Bad PAL conversion from NTSC Video/FILM/PAL Video

[jase99]

Hi guys. I am trying to encode my copy of The Matrix Reloaded PAL DVD. It appears to contain all of the following:

PAL Video
NTSC Video badly field blended to PAL
FILM badly field blended to PAL

I typically stay away from field blended garbage, but I would really like to encode this and have it available to play from my media player.

Here's are three scenes cut from the MPEG-2 stream:
http://dump.no/files/efe97b5dcf2d/VTS_02_1.demuxed_cut.m2v

The first sequence is a camera pan, it appears to be native PAL and de-interlaces well as such without field blends / ghosting or jerkiness. The second sequence is a guy waving his hands about, separatefields() shows field blends, I suspect it was originally NTSC video. The third (short) sequence I'm guessing was originally FILM because it is a scene from The Matrix the movie, it may have been telecined before being converted to PAL (I'm not sure), either way, there are field blends.

I've spent a good deal of time searching the forums but have not found a solution to recovering progressive frames satisfactorily. I don't mind if I have to live with one of the content types field blended if I must, but I can't live with jerkiness.

I've tried various combinations of telecide, cdeblend, mrestore and restore24, supplying parameters to generate 23.976, 29.970 or 25fps video but I still end up with some sequences jerky.

Please offer suggestions how to tackle this source. I realise it is disgusting but would really like to be able to encode it. Encoding it interlaced is not an option.

I did think about mcbob'ing to 50fps but that doesn't get rid of the field blends. Another possibility that springs to mind is VFR. I've made many VFR encodes but they've all been 29.970/23.976fps combinations using tfm/tdecimate. I don't know how to make a 23.976(and/or 29.970)/25fps combination. Of course, this would only work if there was a way to automatically detect the various original source types, something else I don't know how to do. There are so many cuts between what appears to be PAL and NTSC video throughout the footage it would take a very long time to do this manually. Combine that with creating a timecode file manually to match and it becomes a task too big; it would need to be automated.

I could be barking up the wrong tree completely and missed an obvious answer, in which case that would be the best outcome!

Any and all suggestions welcome.

[Terranigma]

Why not just get the native NTSC Film version and avoid such a mess?

[Nightshiver]

lol. Simple question, simple answer. For cases like these, it's a lot easier to do just that. Why did you buy the PAL version in the first place?

[jase99]

Yep, that may be the obvious answer I should be looking for. I own the PAL version. If the NTSC disc is the way forward with this source, then at £1.77 from amazon for a used copy including shipping, it's hardly going to break the bank! Perhaps as an educational excercise I'll see if there are any other suggestions posted before placing an order. Thank you.

I own the PAL version because I live in the UK, it was a present given to me some time ago.

[2Bdecided]

...and, of course, for the main movie, it's higher resolution than the "NTSC" version, doesn't suffer motion judder due to 3-2 pulldown when watched on a standard TV, but does run 4% fast.

I don't think many Americans would think of buying a "PAL" disc just to get "clean" extras for movies filmed in the UK (where the cast interviews etc will have been recorded in "PAL").

However, the choice of source is the most important part of achieving a good result. Sometimes you need both versions to get everything at its best!

Cheers,
David.