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View Full Version : Frameblends-- is there any hope for this type of material...?


Joel Cairo
13th October 2005, 07:59
I have read extensively here of the excellent work being done with deinterlacers and standards conversions, but I have a different sort of situation, I think...

I work fairly extensively with NTSC kinescope transfers. For those who may not be old enough to be aware of the term, a kinescope is a filmed record (either 35 or 16 mm) of an American NTSC television broadcast. These were utilized prior to the invention of videotape, and in many cases are the only surviving record of the broadcast in question.

My problem in working with these is this: the kinescope film was recorded at a standard 24fps speed, from the original 30fps (actually, 60 fields per second) broadcast. This results in a film which has a **lot** of blended action, usually about 2.25 fields per frame. This of course, means that rapid hand movements, etc. tend to "strobe" noticeably as the program plays, and many movements have a "ghosting" motion. Is there any Avisynth plug-in that exists or is in development that can minimize or eliminate this type of distracting motion? From my reading here, I'm of the impression that a field deintelacer is not quite what is called for, so I'm a bit stymied as to how to try to remedy this.

I think someone else referred to these sort of blends as "peculiarblends"... I definitely agree!

Thanks for any guidance you can offer!

-Kevin

Mug Funky
13th October 2005, 08:37
ouch... the thread directly below this one ("restorefps") might give some food for thought, but i'm thinking there's not too much that can be done with this stuff.

TVs of old had pretty slow phosphors, no? and the scanning cameras used would give the "peculiarblend" blending (though it should be cancelled out by the TV's scanning?).

i think some of the Dr Who restoration that went on recently dealt with this kind of material, except with PAL and possibly an overcranked camera (depending on how clever the people that shot it were). looking at some of it though, i'm not sure it was entirely successful.