Smooth movement with CCE

[bairradino]

I made an introduction movie from After Effects wich has my logo that moves speedly on the space.
When I encode that movie with CCE I'm not able to get a smooth movement of that logo.
Any help?

[idbirch2]

Make sure you source/destination frame rates are the same. If at DVD resolution use at least 2500-3000kb/s bitrate and do at least 3 passes in CCE.

If frame-rates are not the same make correct use of pulldown

[bairradino]

The frame rate is correct and I'm encoding over 6500-7000 kbits/s.
It seems that the problem is the field order.
Despite the fact that the new beta version of CCE doesn't have anymore the possibility of tick/untick the "Upper field first" (what is suposed to be indiferent for CCE) I concluded that the encoder "doesn't like" Bottom field order footage.
Tell me about your experience.
I'm a PAL DV user.

[idbirch2]

Never really had any issues with field order although I do only convert PAL DVD so I guess that's why. It sounds like you figured out the problem - did you get the smoothness you were after?

I've never 'upgraded' CCE since 2.50 (I use 'upgrade' in the loosest possible sense) so have you tried just falling back on an earlier version?

[coona]

There is link to right settings of CCE for different sources and different field orders:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42416

@idbirch2

There is a lot of interlaced PAL DVD where field order really matter. They are typically captured TV series like Sex and the City, or Twin Peaks :)

[idbirch2]

@Coona

From those 2 you mentioned I have only ripped Sex and the City season 1 and the PAL version of that was actually a region 2 NTSC disc (which I thought didn't exist till then).

[bairradino]

As much as I know all PAL material is interlaced.
I exported that video with my logo with a fast movement from Premiere but with Upper Field setting, and after encoding the resulting video in CCE I got a smooth video.
So it seems that CCE only "appreciates" Upper Field footage... and DV PAL video is Lower Field First.

[coona]

As much as I know all PAL material is interlaced.

They are not. The major part of all DVDs from region 2 (mostly PAL - do you agree idbirch2 ;) :D ) are progressive (with interlaced extras :angry: ).
CCE always produces "upper field first" outcome (it can easily be changed with pulldown). But CCE can handle with both type of sources (tff or bff).

[bairradino]

Are you sure, Coona?
PAL means "Phase Alternating Lines". Each frame is composed of 625 vertical lines and it is formed in two steps (see
http://www.alkenmrs.com/video/standards.html and http://www.adobe.com/support/techguides/premiere/prmr_interlace/main.html and http://www.digitaljuice.com/techsup/interlaced.asp

[auenf]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=238508#post238508

Enf...

[coona]

OK :)

I guess that almost 100 % of new movies transfered into DVD are only speed up from 24fps to 25fps (PAL only, not NTSC - of course). That means that they are really progressive. Then we have movies which are NTSC->PAL converted (I guess american TV series - Star Trek, Friends)or old movies. This is difference between progressive and interlaced source (for me ;)).

Then we have NTFC and PAL(and SECAM) as TV projection technique.

Almost 100% of all TVs all around the world display video as "interlaced scan". PC monitors display video as "progressive scan". That means that monitors show the whole picture as single frame with all horizontal lines. On the other side there are TVs, which display picture in 2 fields. Each field displays only half of horizontal lines. First field contains odd lines, second field contains even lines. It is possible because of high freqency of displaying (1 frame = 2 fields -> so 50 fields per second for PAL - 60 for NTSC).

That´s why some series (like Friends) look shaky in fast moving scenes on monitors (probably wrong field order or field shift).

[idbirch2]

Huh?..what?... Damn i was asleep, er, yes I agree coona - PAL movies are almost always progressive, at least I always set CCE to progressive frames for my encodes and the results are excellent.

I realise my input is pointless as the question has already been answered but seing as I was asked a question I felt it rude not to reply :D

[bairradino]

idbirch2,

Firstly of all I must say that these Forums are very instructive. I'd learn a lot with your opinions.
Secondly you must precise if your encodes are from ripped material or captured video, like DV, and if you use your computer monitor or your television set for seeing your encoded material.
If you'll try to make a small video in After Effects that contains an oblical line of about 2 or 3 pixel thin, and, after encoding, you'll try to see it in a television set (I'm allways talking about PAL system) you will see that line flickering wich proves that PAL is a field display system and not frame display system.
I think I read somehere that NTSC can accept either frame and field display footage.
Sorry about any mistake in English... but I'm sure that if you'll try to write in Portuguese...

[idbirch2]

I'm going out on a limb here and I don't pretend to understand all the physics behind how this works but I found this:

Explanation of PAL/NTSC/interlacing (http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/CE/kuhn/ntsc/95x4.htm)

It mentions something very interesting about the "persistence of vision". Very breifly this is the length of time a still image is left on the retina - if the fps becomes lower than this then flickering occurs. A quote from the site explains it best:

Large bright theater projectors avoid this problem by placing rotating shutters in front of the image in order to increase the repetition rate by a factor of 2 (to 48fps) or three (to 72fps) without changing the actual images.

Anyway, I digress, it appears from these definitions that PAL and NTSC are interlaced (at least on TV). PAL is 25fps so when interlaced is 50Hz and NTSC is 30fps, interlaced = 60Hz

But if PAL DVDs are 25 frames per second, does this mean they combine the interlaced frames to make progressive frames, or are they still bound by the definition of the PAL TV system? It sounds to me like the PAL DVD footage only gets interlaced by the playback device or TV - while its on the DVD or being encoded it is still progressive. Anyone know enough about this to confirm this or correct me?

I'm more confused than when I started!