framerates for MP4 + H.264 files don't match DVDs

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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anonymoususer624
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 19, 2022 7:49 pm

framerates for MP4 + H.264 files don't match DVDs

Post by anonymoususer624 »

Hello,

I’m in the process of converting home movies on VHS to digital video. I’ve been creating DVD copies of the VHS tapes using a VCR/DVD recorder. Once transferred to DVD, I’ve been copying the DVDs’ contents to my computer and using Handbrake to create MP4 files with H.264 encoding.

I noticed right away that the MP4 files that I created in HandBrake appear to have lower framerates than the source DVDs. The home movies that I have been transferring to DVD were recorded using consumer VHS camcorders, and the framerate of the DVDs that I’ve burned is 29.97 frames per second. Whenever I create MP4 files from the DVDs in HandBrake, the videos are appear to be choppier than the DVDs with framerates that seem closer to 24 frames per second. I’ve tried selecting “29.97” and “same as source” under the FPS options in HandBrake’s video tab, but these settings have not fixed the problem.

At this point, I really don’t know what to do. All I want are MP4 files that preserve the fluid 29.97 framerate of the VHS footage that was burned to DVD. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

HandBrake version: 1.5.1
Operating system: Windows 11

The activity log for my most recent HandBrake session can be downloaded from OneDrive at the link below:

https://1drv.ms/t/s!AqXXP4V5C3cahf5c7Lz ... A?e=CWtIw3
Lostless
Bright Spark User
Posts: 155
Joined: Thu May 24, 2007 7:55 pm

Re: framerates for MP4 + H.264 files don't match DVDs

Post by Lostless »

What you are experiencing is the bane of interlaced content. Your home movies on vhs are actually 60 (59.94 to be exact) fields per second. Effectively 60 half frames per second. So when encoding to 29.97, you are dropping every other field. Basically throwing out half the temporal information.
To fix, change frame rate to “same as source” and change the decomb type to “bob”. That should clear things right up and give you a proper 60fps output.
anonymoususer624
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 19, 2022 7:49 pm

Re: framerates for MP4 + H.264 files don't match DVDs

Post by anonymoususer624 »

Thank you so much for the information! I've always found the technical details of interlaced video to be confusing and don't think I would have found a solution on my own. I ran several encoding tests, and the settings that you suggested have fixed the problem!
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