some basic noob questions about DV capture and interlace phenomena

[roise_r]

hi all, recently i bought a DV camcorder, and started looking for guides about DV caputre, encoding, what is mostly recommended and other related posts... i learned quite a lot during these brief tutorials, but still i have some quite basic questions that i want to get out of the way, before I start downloading all of my minicasettes to DVDs,

1.i bought my camera in USA, this means that it shoots in NTSC format, right? i would like to check that, what is the easiest way to do that... all cameras that record on tape (digital or analog), record interlaced videos...right? so my camera records video in NTSC-interlaced format...?

2.i tried to use different softwares to capture my video (just capture), but it turned out that different programs capture differently, with big differences in quality, thats why i am FORCED to ask the following question:
What software is recommended to use just for capture, no video editing or encoding) i tried some of them and Adobe premiere's capturing tools seems to be quite good

3.when i capture with movie maker's capturing tool and after that i play the raw captured video with classic media player, just after caputre, (before closing movie maker), it will play the video interlaced (the interlace artifacts are clearly visible), and the video it somewhat brighter, very pale, but brighter, the moment i close movie maker, the interlacing will dissappear, and the video will become darker... is there a specific reason for that...?

4.lets see if i got the interlace issue right, at all. interlaced video is the one that each frame contain two fields that show in turn, one after another... and progressive scan videos are made of pure frames, no fields... right?

5.if i am playing video that is interlaced, to a progressive scan display, i would know couse the video would consist interalce artifacts, what about if i play progressive video on interlace based display, how would i know...

6.if my dvd player has a label on in saying that it plays progressive scan does this mean that i should not worry about videos being interlaced or not, couse my player will take care of this automaticly???

7.how do i asure my self that my TV is PAL and DOES NOT support progressive scan...

8.when i start a new project on adobe premiere it will ask me what type of project I want to use:
24P, NTSC and PAL, (NTSC and PAL are reffering to interlaced i assume, couse there is a separate project for 24 progressive)... now if my camera is shooting on NTSC-interlaced and my DVD player supports progressive scan on both NTSC and PAL, and my TV i PAL-interlaced, what project type should i use of the above three...?

9.telecine process is the one that will convert progressive cinema frames to NTSC interlaced frames, ? and IVTC is the process from interlaced NTSC to progressive NTSC?

10.encoding in Divx or Xvid, can i add chater or make menus, like in MPEG2 encoding (DVD format), what about VCD and SVCD, are these any good, i am really having a hard time decideing what type of encoding should i use. quality and size both matter:)

well, thats it, 10x to those who actualy reached the end, and anyone who wishes to reply...:)

[ariga]

1.i bought my camera in USA, this means that it shoots in NTSC format, right? i would like to check that, what is the easiest way to do that... all cameras that record on tape (digital or analog), record interlaced videos...right? so my camera records video in NTSC-interlaced format...?
Most likely it would be written in the accompanying manual and on the camera itself. What model/make is it ?
2......What software is recommended to use just for capture, no video editing or encoding) i tried some of them and Adobe premiere's capturing tools seems to be quite good
If you are comfortable with whatever you got and it works then no need to look for another tool to do the same.

8.when i start a new project on adobe premiere it will ask me what type of project I want to use:......what project type should i use of the above three...?
Use whatever matches the format on the DV tape.

10.encoding in Divx or Xvid, can i add chater or make menus, like in MPEG2 encoding (DVD format), what about VCD and SVCD, are these any good, i am really having a hard time decideing what type of encoding should i use. quality and size both matter:) If you look around you'll find that DivX does support chapters and menus. I guess such features depend on the container format and not the codec. Encode a 10 mins clip to different formats and decide what is acceptable quality. Also you might want to consider other aspects like player compatibility.

[Video Dude]

1.i bought my camera in USA, this means that it shoots in NTSC format, right? i would like to check that, what is the easiest way to do that... all cameras that record on tape (digital or analog), record interlaced videos...right? so my camera records video in NTSC-interlaced format...? It is NTSC. Some higher end cameras do have an option to record in progessive format.

2.i tried to use different softwares to capture my video (just capture), but it turned out that different programs capture differently, with big differences in quality, thats why i am FORCED to ask the following question:
What software is recommended to use just for capture, no video editing or encoding) i tried some of them and Adobe premiere's capturing tools seems to be quite goodI like the Ulead products.

3.when i capture with movie maker's capturing tool and after that i play the raw captured video with classic media player, just after caputre, (before closing movie maker), it will play the video interlaced (the interlace artifacts are clearly visible), and the video it somewhat brighter, very pale, but brighter, the moment i close movie maker, the interlacing will dissappear, and the video will become darker... is there a specific reason for that...? The direct show filters. DirectX 9 will automatically bob the video to deinterlace. I do not suggest using moviemaker.

4.lets see if i got the interlace issue right, at all. interlaced video is the one that each frame contain two fields that show in turn, one after another... and progressive scan videos are made of pure frames, no fields... right? That is basically correct.

5.if i am playing video that is interlaced, to a progressive scan display, i would know couse the video would consist interalce artifacts, what about if i play progressive video on interlace based display, how would i know... If you played 24p on an interlaced display, the video would not be smooth during playback, it would be jerky. DVDs avoid this problem with the pulldown flag.

6.if my dvd player has a label on in saying that it plays progressive scan does this mean that i should not worry about videos being interlaced or not, couse my player will take care of this automaticly???I usually turn the progressive scan off on the dvd player. I let my HDTV handle it.

7.how do i asure my self that my TV is PAL and DOES NOT support progressive scan...What county did you buy it in? USA and Japan are NTSC. Europe is PAL, except for France.

8.when i start a new project on adobe premiere it will ask me what type of project I want to use:
24P, NTSC and PAL, (NTSC and PAL are reffering to interlaced i assume, couse there is a separate project for 24 progressive)... now if my camera is shooting on NTSC-interlaced and my DVD player supports progressive scan on both NTSC and PAL, and my TV i PAL-interlaced, what project type should i use of the above three...? Your source is NTSC so you must use the NTSC project.

9.telecine process is the one that will convert progressive cinema frames to NTSC interlaced frames, ? and IVTC is the process from interlaced NTSC to progressive NTSC? Telecine is only for film. IVTC will not convert camcorder NTSC interlace to progressive. You will have to use a deinterlacer.

10.encoding in Divx or Xvid, can i add chater or make menus, like in MPEG2 encoding (DVD format), what about VCD and SVCD, are these any good, i am really having a hard time decideing what type of encoding should i use. quality and size both matter:) I would suggest DVD MPEG-2.

[theReal]

Quote:
2.i tried to use different softwares to capture my video (just capture), but it turned out that different programs capture differently, with big differences in quality, thats why i am FORCED to ask the following question:
What software is recommended to use just for capture, no video editing or encoding) i tried some of them and Adobe premiere's capturing tools seems to be quite good

I like the Ulead products.

The premiere capture tool is fine, too. Essentially every program that captures without encoding into a different file format is fine (I wouldn't be sure that moviemaker doesn't immediately re-encode files, so don't use moviemaker, Premiere is much better)


3.when i capture with movie maker's capturing tool and after that i play the raw captured video with classic media player, just after caputre, (before closing movie maker), it will play the video interlaced (the interlace artifacts are clearly visible), and the video it somewhat brighter, very pale, but brighter, the moment i close movie maker, the interlacing will dissappear, and the video will become darker... is there a specific reason for that...?
The direct show filters. DirectX 9 will automatically bob the video to deinterlace.

I do not suggest using moviemaker. Video looking different on playback can be due to the player and its method of displaying interlaced DV. Movie Maker uses its own codec I guess, usually players use the standard DV Video Decoder codec from Windows. That doesn't change the actual file though.

10.encoding in Divx or Xvid, can i add chater or make menus, like in MPEG2 encoding (DVD format), what about VCD and SVCD, are these any good, i am really having a hard time decideing what type of encoding should i use. quality and size both matter
If I were you I'd go with DVD. A DVD with the highest bitrate has decent quality, it's very compatible and you can easily create menus. You won't have to de-interlace the video which saves time and quality.

I'm not sure about not de-interlacing XVid, maybe it's possible too - but if you want to watch it on computer screens only, it's better to de-interlace before encoding.
With XVid the quality won't be better than DVD, all you can do is save some bitrate with the same quality. However menus with XVid will include quite some hacking effort and it won't be easily compatible everywhere you go.

Do you want to watch the video on your PC or on your TV? Because if you want to watch it on your PAL tv, then you'll run into problems with the ntsc frame rate. If you have a PAL tv which can't show ntsc video (60 Hz and 29.97 frames/s compared to PAL with 50 Hz and 25 frames/s) then you'll always end up with stuttering video. Conversions from 24fps film to PAL are easy, but native ntsc video is almost impossible to convert perfectly to PAL.

btw. forget about VCD and SVCD. VCD is total crap (worse than VHS...) and SVCD is a lot of effort for not-so-good quality. In times where a good brand DVD-R costs 50 cent (Euro cent) and a decent dvd burner is available for 50 Euro these formats are totally obsolete!

[bb]

[...](I wouldn't be sure that moviemaker doesn't immediately re-encode files, so don't use moviemaker, Premiere is much better)[...]

Windows MovieMaker does not re-encode if you capture to DV.

bb

[roise_r]

hi all and thanks for all your answers... sorry that it took me so long to reply, but i was ...internetless for almost a week now...

before posting, i just want to add the followings: my video camera IS NTSC, i use both,NTSC and PAL mini cassetes, my TV is PAL, both my camera and TV are interlaced and most importatly i want to be able to play the end-up videos both on computer and TV, so i would want to stick interlaced, which is good, couse i don't have to run the additional processing of de-interlacing...

@ariga
1.yes, it is written, i dont understand how could i have missed it...:)


my question:"what project should i use in Adobe Premiere Pro if i have NTSC camera and want to watch on PAL TV"
Use whatever matches the format on the DV tape.

i asked the same question along with two others in another forum, and one of the answers was this, which confused me...?

<<3. Because you watch on a PAL TV, you should use PAL project settings. There is no problem improting NTSC material into a PAL project but it will need to be completely rendered. >>

@video dude

Quote:
3.when i capture with movie maker's capturing tool and after that i play the raw captured video with classic media player, just after caputre, (before closing movie maker), it will play the video interlaced (the interlace artifacts are clearly visible), and the video it somewhat brighter, very pale, but brighter, the moment i close movie maker, the interlacing will dissappear, and the video will become darker... is there a specific reason for that...? end quote
The direct show filters. DirectX 9 will automatically bob the video to deinterlace. I do not suggest using moviemaker.

it is not only if captured from movie maker... any captured avi in DV-AVI format would do that... i tried win DV aslo... and the same, ! If any capture program is running at the moment when i play any DV-AVI file in ANY avi player, it will appear interlaced, brighter and good quality... after i close the DV capturing software... AND i restart the player application, it will start playing 24P, darker and the quality is somewhat jerkier... is directX the reason for all that...? and if yes, then the real video that is actualy saved on my HD is the one i watch while DV capturing tool is running... the other ...the darker played video, is actualy video processed by a third party tool (in this case, directX) right! but i guess it is not so relevant right now...

If you played 24p on an interlaced display, the video would not be smooth during playback, it would be jerky. DVDs avoid this problem with the pulldown flag.

ok... i have interlaced video on raw DV-AVI format, i de-interlace it, then encode it and there i will be having a pure 24p video right? if i play this 24p video straight to my TV i would get jerkyness for sure... so the question is how do i recognize this jerkyness, video with noise on it, or the video is strached or something else...? and what is the pull down flag,

@the real
If I were you I'd go with DVD. A DVD with the highest bitrate has decent quality, it's very compatible and you can easily create menus. You won't have to de-interlace the video which saves time and quality.

why is that i dont have to de-interlace DVD, does this has something to do with pulldown flag? and why i have to do this in a Xvid format, does xvid or divx lack pulldown flag?

Do you want to watch the video on your PC or on your TV? Because if you want to watch it on your PAL tv, then you'll run into problems with the ntsc frame rate. If you have a PAL tv which can't show ntsc video (60 Hz and 29.97 frames/s compared to PAL with 50 Hz and 25 frames/s) then you'll always end up with stuttering video.

i use from time to time the analog video-audio cabel, with which i can watch my video in the old-fasioned way by just pluging my camera to the TV with the analog video-audio cabel, (S-Video is tha name i think) and i have absolutely no problems plaing NTSC cassetes from the NTSC camera to the PAL TV, what does this mean, my TV is NTSC? ...which i am sure it is not...!

[Video Dude]

ok... i have interlaced video on raw DV-AVI format, i de-interlace it, then encode it and there i will be having a pure 24p video right?
No, when you deinterlace it will be 29.97p.
You have a NTSC camcorder. The framerate is 29.97. Each frame is made up of two fields. When you deinterlace, you will either get rid of one field or combine them into one. The result is 29.97 fps.

if i play this 24p video straight to my TV i would get jerkyness for sure... so the question is how do i recognize this jerkyness, video with noise on it, or the video is strached or something else...? The video will stutter. You will know it when you see it. You will get a headache and feel dizzy. ;)


why is that i dont have to de-interlace DVD, does this has something to do with pulldown flag? and why i have to do this in a Xvid format, does xvid or divx lack pulldown flag?
Software dvd players will deinterlace interlaced material automatically when you play it back. Xvid and Divx do not have a pulldown flag.

[ariga]

i asked the same question along with two others in another forum, and one of the answers was this, which confused me...?Fiddle with your camera settings or read the manual to locate the sound settings. There's usually 32kHz/48kHz sound setup in one of the menus. If the final destination is DVD better stick with 48kHz stereo. Use the same setting in Premiere.

[roise_r]

ok, i have these lasts question, couse i think i got everything cleared out and i can begin capturing and encoding... and i appolagise again for the delay... :)

1. as i think you got by now is that i dont know much about video capture, edit and encode, but i want to start working on it in a real proffesional sense, i want to be able to create my motion menues with my own pitures or parts of the video it self played in slow motion, the little boxes which represent chapters to be motion video , not just a still picture from the first frame of the chapter... - i have the tryout version of the adobe pro version 2.0, i am ready to buy the full 900$ software, it is not my money, so money doesn't matter - can this adobe pro do all that? and the full version, does it come with more templates for DVD menus, couse the tryout version comes with only one - corporate template...which is far from enough...!

2.i will tell the SEQUENCE of my actions from cassete to MPEG-2 DVD and you tell me if i am going to do something wrong (again my camera is NTSC interlaced, i use NTSC and PAL cassetes, my DVD has progressive scan option and auto select NTSC or PAL, and my TV is PAL interlaced) i want to be able to watch video on PC and TV...

1.capture (transfer) DV-AVI to HD using NTSC project settings
2.use adobe pro to edit video, move chapters, do motion menus and all that, DON'T de-interlace!!!
3.use the DVD making application that is located in the Window menu, DVD layout, then i choose the only template there - the corporate and press burn, and then the burning dialog appears, but the BURN button itself is not active, although the status is Ready... so i guess it's becouse of the tryout version... in the full version, these steps include the encoding which is done automaticly after I press the Burn button, right?
Now, all the above, i presume that i wont have to be doing any editing to my video, no extra effects no de-intelace, no other stuff... Now, if i want to be doing extra editing... can i use adobe premiere for that too??? or do i have to buy extra tools. Somewhere i read that Mpeg Video Wizard is pretty good for that???

3.is there a way to remake menus of an already done and encoded DVD?
4.I never encoded in MPEG-2. do i have to set settings for MPEG-2 encoding like in xvid... bitrate, quantizer, B-frames, and all this encode related seetings, or everything in DVD is with default settings?

[Guest]

Your last post is totally off-topic for this subforum and the thread title. You should post DVD authoring questions in the DVD authoring forum.

[roise_r]

Your last post is totally off-topic for this subforum and the thread title. You should post DVD authoring questions in the DVD authoring forum.

hm.. you are right... i didnt realize that gradualy i started asking questions about encoding and not capturing... my apologies...
so what is your suggestion now since this post contains both encoding and capturing disscusions...? should i post the last question again ?

[Guest]

Please make a new thread in DVD authoring. You'll get better help on it there too. Our discussion here will insulate you from crossposting accusations. :)

[roise_r]

ok, but pls, dont close this one, couse someone may have something to say about capturing... and the interlace related thing, "why cant i use xvid interlaced"

[Guest]

This is bb's subforum. I couldn't do that even if I wanted to (and there's no reason to close it). :)

Good luck with your authoring endeavors.

[communist]

If you played 24p on an interlaced display, the video would not be smooth during playback, it would be jerky. DVDs avoid this problem with the pulldown flag.
Pulldown doesnt make it smoother or fix any problem, it just adds another layer of jerkiness. 24p material if shot right will look smooth on interlaced displays due to motion blur. Pulldown is to conform to NTSC frame rate.
Slightly sped up FILM ('25p') doesnt look jerky on ordinary PAL displays :)

Also there seems to be whole lot of confusion about which project template and how to play it on a PAL TV/ PAL DVD player.

Capture the material as it is. Choose NTSC and 48kHz, if you recorded @ 32kHz use 48kHz anyway cause for DVD you will need it. The simple reason why you shouldn use PAL project template - Premiere will try to convert (with horrible quality/speed) to PAL.

I would create a simple NTSC DVD from some of the clips and try it on the DVD player / TV. Most TVs and DVD players sold in PAL countries can do NTSC (actually a special form of PAL called PAL60) so there is no need to get a headache from stand conversion. If that fails you can either buy a PAL camcorder or get into standards conversion ;)

Btw I dont think there is any real difference between NTSC or PAL (mini)DV tapes. Since the same amount of data is written and its all digital.

[SeeMoreDigital]

...and the interlace related thing, "why cant i use xvid interlaced"This would be a possibility!

However, if you are intending to view interlaced MPEG-4 (XviD) encodes in software, there are currently no direct-show decoder filters that offer support for interlaced playback.... You should be alright if you want to view interlaced MPEG-4 (XviD) encodes in hardware though ;)