Has anyone ever created interlaced footage to a progressive image sequence?
- Thread starter demoboy
- Start date
NorBro
Major Contributor
Back in the day, everyone was trying to get interlaced footage to look its best online - without lines - and there were a variety of ways through Apple, Adobe and everything else. Not sure what Premiere does these days but it's always some sort of deinterlacing, blending, blurring, recreating pixels.
Maybe download some interlaced footage from YouTube or even a sample from a stock site and see what you can do with it.
Maybe download some interlaced footage from YouTube or even a sample from a stock site and see what you can do with it.
demoboy
Well-known member
Thanks. Yeah I remember back in the day deinterlacing was a thing to try and make it progressive. I don’t even recall the “problems” back in the day since it all depended on the distro or project.
For me, for years, when encountering general problems such as comprehension, I would also turn footage to uncompressed files or ProRes and work from there with proxies. I do recall “uncompromising” footage also improved bit depth calculation a with color correction, effects and grading.
I also know that working with image sequences are a different protocol than progressive or interlacing. So for example I’d imagine NLE’s today would try its best to calculate each frame when turning it into an image or image sequence since theoretically it’s supposed to represent “progressive” playback.
I guess the worst case scenario is getting a DNG image (frame) that has interlacing artifacts lol.
If you know of any site or place that gives interlaced footage for free if greatly appreciate it if you shared. Thanx anyways
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
I never work with 50i and 25p timelines, but I have to assume it is the same relationship as 60i and 30p. If you drop 60i footage into a 30p timeline, it will de-interlace or "collapse" it appropriately (combine two fields into a frame). The main issue with that is that you will lose the motion cadence that was specific to 60i, the specific look of 60 images per second. Many people don't get this distinction, they will insist that 60i = 30p and that is the end of it. I had a bitter fight with an engineer at a post house over this once. If you want to retain the cadence, you need to drop that 60i onto a 60p timeline and it will interpolate the missing information, double the lines on each field to create a 1:1 frame. Some capture cards and devices will do this in real time also.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
On a similar note, a lot of people don't understand you can take 30p video and broadcast it at 60i and it still retains the 30p look.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
and 24p. Good ol' 3:2 pulldown.
Doug, how often do you get asked to shoot 60i these days? And for what types of material?
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
Never. I have not shot interlaced since about 2007ish. Betacam was probably my last interlaced shoot. Can't recall ever shooting anything but progressive after making the jump to tapeless HD.
Speaking of HD, I also don't think I have shot anything in HD for about 8-10 years. All 4K since about 2014.
Speaking of HD, I also don't think I have shot anything in HD for about 8-10 years. All 4K since about 2014.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
That's all really interesting to hear. I've definitely been asked to acquire 1080 for certain weirdo jobs especially going back 7-8 years...and probably some 60i in there that I can't remember. I directed a film that took place in a newsroom about 7 yrs ago and intercut from the news cameras to behind the scenes. The facility we shot at had their cameras set up for 60i (they were HD, but elderly). That was the project that involved the tussle with the post house engineer mentioned above. I ended up processing the 60i footage to 60p with an old piece of freeware called JES Deinterlacer and edited the 60p along with 24p footage on a 60p timeline and it looks just like I intended. I literally had to push comparison footage in the guy's face to get him to acquiesce his position (and even then it was a "oh well of course that, but I thought you were talking about this". Ugh.
Doug Jensen
Carbonite Member
I think that highlights the differences in our career paths. I don't do narrative or anything where it would be necessary to simulate a certain creative look. I'm mostly shooting corporate, government, sports, news, docs, reality, and stock. Those clients moved pretty quickly to progressive HD and then 4K after I "educated" them about the advantages. I am just a TV cameraman. I'm not a cinematographer or even a DP, really. I like working on stuff where I can shoot and sometimes write, direct, produce, edit, etc. I like the variety of wearing different hats on different days. However, do I wish I could have cloned myself 40 years ago so I could try my hand at your type of work, but there just isn't enough time in the day to do it all.
CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
Oh yeah, I know we are making different things most of the time (although I dip toes in some of those things still--corporate, docs etc). But still, surprised that on the more TV side of it (news/sports etc) they aren't spec'ing 60i as I feel like I still see plenty of that? Or is it being shot 60p now?
