A file that is both progressive and interlaced - possible?!

[doson]

I've ripped the movie "Training Day" and now I want to convert it both to DivX and SVCD. When converting to SVCD, I allways encode the m2v file like the source file, but when I checked the files in DVD2AVI it said interlaced frames, soon changed it to progressive and then, near the end of the movie, changed back to interlaced. I thought maybe the interlaced/progressive frames are in different vob files, but they aren't.
So, what sould I do, encode interlaced or progressive?
(I guess progressive, but you guys know more than me...)

btw, a problem that I had with this movie (and never had before, I guess it's related) was that TMPG couldn't open the vob files (it allways did, I have the m2v.vfp plugin), it just hanged for about a minute and then said some crap.

[homerpez]

1st : And I know it's longer... but run the .vob's through DVD2AVI and open THAT project file in TMPGEnc instead of the .vob itself.

2nd : I can only answer to SVCD (as I never ever encode TO DivX if I can help it)... I personally would treat the entire film as INTERLACED.

With SVCD (that supports INTERLACE format since it's MPEG-2), all my problems with Interlace seem to go away whenever I encode in that manner. Just make sure the field order is right...

You can pretend that "Progressive" frames are "Interlaced", but in my experience it won't work the other way around. If you do it all "Progressive", you'll start to see the artifacts of the Interlaced part.

The only other options you have are IVTC (which I have never sucessfully done), or de-interlace filters (that wreck the look of the movie usually). Making the whole movie "Interlaced" seems the easiest course.

[homerpez]

...It's also possible that only the movie company logo (at the start) and the ending credits are Interlaced. Lots of DVD's I've come across are like this especially at the beginning.

Did you try just "Forced FILM" rate and see how it looks? If DVD2AVI says "FILM 95%" or better, Progressive FILM rate should work.

[kinneera]

It is possible to have both...I believe they're commonly called hybrid disks and it's also my understanding that anime is particularly notorious for this problem. I've personally only encountered it in one or two movies, and one of the causes reportedly is post-encode editing by the studio (it's not actually interlaced but the editing can introduce problems with the GOP sequence which confuses programs such as DVD2AVI). As previously mentioned, just encoding interlaced will probably keep it from being a problem. You can also try using a smart IVTC filter that compares frames and attempts to determine which ones are interlaced rather than blindly chopping frames out in the expected locations.

[LeeBear]

doson: What you are describing is just the telecine process (aka 3:2 pulldown) that's done to convert 23.976 fps film base material to 29.97 fps DVD. Pretty much all movies on DVD are like this. You can spot this easily if you get 3 progressive frames followed by 2 interlaced frames. For a more detail explaination goto http://www.lukesvideo.com/ and read up about "telecine"... it's a good read and really helps novices understand.

-LeeBear

[kinneera]

If it is just a matter of telecining, DVD2AVI will report the movie as film framerate. I'm pretty sure he's describing a different problem (and one that I have also encountered).

[adam]

Yes I ripped this movie and it was a hybrid. It's very rare but occasionally you come across a dvd like this.

Turn off forced film, it simply will not work on a hybrid disk. As Kineera said either encode interlaced or use a smart IVTC filter. From my experience, and this does not include anime, there is not any movie that cannot be IVTC'ed flawlessly with decomb. Give it a shot, I had excellent results with it on this movie.

[doson]

Thank you all for your responses, however, you all talk about doing IVTC and stuff while it's completely useless - the movie is PAL.
homerpez, two things for you:
1) You right - company logo is interlaced, movie (and credits) are progressive, and then the trailer is interlaced too.
2) I don't open directly the vob files in TMPG, I always create project file in DVD2AVI and using avisynth scripts, I just tried to open the vobs to check what will happen.

So now moving on... in DVD2AVI I selected a range only of the progressive frames, so all interlaced frames are out. Should I still encode interlaced (just like you all said) or because of this encode progressive?

[adam]

Well it would have been good to know this was a pal dvd

When using dvd2avi do not look at the interlaced/progressive spot. Only look at the %film because virtually all dvds have the opening logo and end credits interlaced regardless of how the movie itself is stored. This is why most dvds are reported as being %95 film or higher, that ~%5 that is interlaced is the credits.

So if the movie reports %95 or higher film or just plain film...

1) If pal then encode progressively. The opening logo and end credits may be jerky and may leave interlacing artifacts but usually will not be noticable.

2) If ntsc then enable forced film and encode progressively at 23.976fps.

If you get anything other than %95 film or film...

1) If pal then encode interlaced unless your making a divx or a vcd in which case you will have to deinterlace.

2) If ntsc either encode interlaced or do an IVTC if possible

[doson]

adam, now you're confusing me...
When dealing with PAL movies DVD2AVI does not report how much of the movie is film, that's only with NTSC.
However, you said that if 95% or higher is film, means progressive frames, then I should encode progressive and that I might notice some problems with the interlaced frames, but on my last post I said that I frameserved only the progressive frames, because I really don't need the company logo and the trailer (the interlaced parts).

Now, I did a little test and tried to encode two little clips, one progressive and one interlaced, I havn't saw much difference but I want to make the highest quality convertion I can, so I would love to hear just one final answer to my problem - progressive or interlaced?

(only remember that I'm now dealing with progressive frames only, after the interlaced ones were not selected in DVD2AVI)

[PigOnWing]

...you all talk about doing IVTC and stuff while it's completely useless - the movie is PAL.

Just a quick note, strolling away from the subject: Telecide on PAL does exist. While it may not be as common as the mothed of %4 speedup, and may not be used in PAL DVDs, ever, the method is indeed used in some TV/video conversions.

Passing such a converstion through Donald Graft's Telecide filter will indeed yield progressive results (with 25 fps one of which will repeat itself).

-- Piggie

[adam]

doson I was giving a more general description of what to do. If the logo and credits are the only interlaced frames in your movie than you can basically ignore them. They may or may not be jumpy or have interlacing artifacts but this is an acceptable loss, especially since they actually turn out fine most of the time.

Regardless of whether you cut these out or leave them in your movie is progressive. I suggest that you just encode to the same format as your source, so in this case keep it progressive.

[Vapor]

doson > To make 100% sure they are progressive just scan through a few mins of video in Tmpg or even DVD2AVI and look for combed frames, if there are some it's interlaced, if not it's progressive.

Forget forced film for PAL sources. Just create a standard .d2v file.

If your only encoding progressive frames and you are sure of this then encode as progressive.

If it's interlaced (yes, I have come across many a PAL DVD which is) perform IVTC with AVISYNTH + DECOMB using Telecide() but no Decimate.