Wrong field pairs in PAL DVD - how to repair?

[marsoupilami]

I just bought the double feature edition "Fritz the Cat 1&2" RC0/PAL.
The first part is ok but the second seems to have a severe problem.

While playing fine on my standalone player every software player (VLC, PowerDVD, VirtualDub, Avidemux) is blending together the wrong fields.
E.g. bottom field 399 is combined with top field 400, BF400 with TF401, etc...
This is definitely not the result of an erroneous or bad frame rate conversion - the fields itself are clean.
Obviously there is missing exactly one field - I guess skipping (or doubling) one field would solve the problem.

Please no "deinterlace / reencode" suggestions ...
Many thanks for your help!

[GodofaGap]

If it's really hardcoded that way, you need to re-encode to fix it, unless you are fine running an avisynth script in your player.

[manono]

Most software players won't handle it correctly, as they're strictly flag readers. However, if you're getting blending then you can usually choose an interpolating deinterlacer of some sort.

As GodofaGap says, playing the video via an AviSynth script with a simple Telecide (from Decomb) or TFM (from TIVTC) would fix it, if you don't want to reencode the entire thing.

Of course, a decent player would perform a 2:2 pulldown to realign the fields properly. From your (somewhat faulty) description you just have phase-shifted fields, something fairly common with PAL DVDs.
Please no "deinterlace / reencode" suggestions ...
Many thanks for your help!
What kind of help are you asking for, then? Obviously your players are already deinterlacing it, as you're not seeing the interlacing. How about, "Don't watch it with a software player. Use your standalone."

[marsoupilami]

Many thanks to both of you for your answers!

What kind of help are you asking for, then?
... yes you are right - I hoped that "patching the tff/rff flags" or something like this could push the player into the right phase (no idea, if those flags exist in PAL).

And indeed my description is faulty: the sw-players are not "blending" something - they are displaying "phase shifted fields" as you called it.
Since I own this DVD the standalone option is ok - I'm still wondering how it can handle this video correctly (while a sw-player cannot) and I would like to correct this making a backup.

[Guest]

... yes you are right - I hoped that "patching the tff/rff flags" or something like this could push the player into the right phase (no idea, if those flags exist in PAL). There are no flags. That is for telecining, which is not done for PAL. You simply have misaligned fields.

Since I own this DVD the standalone option is ok - I'm still wondering how it can handle this video correctly (while a sw-player cannot) and I would like to correct this making a backup. When you play with a standalone and display on a TV, it just outputs a stream of fields and alignment is not an issue. It's an issue only when you try to display full frames on a progressive display, as a software player will do.

You can fix it when encoding by correcting the misalignment.

[marsoupilami]

@neuron2

Thanks for your clarification concerning the field flags!

I know, that a traditional CRT-TV can display any "stream of fields" - I played around a lot of time with my standalone and it could "find together" the right frames in "very slow motion" and even when displaying "still pictures"
You can fix it when encoding by correcting the misalignment.
By feeding an AviSynt script e.g. to TMpgEnc? What do I need? Tom's MoComp? How should look like such a script?

[Guest]

Use Telecide() or TFM().

[marsoupilami]

Because I'm not familiar with AviSynth scripts I created one using Gordianknot ...
There I added the 2 lines

LoadPlugin("....decomb.dll")
Telecide(order=1)

In VirtualDubMod it looks fine - re-encoding will take a few hours...

Thanks again for your help!
:)

[Ranguvar]

Because I'm not familiar with AviSynth scripts I created one using Gordianknot ...
There I added the 2 lines

LoadPlugin("....decomb.dll")
Telecide(order=1)

In VirtualDubMod it looks fine - re-encoding will take a few hours...

Thanks again for your help!
:)
'guide=1' is used for 3:2 pulldown, for 29.97fps -> 23.976fps telecined content. I wouldn't use any guide at all, just Telecide().

[Guest]

@Ranguvar

Read it again. He did not specify guide=1.

[Ranguvar]

@Ranguvar

Read it again. He did not specify guide=1.
D'oh! Sorry, marsoupilami :p Too little sleep, that's my excuse.

[marsoupilami]

Never mind!
I didn't even notice, that this is really an "interlace" issue - I thought it's possible to "kick" out one frame wihout reencoding.
(To tell the truth - when I saw this movie 1st time on my pc my stomach was revolting) :rolleyes:

Although the difference between order=0 and order=1 is not very obvious to me - the the encoding result is very impressing!
Both AviSynth and Decomb are really marvelous tools!

Thanks again for your help and your attention
:)