Sighhh... Interlaced, Telecine

[jbrjake]

I've never seen artifacts like you describe in any HandBrake encode I've ever done from any source. I'd be interested in seeing some screenshots demonstrating it, and comparing to what it looks like on the DVD.

[thundar]

Alright, I can do that. If....you are indeed interested. I'll have to encode a chapter again using the settings you recommended. Then I'll have to upload a screen shot. How would I go about uploading or posting screen shots on here?

[jbrjake]

Put it on imageshack.us or a similar service and post the direct link.

[thundar]

Jbrjake, when I look more at the Fairuse encode (enlarging the player window), I see that this ALSO has those lines. It's unnoticeable on an sdtv, but on hdtv, it might not look so hot. So, it must be the dvd itself. I guess it's not necessary to post any shots. Handbrake was doing its job. Thanks for all the feedback, man. I'll be back with other annoying posts, of course .

[gordo]

The pullup code doesn't know anything about the frame rate, only the pattern of fields. And it seems to be pretty robust to variations in that. My wife has a bunch of BBC "Mystery" DVDs that were hard-telecined from 25fps PAL progressive to 30fps NTSC (which results in a 4P:2I pattern rather than film's 3P:2I pattern). VFR initially overdropped low motion & dark scenes on these (lots of juddering) but when I set hard_breaks to -1 (the "drop less" setting) they converted perfectly - no combing & perfectly smooth 25fps output. I've converted about a dozen of these DVDs so far with no visible problems.

I have some NTSC BBC DVDs of the 1981 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that appear similar. Selecting deinterlace alone fixes the combing but I have judder - presumably 25 Hz vs 30 Hz. What is the right combination deinterlace +VFR+hard_breaks, does detelecine come into it at all? Should I be using the source rate of 29.97 or switching to 25 HZ to recover original framerate?

[paddycook]

How do you set hard_breaks to -1? Is there an option in the Mac GUI that I'm missing?

[van]

How do you set hard_breaks to -1? Is there an option in the Mac GUI that I'm missing?

It's not in the GUI, at least not yet - maybe we can talk dynaflash into adding it. For the CLI you set it with the option: "-9 1:1:4:40" ('-9' sets detelecine options & the 5th parameter, the -1, is strict_breaks. Possible values for strict_breaks are 0 (the default), 1 (drops frames more aggressively, may help if you still see combing in the VFR result) and -1 (drops frames less aggressively, may help if you see juddering in the VFR output).

I have some NTSC BBC DVDs of the 1981 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that appear similar. Selecting deinterlace alone fixes the combing but I have judder - presumably 25 Hz vs 30 Hz. What is the right combination deinterlace +VFR+hard_breaks, does detelecine come into it at all? Should I be using the source rate of 29.97 or switching to 25 HZ to recover original framerate?

Yes, a lot of US-release BBC content from the 70s through the 90s seems to have been hard-telecined from PAL to NTSC, probably because it was originally released on VHS. I've been getting very good results with just VFR (no deinterlace) with strict_breaks=-1. VFR automatically selects "same as source" framerate so you don't need anything but VFR.

[dynaflash]

How do you set hard_breaks to -1? Is there an option in the Mac GUI that I'm missing?

It's not in the GUI, at least not yet - maybe we can talk dynaflash into adding it.

Okay, you just talked me into it I will look into it today.

[jbrjake]

I'm wary of introducing this kind of niche nerd feature to the Gui. I considered it when detelecining was first being implemented, back before VFR, and decided against it, same as with offering parameter selection for deblock. It requires the user to think too much, and after all the whining about strict vs. loose anamorphic I really don't want to deal with more user complaints. Telling them it's explained in the docs doesn't help, they just make obnoxious comments about how the terms are "meaningless" without reading the docs and that they shouldn't ever *have* to read the docs, why make them choose, why can't it do it automatically, wa, wa, wa. And they'll already be upset that they had to learn a new word (telecine). And then they'll get more angry when they ask "So how do I know which to use?" and the only good reply is "Well encode with all 3 and see which looks the best." Then when they decide to use -1 or 1 they'll complain about too many dropped/combed frames.

I'd rather go with what we discussed in the dev forum, and eventually move to using -1 aby default with some combing detection to hide what it leaves behind.

I mean, don't get me wrong....I'd like to see all the parameters for all the filters be user-adjustable in the gui. I'm all for niche nerd features for my own personal use. But I worry about infecting the GUI with a severe case of featureitis and making it too imposing for anyone to use who isn't a developer or mencoder aficionado. If I'm outvoted on this one, I'd at least like to see the parameter selection hidden away in the deepest, darkest recesses of the preferences, where regular users won't ever find it.

[dynaflash]

Like the Preferences -> Advanced ?

[jbrjake]

Yeah, that sounds good. Not only in the Prefs, but in the tab furthest to the right.

If you're going to do it, I suggest full-on options pass-thru for all the filters. Text fields, filled in by default with the default settings. That way, people could try experimenting with mcdeint in the MacGui as well, do different hqdn3d parameters, maybe play around with pp7, etc. Trying to do that all with widgets would be...time-consuming, I think.

[jbrjake]

Just went and set detelecine's default breaks to -1, in revision 1486.