlaced dv source. I would recommend up to 5.000 kbps (4x cd) if your dvd player supports that.
Otherwise you are lost.
Then I would stick to 352x576 and highest possible bitrates.

Also use the advantages of tv overscan which means don´t encode the on tv sets non visible borders of around 8% (saving the bitrate for the visible picture).

Precisely spoken:
- crop your 720x576 dv footage to 712x572
- resize for PAL svcd to 448x540 (do correct interlace resizing !!)
- add borders to 480x576
- encode with your favourite encoder (especially for dv material I recommend Tmpeg - and not CCE - with motion search precision highest and 'mb1 interlaced dv matrix'.
If you can go up to 5.000 kbps with bitrate you would get good results (not perfect !).

All dv videos are bottom field first so encode the complete video that way.
Don't deinterlace (if you can go higher than 2.600 kbps) because you will loose a lot of sharpness and smooth movements.

If you can´t go beyond svcd bitrates forget what I wrote.

regards
mb1

[yg1968]

"mb1 interlaced matrix". What is that?

[mb1]

'mb1 interlaced DV' matrix is an especially for interlaced material developed matrix (also for interlaced analogue and dvd source and tv captures) which is in concern for the needs of alternate scan (which is recommended for interlace material) and some (smaller) bitrate savings.

Simply edit your matrix f.e. in tmpeg as follows:

'mb1 interlaced DV':
Intra
8,13,13,17,17,21,21,28,
13,13,17,17,19,21,23,30,
13,17,19,19,21,23,28,34,
13,17,19,19,21,23,28,48,
17,19,19,19,23,28,34,48,
19,19,23,25,28,32,34,48,
19,21,23,25,28,32,34,48,
21,21,25,25,28,32,34,48

Non Intra
8,11,11,15,15,17,17,24,
11,11,15,15,17,17,21,24,
13,15,15,17,21,21,26,34,
13,17,15,17,21,21,26,48,
17,21,21,23,21,30,34,48,
17,21,21,23,28,30,34,48,
19,19,25,26,28,30,48,48,
19,19,25,26,28,30,48,48

With this matrix you get better results on all interlaced material than with mpeg default or tmpeg default matrix.
For interlaced dvd source I recommend to set all 48s to 99 ...

Also interlaced material needs more than 30% higher bitrates than progressive material; so be sure to set your bitrate up.

regards
mb1

[lpn1160]

my opinion is if you play it just on your TV, you won't get the interlacing effects anyway, so why bother wasting time and cpu cycles?

[shadowrunner]

mbi,

I am very happy my curiousity led me to this thread, I work exclusively with dv (Family video on to dvd-r) and am always looking for ways to improve quality! Thank you for the great matrix info! I can't wait to try it on my next monthly video .

Thanx!
shadowrunner

[homerpez]

...there's part of me that wants to scream out how mb1 is off his or her rocker... but I'll stifle that part of me...

Seriously, some of that is utter nonsense, but as always, we must follow this eternal rule: "WHATEVER WORKS FOR YOU"!

(I do think I'm gonna experiment with that Q-matrix...)

[ralfbeckers]

Use Inverse 3:2 pulldown for encoding, it seems to be the best choice for interlaced video that will look good on both the computer and on a TV.

This is a bad piece of advice. The fields from interlaced camera-originated material ALWAYS contain pictures from different points in time, they don't "belong" together. This is why daznic sees the combingeffect in the large window when he highlights any field in the preview window. REMEMBER: The large window is a composite of the currently marked field PLUS the next field.

Program material that is interlaced by nature (i.e. virtually all video camera-originated material, but some DV cams have progressive video modes such as the Panasonic DX-1) should be stored interlaced unless you are really sure that your bobbing or waeveing process is truly superio to all post video processing you can do during playback. On the other hand, if you KNOW that you are going to play back progressively scanned and that you have no means of inserting a deinterlacer/scaler between the player and the discplay device, you might want to consider "doubling". In that case stay out of the Inverse Telecine option and use the simple Deinterlacing option. Make two trial runs with Top field A and B to see which is which cos' I don't know with miniDV. I would suggest you try the "non-interlaced" (aka progressive) encode mode on the video tab. This is where the grey zone of my experience begins but IMHO this should cause TMPGEnc to set a flag in the MPEG bitstream that indicated to the decoder that every a/b interlaced pair of fields belongs to one progressive frame.