Why Does 24p/pa look so crappy on TV?

H

Hugh DiMauro

Well-known member
To be fair, I should clarify: What I mean is, if it is progressive, why do I still get the "jaggies" on my TV screen? Now, I know that a "pulldown" is needed to watch progressively-shot video on a TV, but where does the improvement of shooting 30p/24p/24pa come in when exporting the final product to a DVD? I thought my picture with the 100b would look somewhat progressive like something shot with the Varicam or Sony F950 CineAlta. There are NO artifacts or jaggy edges on diagonal lines with TV shows shot with those cameras on hi-def. I thought progressive was progressive, Period. Also, any footage using the 100/100a/100b I've seen on TV doesn't have the "jaggies." Just look at the behind the scenes documentary for A History of Violence. The picture looks great! Is it my DVD media encoder making it look bad?

I know these must sound like a stupid questions so I guess I might need a quick (but stern) lesson on the pros and cons of 24p.

Thanks to all with the patience to answer.
 
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Sounds like you're doing something wrong. Try playing from the camera originals straight to the TV and see if the problem goes away. If it does, then yes, you're encoding the DVD wrong.
 
I will do that...

I will do that...

I use Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0. I will play the tape directly on my 52 inch Sony Wega. But even on the tape itself, it's not "true" 24p because it uses a pulldown, right? Barry explained this to me once before but for the life of me why am I not getting it? I will be back to let you know how 30p looked directly from my tape to the TV. You guys are telling me: NO JAGGIES, right?

Here goes... be back in a few.

Thanks!
 
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Jaggies could also be a result of the compression, couldn't it?

My first short looked great, but it had some problems with the edges looking very jagged on some parts. It didn't look like interlaced jaggies. I think my sharpness settings might have been too sharp.

Anyways, the DVX does have true 24p. The pulldown simply removes duplicate "filler" frames, leaving the true 24p.
 
I think I am overstimulating my eyes and brain. Wide shots don't look so hot (but even I know that is a characteristic of 1/3 inch CCD video). The closer shots look better. I took footage of my Jeep in the sunlight and the hard edges look jagged. The tape somewhat matches the DVD. When I move the camera, horizontal and diagonal lines in the frame do that slight "dance" that I come to expect with interlaced video.

What I am getting at is: Am I expecting too much from this great camera? I just compared my DVX footage to a documentary shot with the DVX 100a for the fourth season behind-the-scenes featurette for "The Shield." Their images look so processed and smooth. Then again, the camera is stationary much of the time.

I guess I should just shut my mouth.
 
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You're watching your video on an interlaced TV. So it's the TV that's giving you the interlaced jaggies.

Look at it on a progressive TV and you'll see jaggy-free pure progressive video.
 
My Sony Wega has a "progressive scan" and "cinemotion" setup menu. I tried both. No difference in the picture. Still getting slight "jaggies." Maybe I should mail you some test footage on mini DV to salve my conscience.

Also, that behind-the-scenes featurette from The Shield looked marvelous on an interlaced crappy little TV I have in my basement.

Still, I LOVE the camera and as soon as Main Concept fixes the (admitted) glitch they have in their MPEG encoder, I'll be able to export a 24p movie to DVD. I have to wait until Adobe posts the fix for download. Here's the excerpt from Mark Cole in the Adobe forums website:

Here's an update - regarding 23.976 recording to DVD. As you've found, it works in a 29.9 project, but not in 23.9 - after many calls to tech support - they were great by the way. It was discovered that there is a bug in the main concept encoder that is recording video at 23.9 but the audio was set up to record in 29.9 - in the 23.976 preset. Main Concept has been notified and they are working to correct the bug - there will be a link posted on the Adobe site eventually.

I'm using Encore in the meantime to burn native 23.976 DVD's. As posted above if you want to go out with the 29.9 preset - it works fine.
 
Hugh,

As Barry said, interlace TV will show more "jaggies" than progressive, but the DV resolution (720x480) is far bellow from 4K and 6K movies you watch in the DVD's. Even the DVD being at 720x480, the original footage came from a higher resolution and it makes a difference.
Now for your progressive TV, are you watching in component ? Make sure your DVD is outputing progressive as well.
A test you can do is watching your footage in your computer monitor at 100%and checking if the jaggies are there.

About your jeep hard edges, very contrasted edges in DV / video is always a problem, watch uour TV programs and even in 60i you'll see jaggies in contrasted edges near the horizontal level. What can help here is reducing camera detail level or a little vertical blur in post.

Ulisses
 
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Thanks, Ulisses! But the DVD behind the scenes featurette was shot with the DVX 100. Same camera! So why wouldn;t the resolution look the same? It looks better on the DVD.
 
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Hugh DiMauro said:
My Sony Wega has a "progressive scan" and "cinemotion" setup menu. I tried both. No difference in the picture. Still getting slight "jaggies." Maybe I should mail you some test footage on mini DV to salve my conscience.

Also, that behind-the-scenes featurette from The Shield looked marvelous on an interlaced crappy little TV I have in my basement.

Still, I LOVE the camera and as soon as Main Concept fixes the (admitted) glitch they have in their MPEG encoder, I'll be able to export a 24p movie to DVD. I have to wait until Adobe posts the fix for download. Here's the excerpt from Mark Cole in the Adobe forums website:

Here's an update - regarding 23.976 recording to DVD. As you've found, it works in a 29.9 project, but not in 23.9 - after many calls to tech support - they were great by the way. It was discovered that there is a bug in the main concept encoder that is recording video at 23.9 but the audio was set up to record in 29.9 - in the 23.976 preset. Main Concept has been notified and they are working to correct the bug - there will be a link posted on the Adobe site eventually.

I'm using Encore in the meantime to burn native 23.976 DVD's. As posted above if you want to go out with the 29.9 preset - it works fine.
Click to expand...

Hugh are you saying the bug is in Premiere's MPEG converter and not in Encore? Or is it in both pieces of software?

S Cannon
 
Hugh DiMauro said:
Thanks, Ulisses! But the DVD behind the scenes featurette was shot with the DVX 100. Same camera! So why wouldn;t the resolution look the same? It looks better on the DVD.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about the DVX100 behind the scenes, but the general DVD movies quality. Maybe that behind the scenes was a footage different of your in terms of lighting and camera settings... try to reduce detail and play with THIN / THICK setting.

Ulisses
 
Mr. Scannon:

According to the post, it's in the Main Concept plugin used for Premiere. Mark indicated that he uses Encore to make 24p DVD just fine in Encore with no problems. It's just easier to use Premiere to export to DVD from the timeline but until the Main Concept encoder gets fixed...
 
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