RB and Progressive /Interlaced combo DVDs

[Blackout]

Hi,

ive read lots of posts on the forum but im still not satisifed i have a clear answer/method for this so id like to ask.

I have lots of PAL HOllywood dvds i would like to back up. 99% of them have a PROGRESSIVE 16:9 main movie, then the extras are INTERLACED 4:3. This is pretty standard fare. eg Leathal Weapon, etc. So what we have is two types of video format in one DVD.

How do i know that RB is giving CCE the settings to set the Progressive/Zigzag flag for the main movie, and Interlaced for the extras? Is it doing it automatically? or do i have to set them? and arent the only settings i can see in the RB menus for AVS? Its confusing as these arent listed under CCE as settings for CCE...also to me, logic dictates that if i dont "disable interlaced" processing, then its going to be Interlaced Processing!!! So do i have to "disable interlaced" every time for a dvd? Surely this could be labelled clearer...also are the flags in the final vobs now correctly being set?

From experience, CCE's strong point is its Progressive conversions. For interlaced material, its , well , not that great. 2.50 was partically bad at interlaced material, 2.66 and 2.67 are a fair bit better but nothing to write home about. If CCE is doing the main progressive movie in "interlaced" mode then i know its not going to look the best. And after a few encodes, this is what im worried im seeing.

With thanks,
Blackout

[wmansir]

"Disable Interlaced" is an override in case DVD-RB fails to automatically detect a progressive VTS as progressive. jdobbs added this option because several PAL users reported this as a common problem. If your DVD is authored correctly (with the right flags set) you shouldn't have to use this setting and the source will be re-encoded as it is flagged (progressive or interlaced).

How can you check?

You can check your source before DVD-RB even touches it by loading a VOB that should be progressive into Bitrate Viewer and seeing if the frame type is flagged Interlaced or Progressive. If it is wrong you can override it with "Disable Interlaced" and force DVD-RB to treat it progressive.

How can you see what DVD-RB is doing?

Run DVD-RB's prepare step (from 3-click mode), then go into the D2VAVS folder in the working directory and check out the .avs files.

You can preview them to see if the video is progressive/interlaced by opening the .avs file in a media player/editor. To see how DVD-RB is treating them open the .avs file in a text editor and look at the ConvertToYUY2 line. If DVD-RB is treating the material as progressive it will just be ConvertToYUY2(), if it is being treated as interlaced it will be ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true).

You can also check by loading the REBUILDER.ECL file in a text editor. There is a flag "progressive=" 1 or 0 which DVD-RB will set according to how it detected the segment.

Note that even though the "Disable Interlaced" feature is on a per VTS basis, DVD-RB's auto-detection is done per VOB-ID, so if a VTS is a mixture of interlaced and progressive material it should handle each correctly.

[Noah]

Originally posted by Blackout
How do i know that RB is giving CCE the settings to set the Progressive/Zigzag flag for the main movie, and Interlaced for the extras?Rebuilder generally recreates the original flag sequence exactly as it was on the original DVD.

[Blackout]

Thanks guys, sounds like RB is working like i hoped it would. :)

I think Disable "Interlaced" really should be called "Force Progressive Flag"....or something then so there is no confusion...also re:CCE passes, really you should just save your breath of explaining forever to ppl about the .vaf file being a pass and make the setting CCE passes=CCE processing passes. It would be one programming line to change this and it would just remove confusion amongst the masses. Maybe if you want to keep it "purist" you could add a text comment next to the setting "(+vaf file)" or similar...most ppl dont care if theres a .vaf, .gaf or .naf file being made, we just want to set how many processing passes there are in the encode. save us all doing arithmetic every time we go to set this puppy.

Just suggestions from a new RB user... :)

Cheers,
Blackout

[jdobbs]

I'm stubborn. The fact is that 2-pass is 2-pass... and CCE documents it incorrectly. Let them change their way of saying it, because DVD-RB is right. ;)

They aren't even consistent within their own line... 2 pass encoding in CCE Basic is a .VAF pass followed by one more.

[Blackout]

Hi,

thanks heaps for a reply. Sounds fair.

i just had a look at backing up my first Pal DVD, and the rotten thing has the wrong flag set, typical...the main 16:9 movie is incorrectly set as interlaced. This is going to be more of a nightmare i think than i thought.

Any chance in DVD Rebuilder where u list the Video Title Sets and show the size and ratio, it could list "I" or "P" in the file header so it can hint at whether the flag is incorrectly set? So if we see a Hollywood movie at 16x9 thats Interlaced, it rings bells?

eg:

Video Title Sets
VTS_01 [6,242 MBytes, 16:9, P]
VTS_02 [176 MBytes, 16:9, I]
VTS_03 [93 MBytes, 4:3, I]
...

Heres the real danger for me tho...is the main movie file actually progressive i ask myself?? Even tho i dont see any interlacing in DVD2AVI and the movie master [Cant Stop The Music] is obviously good ole 24fps film, could the DVD mastering house have just processed the movie in interlaced mode along with the extras, with interlaced fields that are just be doubled up and redundant? I wander if there could be software written to detect this...detect whether the file has every interlaced field the same as the other and is wasting space and should be progressive? Then RB could flash that the flag is wrong and to increase quality , should be changed to progressive...just thinking aloud :)

Blackout

[SansGrip]

Check the corresponding .FLG file in a hex editor. If it's mostly 0s or 2s then the material is interlaced 29.97fps. If it's a repeating pattern involving odd numbers then the material is progressive 24fps.

[wmansir]

I think that only works for NTSC, where this isn't much of a problem.