How to further improve NTSC to PAL conversion

[mp3dom]

Hi,
I've red in the past a good amount of guides to make standard conversion (from NTSC to PAL in particular keeping the same timecode to avoid audio resynch) and I've found good results with std. conv. script:

This give me a practical free-artifacts de-interlacing results (only some problems in very strong luma changes like from 100% black to 100% white or viceversa in short time).

The main problem is that it make field-blended results (smooth playback but ghosts) due to the ConvertFPS (ChangeFPS creates jerky motion and also edges flickering).

The sources are mainly DigiBeta of japanese anime (all interlaced) acquired in MPEG-2 I Frame (50 Mbps) at 29.97 fps (and I think they're really 59.94i because If i make AssumeTFF().SeparateFields() there aren't any field blended in the preview).

So, ATM I would like to further improve the conversion if possible (keeping the result interlaced but could be also progressive... the important thing is the timecode/duration that need to be the same to avoid audio manipulation). Some time ago I've tried Restore24 with "poor" results and also MVTools but made artifacts so I've used the script above.
I don't have particular problems with "time" needed to the conversion (so I can use new mocomp conversions if they works good)
Any ideas?
Thanks!

[Prodater64]

Maybe this can help you:

http://www.geocities.com/xesdeeni2001/StandardsConversion-Preview-0.html

[wsl]

Why not try this Poor man's NTSC 30p/60p to PAL 25p conversion (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=101505) ?

[Mug Funky]

anime is going to be difficult. even motion-compensated standards conversion will fail on anime. there's just no motion to compensate, except on pans and zooms.

although, if this is recent anime it'll possibly be telecined rather than 30p or 60i. does it have a 3:2 pattern?

thankfully, anime production has gone back to working at 24fps all the way through - when digital anime came in it was a horrid mixture of 24p, 30p and 60i.

however, the english titling is often still done the stupid way (and is in fact the only part that is done that way).

well, anyhoo, if you're working with recent anime or anime that's old enough to have been put on film, then you'll be able to just capture the digibeta (with uncompressed audio please. if you can spare the disk space, premiere pro can capture all 4 channels at once, and the video as raw 4:2:2 uyvy. this saves a lot of deck time playing again for channels 3+4...), and do an inverse telecine + speed up to 25p for PAL.

btw, if you're working with a lot of NTSC stuff, it might be worth investing in a hardware standards-converter. they pay for themselves quite quickly, in spite of their cost. of course you'll get field-blending this way, but i say it doesn't matter unless you're backing up to a very low bitrate (sub 4 mbps). remember DVD is a delivery format, and field-blending is only noticable to the insufferably anal people like me.

[mp3dom]

The anime is Brain Powerd NTSC version (date 1998). I've made the script:

MPEG2Source("video.d2v").AssumeTFF().SeparateFields()

and I've seen that it has a 3:2 pattern (at least frame A is repeated 3 times and then frame B for 2, C for 3 and D for 2 and so on).
I've tried Restore24 on this video but without a big success.
Can I IVTC in this case? Thanks

[Boulder]

Can I IVTC in this case? Thanks
You must if you are going to do an NTSC->PAL conversion. If the whole video is telecined, IVTC it and speedup to 25fps. Don't forget to process the audio as well;)

[Mug Funky]

well, if you've got lots of time to test this out and watch it a few times, then give IVTC+speedup a try. you'll have to change audio though unless you encode (out of spec) 720x576x23.976, and use DGpulldown to insert the correct flags to make a spec compliant 50i mpeg stream. i don't like to do this because of the jerkies that are introduced (2 repeated fields per second).

the slight pitch increase from speeding up usually isn't a problem. if it is you can use timestretching, but there'll still be a noticable difference (you can preserve pitch, but tempo will always be faster).

try:

mpeg2source("whatever.d2v")
audiodub(last,wavsource("uncompressedaudiosource.wav"))
telecide(order=1)
decimate()
xxxresize(720,576)
assumefps(25,true)
SSRC(48000)

this will IVTC, resize, speed up and PAL conform the audio for you.