Decombing issues

[HighScore80]

I'm trying to capture some Nintendo 64 with my new capture card. By the look of the captures I've done I concluded that I need to decomb them so they don't look interlaced-like. In almost every case this seems to work fine, except for parts with higher motion.

Here's some samples:

Low motion Uncompressed AVI:
http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/4558/mickey1.png

Low motion with AviSynth using Telecine():
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/9500/mickey2b.png

Higher motion Uncompressed AVI:
http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/1065/mickeym1.png

Higher motion with AviSynth using Telecine():
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5963/mickeym2.png

Could I do anything in the capture process to avoid this or should I use any other filters/plugins for decombing in AviSynth?

I'm also posting a sample of 125 frames from the uncompressed AVI: http://www.easy-share.com/1909684536/motioncut.avi

I can't seem to fix this tiny problem. I appreciate all the help I can get!

[osgZach]

You have some major dot-crawl issues by the looks of some of those captures. what kind of cable are you using? composite?

Are you jacking it straight from the consoles output to your capture card? If you can find an S-Video cable that's one thing you can do..

Also.. Telecide (I think thats what you meant by Telecine?) is for restoring 24fps footage from a Telecined source.. Are you sure the console outputs a telecined picture? I would have thought consoles would output an interlaced picture, or even progressive.


edit:..

Tdeint() seemed to give pretty stable results,


#source
AssumeTFF()
Tdeint()


If you can tackle the dot crawl issues with a better capture source, then using Tdeint should be the way to go from what I can tell.

[HighScore80]

The output from the N64 should be progressive and I must've confused telecide with something else.

I did try the AssumeTFF(), Tdeint() technique before and it gave me identical results, so I reinstalled all my plugins and everything seems to work fine now!

Thanks so much for your help! Been busy with this for a few hours already and it turned out to be something as silly as bugging plugins.

Now on the quality side. Yes, I'm using a composite cable directly from the console to the capture card.

Would it really make a difference to buy a composite -> S-video cable with the dot-crawl issue or do I need a certain adapter? Something that "converts" the picture?

[wonkey_monkey]

The output from the N64 should be progressive and I must've confused telecide with something else.

I think you're mistaken - in any case it outputs a video signal that is natively interlaced, whether or not the two fields make up a single frame. But I'm pretty sure Goldeneye ran at 50Hz in PAL land, which means interlaced video (I was annoyed that Perfect Dark didn't run so smoothly).

Would it really make a difference to buy a composite -> S-video cable with the dot-crawl issue or do I need a certain adapter? Something that "converts" the picture?

You need an N64->S-video cable - I didn't realise such a thing existed but Wikipedia is quite clear that the N64 can output s-video with the right cable.

David

[HighScore80]

You need an N64->S-video cable - I didn't realise such a thing existed but Wikipedia is quite clear that the N64 can output s-video with the right cable.

Great! I just ordered one. Problems solved for today. Thanks guys! :)

[wonkey_monkey]

Now I really wish I could find my N64 power supply :(

David

[osgZach]

I can't find any technical info on what the N64 outputs (I'm sure someone who knows where to look could though) but on the off chance it really does output progressive, you should just double check to make sure you're not capturing and then interlacing for some reason (i.e its got to encode it as something when it stores it, so your capture program could be doing it then).. But I'm willing to bet it outputs interlaced. Again not too sure on the PAL stuff as they could have different hardware for that region, but just double check your capture process to make sure you personally know whats going on (because you should know anyway).

And yes, getting an N64 - Svideo is what I was talking about. A composite to S-Video won't do anything except give you the same bad signal. But all the same, if you can ever locate a component video cable for your N64 that will give you the best output possible. Supposedly an NTSC N64 will also output RGB over SCART, but I have no idea how that would work as we don't typically have SCART type stuff in the USA as far as I know.

I suppose technically you could get an RGB SCART cable, and then get an SCART to S-Video/Component adapter. That -might- work but I have no way of knowing for sure.

S-Video will likely be sufficient though.. As long as you jack it straight to an S-Video input on your capture device that would (I hope) get rid of most if not all of the dot crawl, and probably give you one hell of a cleaner picture overall

[Lyris]

Some N64 consoles can be modified to give RGB output via SCART, I believe.
If you REALLY want the best captures, you could do this and get ahold of an RGB SCART -> Component video transcoder.

But S-Video should be sufficient.

[scharfis_brain]

how about capturing a N64 emulator output?

also AFAIK the N64 puts out 320x240, so just doing a separatefields() should be fully sufficient.