*****Wierd Lines

[NorBro]

Please check this out:

http://web.me.com/norbertbielan/help/test.html

Thank you.

 

[David Jimerson]

Need a LOT more info.

What frame rate? What scene file settings? THIN, THICK, or MID Vert. Freq. Detail? Timeline/sequence settings? Everything you can provide will help.

 

[NorBro]

Regular 60i

The timeline settings are correct...just dropped it in and conformed to the correct settings when asked yes or no...NTSC DV most likely. No rendering required when dropped in so that's another sign it's correct.

Not sure about the Vertical Freq....I do know that scene file settings are all messed up as a few people have played with them tweaking it constantly.

Do you think any of those scene settings could have caused this??

Thanks.

 

[Cranky]

Your web video looks smooth to me, I cannot figure out whether you converted it to 60p or is it 30p? If you converted each field into a frame to make 60p, you may see this "shimmering" on diagonals and horizontal lines. THIN vertical detail setting avoids vertical filtering, which can exaggerate the issue if you deinterlaced into 60p, because the differences between frames are more pronounced. I've heard lots of good things about TempGaussMC deinterlacer, they say it works wonders, but I haven't tried it myself. And it is very slow.

Also, you may see this effect because of scaling. This is similar to moire effect that you can often see on scaled down videos and stills, but which may be absent in original video. If you play full-sized video does it exhibit the same artifacts?

 

[NorBro]

Thanks for your response. You just totally brought something to my attention.

I just noticed this was a clip that had the following done to it and I'm going to break this down in details.

A few weeks ago, I shot one game with the HMC150 in 720p,60.

I imported and transcoded those clips into FCP (as ProRes) and brought them into the timeline where it conformed to the correct settings (no rendering). Then I exported a small portion that I needed as a self-contained movie and brought that into compressor. I used the regular Best Quality DVD setting preset and might have just tweaked some frame controls as far as "better" or "best". The frame rate setting is 29.97 as I couldn't change this.

NOTE: This is the only file I have left to work with as I dumped the original footage. Also, let's not worry about any framing.

Here's the weird thing:

When I open up that MPEG-2 video file compressor made in Quicktime, it has those lines. If it's playing in MPEG Streamclip, it doesn't and plays beautifully.


Now as far as the clip that I posted...

I took that MPEG-2 file that I have and brought it into MPEG Streamclip where it plays beautifully. I exported it out as an NTSC DV 29.97 clip.
That is what you see in that video and those horrible lines.

In the end, I think it comes down to the process of losing frames that has something to do with those lines. But then if it does, why does the 29.97 MPEG-2 file play beautifully in MPEG Steamclip (and even DVD SP) and not that nicely in QT?

So what I'm asking:

(1) A lot of the footage I have isn't the original 720p,60fps media. The footage is all in MPEG-2 DVD files, which I mentioned before.
So if I have only this media to work with, how should I export it if I want to add it to a NTSC 29.97 sequence. And why the heck is it playing nicely in one piece of software and not in the other?

(2) For the future...if I did have the original footage, what is the best way to take that 720p,60fps footage and mix it in with 29.97 NTSC DV clips.

Sorry if this is confusing. Let me know if you need me to clarify anything.

Thanks again.

 

[Alex H.]

The timeline settings are correct...just dropped it in and conformed to the correct settings when asked yes or no...NTSC DV most likely. No rendering required when dropped in so that's another sign it's correct.

NTSC DV most likely? You really need to know what your settings are before you start to work. If your time line settings are correct, they will match the footage and won't even ask you to conform. Just because it doesn't have to render doesn't mean that everything is kosher.

Not sure about the Vertical Freq....I do know that scene file settings are all messed up as a few people have played with them tweaking it constantly.

Do you think any of those scene settings could have caused this??

Just like your edit settings, you really need to know your camera settings before you shoot. Especially if you know that folks have been messing with your scene files, you need to know what's been changed and how to go back to your original settings.

None of this is absolute plug-and-play. If you just assume that everything's right when you power up your camera or launch FCP, you are in for some unpleasant surprises.

 

[Cranky]

So you are mixing DV and DVD-video and convert to interlaced and back? DVD-video can be TFF or BFF, and you need to select a correct setting for it to look proper. DV video is BFF. If you use both types in the same project, somthing got to give, because most NLEs have field order setting for a whole project.

EDIT: I re-read what you said. You converted 720p60 into 480i60 DVD-video, than into 480i60 DV video. How do you display this interlaced DV video online? You had to deinterlace. What is the resulting format?

It might indeed be related to field order, though I would expect motion to be significantly more jerky if field order was incorrect. Not sure, really, just thinking out loud. I played your video step by step (not exactly frame by frame, the online player does not allow playing frame by frame apparently) and the motion seem to look fine.

The DVD-video version plays fine in MPEG Streamclip and on TV?

 

[Alex H.]

I just noticed this was a clip that had the following done to it and I'm going to break this down in details.

A few weeks ago, I shot one game with the HMC150 in 720p,60.

I imported and transcoded those clips into FCP (as ProRes) and brought them into the timeline where it conformed to the correct settings (no rendering). Then I exported a small portion that I needed as a self-contained movie and brought that into compressor. I used the regular Best Quality DVD setting preset and might have just tweaked some frame controls as far as "better" or "best". The frame rate setting is 29.97 as I couldn't change this.

NOTE: This is the only file I have left to work with as I dumped the original footage. Also, let's not worry about any framing.

Here's the weird thing:

When I open up that MPEG-2 video file compressor made in Quicktime, it has those lines. If it's playing in MPEG Streamclip, it doesn't and plays beautifully.

First, why are you converting it to MPEG-2/DVD presets in Compressor? There's no reason to be doing that unless you are actually ready to burn a DVD. This is a distribution format, not and editing format.

Second, never trust QuickTime player to look anywhere close to what your footage should be... it's a terrible playback program and will always look much worse than reality.

Third, why did you dump the original footage? You've backed yourself into a pretty tight corner.

The "lines" that you see in the footage have to do with how badly you've mashed up the signal in Compressor, and the resolution is now shot to hades. Not to mention that you've forced progressive footage into interlaced without the proper steps. Again, why are you converting to MPEG-2?

Now as far as the clip that I posted...

I took that MPEG-2 file that I have and brought it into MPEG Streamclip where it plays beautifully. I exported it out as an NTSC DV 29.97 clip.
That is what you see in that video and those horrible lines.

In the end, I think it comes down to the process of losing frames that has something to do with those lines. But then if it does, why does the 29.97 MPEG-2 file play beautifully in MPEG Steamclip (and even DVD SP) and not that nicely in QT?

So you dropped the file down to MPEG-2, then expanded it back to DV resolution? You've absolutely destroyed this clip. MPEG-2 never should have entered into it. Period. If you need to start with 720p footage and end up with DV, convert directly to DV.

And again, don't trust QuickTime to judge what your footage should look like... but then, you're playing back a clip that you've managed to chew up and spit out.

So what I'm asking:

(1) A lot of the footage I have isn't the original 720p,60fps media. The footage is all in MPEG-2 DVD files, which I mentioned before.
So if I have only this media to work with, how should I export it if I want to add it to a NTSC 29.97 sequence. And why the heck is it playing nicely in one piece of software and not in the other?

(2) For the future...if I did have the original footage, what is the best way to take that 720p,60fps footage and mix it in with 29.97 NTSC DV clips.

(1) You're stuck here. You've dumped the original footage (?!) and have dropped it to a codec that is absolutely inappropraite for editing. MPEG-2 is highly compressed, much moreso than DV. So if you want to edit with it at all, you'll have to convert it to DV... but expect terrible results.

(2) Use a combination of CinemaTools and Compressor to conform the 60p footage to 29.97 and then convert it to the DV codec. You're far better off down-rezzing HD footage to SD to edit together than you are up-ressing SD footage to edit in HD.

 

[Cranky]

C2V, loss of info by converting to DVD-video is a side issue. He said that DVD-video plays fine in MPEG streamclip. So either QT loses fields and dinterlaces crudely, or it uses wrong field order, but again the latter does not seem to be the case judging by the players' motion.

In any case, if MPEG Streamclip plays it fine, the problem in QT and in related tools. Can MPEG streamclip show field order? Can QT show field order? Are they the same?

If it looks fine on TV, why bother? In future, render online videos directly from 720p, they will look much better because of higher original resolution and you will not have interlacing-related issues.

 

[David Jimerson]

Regular 60i

The timeline settings are correct...just dropped it in and conformed to the correct settings when asked yes or no...NTSC DV most likely. No rendering required when dropped in so that's another sign it's correct.

Not sure about the Vertical Freq....I do know that scene file settings are all messed up as a few people have played with them tweaking it constantly.

Do you think any of those scene settings could have caused this??

Thanks.

Well, Vert Detail Freq doesn't apply to 60i, but obviously, given all the other info, that's not in play here anyway.

Yeah, I'd have to agree -- if you're not sure what your scene file settings are when you shoot, then you're in for a world of hurt later.

As for the 60p footage vis-a-vis an NTSC timeline, the one thing I'd say is that watch your conversion to 29.97, because you don't want to end up making 30p out of it -- you'll want to make 60i with each field being made from a separate 60p frame, so be sure that the 29.97 is interlaced. Otherwise, you throw away half your motion samples, and for sports, you most likely want to keep it 60 hz.

 

[NorBro]

I'm not editing in MPEG-2. All of the work I shot was going straight to SD DVDs.

But now I have to edit a few things so the MPEG-2 files are my only source.

Also, I didn't really mesh anything up. I did one step of conversion...and that was from the original source to MPEG-2. Here I kept the fields the same as source, aka progressive.

I basically have very nice footage that's been through one step and the frames are cut in half. Can't really notice the difference.

I just need to learn how to take this file and turn it into the best quality in which I can use to edit.

P.S. I wasn't planning on editing any of these few videos, which is the reason I dumped the original. I'm sure that wasn't the best move and you should always archive everything, but what are you going to do.

As far as QT...good to know. What is a recommended player that I can use to see how the footage will look? Most people use QT...

Knowing my scene files...lesson learned.

Timeline settings..I know exactly what they are, but sometimes I import other format clips and drop them into a fresh sequence that's still set to another setting. Therefore, the conformed option kicks in and asks me. Hitting yes would be the same thing as going in, changing your settings, and then importing those clips and putting them into that sequence. And I always say (no rendering) because many times in other posts people have asked me, do you need to render when you drop your clips into a timeline? So I've always thought that things are almost always okay if you don't have to render.

An Update:

When I was exporting the clips from MPEG STREAMCLIP, I didn't notice that the deinterlace box was checked...the lines were coming from trying to deinterlace progressive footage.

So now after ripping these files, they look fine in QT and MPEG SC, but for some crazy reason that when I bring them into FCP and then export a self-contained movie of the edit, they come back.

Insane.

I'm constantly working on trying to figure this out, and I will...but thank you for all your help and thoughts...

 

[Cranky]

Also, I didn't really mesh anything up. I did one step of conversion...and that was from the original source to MPEG-2. Here I kept the fields the same as source, aka progressive.

DVD-video cannot be 60p, it can only 60i (some argue that it can be 24p and 30p too, but this is moot, as the sequence can be progressive, but still field-based). Anyway, by setting field order to none/progressive you effectively converted 720p60 to 480p30, throwing away every second original frame. (If it is indeed 60p MPEG-2 SD, then it is not DVD-video). I don't know whether it was your original intent, but 60i/60p is better for sports than 30p. On the other hand, your video looks quite smooth.

When I was exporting the clips from MPEG STREAMCLIP, I didn't notice that the deinterlace box was checked...the lines were coming from trying to deinterlace progressive footage.

A-ha!

So now after ripping these files, they look fine in QT and MPEG SC, but for some crazy reason that when I bring them into FCP and then export a self-contained movie of the edit, they come back.

Do you again deinterlace your progressive footage, now during export?

 

[NorBro]

When I was making the MPEG-2 in compressor, the frame rate was 29.97. And the field order was none/progressive.

So you're saying this gives me 480p30 video??

I don't know whether it was your original intent, but 60i/60p is better for sports than 30p. On the other hand, your video looks quite smooth.

I shoot in this when I know it's going straight to the web. If the above is true, won't it just be useless for DVDs if it cuts it in half?



And as far as the deinterlacing....I'm exporting a self-contained, so it should already be progressive since I brought it in that way...

 

[NorBro]

I shoot in this meaning I shoot in 60p.

 

[David Jimerson]

When I was making the MPEG-2 in compressor, the frame rate was 29.97. And the field order was none/progressive.

So you're saying this gives me 480p30 video??

Yes, though if it's converted to NTSC DV, it'll be carried in a 60i stream. Either way, you lose half your motion samples.

 

[David Jimerson]

some argue that it can be 24p and 30p too, but this is moot, as the sequence can be progressive, but still field-based)

As noted before, it's actually 24p progressive frames, which isn't moot, because it's 20% less space taken up than 60i video, leaving room on the disc for higher-quality compression, more robust audio, or more extras. This is why all commercial movies are put to DVD that way. Plus, of course, no interlace artifacts.

30p would be carried in a 60i stream; there's no reason for it not to be.

 

[Cranky]

As noted before, it's actually 24p progressive frames, which isn't moot, because it's 20% less space taken up than 60i video, leaving room on the disc for higher-quality compression, more robust audio, or more extras. This is why all commercial movies are put to DVD that way. Plus, of course, no interlace artifacts.

I am not going to argue, because (1) I don't have 100% exact information myself and because (2) you will consider my posting irrelevant trolling and will remove it. For one, I can quote David Newman, who said: "The fact is there is no progressive mode on SD DVD. The MPEG2 profile encodes top fields separately to bottom fields, even if the source is progressive. The repeat flags must be added for 24p to be correctly encoded, even though it is actually encoded (sadly) as interlaced data -- (which impact compression efficiency and the ugly 4:2:0 chroma.) ... MPEG2's repeat flags can help with quality as only fields used to construct the 24p signal are compressed, the repeat flag pad the data out to 60i. This flags also help progressive scan DVD players reconstruct the correct 24p signal more reliably." -- http://cineform.blogspot.com/2008/12/mastering-24p-dvds-from-hd-using.html and related comments.

I myself did not dissect VOB files off a DVD, so I have no hard scientific proof of one or another statement.

30p would be carried in a 60i stream; there's no reason for it not to be.

There are multitude of reasons of having true native progressive video instead of interlaced surrogate, one of which is not having trouble of detecting and recovering 2-2 pulldown from 60i stream. Many modern TVs and players (for sure, MOST TVs and players 3 years ago) cannot detect 2-2 pulldown, hence 30p cannot be displayed on modern TVs with full vertical resolution, which is a major reason I myself prefer 24p to 30p, despite that I prefer the less stroby look of 30p. 2 years ago I did an experiment on my TV with a Canon 30p HD camcorder, I was losing half of a frame, which was clearly noticeable in pauses. It was pretty stupid of Sony and Panasonic to not include 30p into Blu-ray spec, HD-DVD has this mode. This also was a reason why I bought a Blu-ray player with HQV Reon chip, which can handle 2-2 pulldown.

Jeez, it seems that I did argue. A great opportunity to use mod's power and remove this posting.

 

[NorBro]

I just want to say thanks to everyone who has read and/or contributed to my post.

My final words:

I always thought of encoding as an extremely tricky realm. No matter how much studying one does or experience one has, I feel as if there are always different ways of doing things and certain little settings here and there can make or break a final output.

There is so much to know and think about when you break everything down that it's truly overwhelming. In reality, the main purpose of it all is to get a good looking picture to make people happy.

Regardless, I fixed my problem by simply exporting out of FCP using QT Conversion. I absolutely did nothing different to my timeline and such a simple step has worked as a solution.

Before, I exported as a self-contained movie and brought that into Compressor. Then simply used a preset and got result #1.

Now, I exported out of FCP (QT Conversion-mp4; h.264), tweaked some settings, and got result #2.

Check for results in the following link:

http://web.me.com/norbertbielan/help/test.html

It's obvious that some minor setting needs to be altered in Compressor and I will figure it out, but for now I'm pretty happy with result #2.

Thank you!

 

[David Jimerson]

I am not going to argue, because (1) I don't have 100% exact information myself and because (2) you will consider my posting irrelevant trolling and will remove it. For one, I can quote David Newman, who said: "The fact is there is no progressive mode on SD DVD. The MPEG2 profile encodes top fields separately to bottom fields, even if the source is progressive. The repeat flags must be added for 24p to be correctly encoded, even though it is actually encoded (sadly) as interlaced data -- (which impact compression efficiency and the ugly 4:2:0 chroma.) ... MPEG2's repeat flags can help with quality as only fields used to construct the 24p signal are compressed, the repeat flag pad the data out to 60i. This flags also help progressive scan DVD players reconstruct the correct 24p signal more reliably." -- http://cineform.blogspot.com/2008/12/mastering-24p-dvds-from-hd-using.html and related comments.

I myself did not dissect VOB files off a DVD, so I have no hard scientific proof of one or another statement.

The comments bear out what I'm saying.

Jeez, it seems that I did argue. A great opportunity to use mod's power and remove this posting.

The place to take up moderation issues is in PMs.

 

[David Jimerson]

I just want to say thanks to everyone who has read and/or contributed to my post.

My final words:

I always thought of encoding as an extremely tricky realm. No matter how much studying one does or experience one has, I feel as if there are always different ways of doing things and certain little settings here and there can make or break a final output.

There is so much to know and think about when you break everything down that it's truly overwhelming. In reality, the main purpose of it all is to get a good looking picture to make people happy.

Regardless, I fixed my problem by simply exporting out of FCP using QT Conversion. I absolutely did nothing different to my timeline and such a simple step has worked as a solution.

Before, I exported as a self-contained movie and brought that into Compressor. Then simply used a preset and got result #1.

Now, I exported out of FCP (QT Conversion-mp4; h.264), tweaked some settings, and got result #2.

Check for results in the following link:

http://web.me.com/norbertbielan/help/test.html

It's obvious that some minor setting needs to be altered in Compressor and I will figure it out, but for now I'm pretty happy with result #2.

Thank you!

Does the original clip you were having problems with look better now? If so, great.