Software to explore and alter field order of interlaced video?

P

Polarbeer

Member
Hi!

As a newbie video editing hobbyist I have popped into a following problem.

I have shot AVCHD 1080i50 video clips, that I would like to be able to stabilize in post. After doing this in PowerDirector 9 and rendering these clips into AVCHD format (AVC H.264) I have played them in Windows Media Player. However Windows Media Player's playback is anything but smooth - all moving edges are really "jagged"!

But if I render these same source videos into WMV format, they play really smoothly in Media Player. This made me thing, if Media Player is reading the field order of my rendered AVCHD videos wrongly?

Is there any software that could actually display the separate fields of different video formats without combining them into single frame during playback? And can any software manually alter the the field order of video file? Could I this way get Windows Media Player to play the fields in opposite order and see, if that removes jagged edges?


Thanks for your help - it's really appriciated!

-pb
 
It's because the footage is interlaced, and when you render to AVCHD, it's probably rendering to the same frame rate as the footage -- 50i. Thus, you see the interlace artifacts on your progressive video screen. This is simply what the footage is.

But usually, when rendering to WMV format, the footage is automatically deinterlaced, so you're effectively watching 25p footage -- and as a result, there are no interlace artifacts.

You haven't said anything about your render settings, so I'm assuming typical defaults here.
 
David Jimerson said:
It's because the footage is interlaced, and when you render to AVCHD, it's probably rendering to the same frame rate as the footage -- 50i. Thus, you see the interlace artifacts on your progressive video screen. This is simply what the footage is.

But usually, when rendering to WMV format, the footage is automatically deinterlaced, so you're effectively watching 25p footage -- and as a result, there are no interlace artifacts.

You haven't said anything about your render settings, so I'm assuming typical defaults here.
Click to expand...


Thanks David for your input and time!

Here is info about my rendering settings relating to my previous post:

I rendered the timeline into AVCHD format (chose "AVC H.264" option on Produce tab of PD9) using these settings:
- Profile type: Default
- Profile name/Quality: AVCHD 1920x1080
- Country/Video format of disc: Finland (PAL)
- Fast video rendering technology -->Hardware video encoder CHECKED. (I'm having nVidia Geforce GTX 260 display adapter.)

When I play the produced video on Windows 7 Media Player or using PD9's internal Media Viewer I see really "jagged" or "crazy" edges on all moving objects - especially on part of the video, that contains fast panning of camera.

I also tried to UNCHECK "Fast video rendering technology -->Hardware video encoder" but the rendered video playback didn't get any better.

If I rendered the stabilized movie into WMV format using the following settings, the final video plays nicely in Windows Media Player and PD9 Media Viewer:
- Profile type: Windows Media Video 9 FULL HD quality (1920x1080)
- Properties: Total streams: 2, Audio stream: 320.0 Kbps Windows Media Audio Stereo 44.1 kHz, Video stream: 10000.0 Kbps 25 fps 1920x1080

Now to my actual new post:

Well I can believe WMV is 25p so it doesn't show interlacing related artifacts on my progressive LCD screen. But if I render the exact same source files WITHOUT stabilizer function applied the output AVCHD videos (using exact same AVC H.264 settings) play nicely in Windows Media Player of PD9 Media Viewer.

So the problem seems to relate to stabilizer function, which first has to remove part of each field/frame and then upscale the remaining lower resolution field/frame into full HD 1920x1080 resolution.

I would be interested to know if there are any good (free) tools to view essential information (frame rate, interlacing info, field order, bit rate, codec used etc.) about video files of different formats. It would be also interesting to be able to alter the field order data in video files, and see if that helps in some cases.

Can any software actually view the fields of interlaced video files? Most video editing applications allow you to view separate frames of source files, but does any software allow the same on field level?

-pb
 
Windows Media Player has native AVCHD support in Windows 7, but the downside to this (or upside for convenience's sake) is that it automatically deinterlaces the footage on playback. This is done primarily in the interest of making Win7 more media friendly, but it has the unfortunate side effect for us video editors of obscuring the actual nature of the video. It does the same to MPEG-2 playback. To view it "untouched", you could play it back through VLC or Media Player Classic with an alternative decoder installed. MPC by default will use Windows' built in AVCHD decoder I believe, so install something such as ffdshow or LAVFilters to play it back untouched.

Field Order also has little to do with getting jagged edges. Deinterlacing with the wrong field order results in ghosted and juttery motion, but in general, all deinterlacing creates jagged edges. Better deinterlacing algorithms prevent or reduce jaggies, but again, it probably has less to do with the order, and more to do with the deinterlacing software. I cannot attest to Windows Media's deinterlacing, but in general, I find its AVCHD and MPEG-2 playback to be quite smooth with deinterlacing. I tend to stay away from WMV though, so don't ask me. In my opinion, you should perform deinterlacing through something like AVISynth.
 
RX782 said:
Windows Media Player has native AVCHD support in Windows 7, but the downside to this (or upside for convenience's sake) is that it automatically deinterlaces the footage on playback. This is done primarily in the interest of making Win7 more media friendly, but it has the unfortunate side effect for us video editors of obscuring the actual nature of the video. It does the same to MPEG-2 playback. To view it "untouched", you could play it back through VLC or Media Player Classic with an alternative decoder installed. MPC by default will use Windows' built in AVCHD decoder I believe, so install something such as ffdshow or LAVFilters to play it back untouched.

Field Order also has little to do with getting jagged edges. Deinterlacing with the wrong field order results in ghosted and juttery motion, but in general, all deinterlacing creates jagged edges. Better deinterlacing algorithms prevent or reduce jaggies, but again, it probably has less to do with the order, and more to do with the deinterlacing software. I cannot attest to Windows Media's deinterlacing, but in general, I find its AVCHD and MPEG-2 playback to be quite smooth with deinterlacing. I tend to stay away from WMV though, so don't ask me. In my opinion, you should perform deinterlacing through something like AVISynth.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help RX782!

I think I used a bit wrong adjective when describing the video playback of the rendered AVCHD videos in my original post (not being native English speaker). I think adjective juttery is just the right term. Only small jagged edges isn't strong enough term to describe the problem in video playback of my post-stabilized AVCHD videos.

This is why I think this might have something to do with wrong field order during playback.

But I will try to install Mediainfo, different players and try different rendering settings in PD9 during following days and report back what are my findings.

Thanks to all so far already.
 
Polarbeer said:
But I will try to install Mediainfo, different players and try different rendering settings in PD9 during following days and report back what are my findings.
Click to expand...

Okay,

Just a little update. It seems that if PD9 renders stabilized source material into progressive AVCHD, the playback of final video in Windows Media Player is alright. Also if PD9 renders stabilized source material into interlaced AVCHD, the playback of final video in VLC Media Player is alright IF I choose to use deinterlace method called "Discard".

But at the moment I haven't been able to find settings in PD9, that would produce interlaced AVCHD, which plays nicely in Windows Media Player or PD9 Media Viewer. It seems that I will give up at the moment... I just won't be using the stabilizer function for any of my video clips, if I want to output my final video in interlaced AVCHD format.

-pb
 
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