HCEnc cannot produce properly PAL interlaced output

[Perepandel]

Hi all,

I've been struggling with HCEnc to produce a DVD from a PAL interlaced video source (an VHS captured with my old AverMedia bt87t capture card).

Every output MPEG2 file is suffering of the same bug: interlacing artifacts when played in my desktop DVD player.

I've tried almost every combination I've been able to find in HCEnc: top field first, bottom field first, auto; chroma downsampling: progressive, interlaced. I've tried with another capture card, different color spaces for the source... Even different captures with same configuration, to discard any errors.

Finally I opted to take a different test: suspecting on the encoder, I compressed a small clip of the captured material with XviD (the player can play these kind of files, burned straightforward in a blank media). The file played perfect, with no artifacts.

The fact that I have very little free time makes it even more frustrating. I've lost entire weeks, in a span of time of about 3 months of testing.

I never used HCEnc before, but was impressed about it due the high amount of possitive reviews, here and in Videohelp forums, but have proven to be a little biased/wrong.

I don't recommend anyone this encoder to produce an interlaced PAL DVD. Better try with any other one. I've never encountered this kind of behaviour with any of the encoders I've tried before.

[Ghitulescu]

Well, if you have a flatscreen TV, I think you should check its settings, too ;), because they can display only progressive signals and some of them, in particular the budget series, don't have good deinterlacers. The players may use different algorithms for displaying video content from various containers/sources.
Did you preserve the interlacing in the DivX encoding?

[hello_hello]

Are the original files already in DVD compliant, mpeg2 format? If so you may be able to author a DVD without actually re-encoding the video. Even if it does need to be re-encoded, maybe a DVD converting/authoring program will be more successful. These two programs were recommended in a recent thread, mainly because if the video is already DVD compliant they apparently have an option to simply re-mux the video without re-encoding it. They're both free.
DVDStyler (http://www.dvdstyler.org/en/)
DVD Flick (http://www.dvdflick.net/)
I can't say I've ever used HCEnc myself.

Assuming the video is already in an mpeg2 DVD compliant format, which it very likely will be, another thing you could try is burning the video files "as is" to a data DVD. Many DVD players, and probably most current Bluray players, will happily play it. If they can play video from a USB stick, or they support other formats such as AVI or MKV etc, they'd be very likely to simply be able to play the original files. Of course you can't create DVD menus that way, but if you don't need them.....

Failing all that, it may pay to upload a sample of the original video somewhere for others to download, otherwise it's all probably just guessing.

Ghitulescu, he appears to be using an mpeg2 encoder, trying to create a DVD video disc, not encoding with DivX.

[manono]

I don't recommend anyone this encoder to produce an interlaced PAL DVD. Better try with any other one. I've never encountered this kind of behaviour with any of the encoders I've tried before.
Me, I'd be much more likely to suspect user error. Can you provide short samples from both the source and the MPV/M2V output? How are you getting the video into HCEnc? If using an AviSynth script, can you show it to us? Are you doing any cropping and/or resizing?

Ghitulescu, he appears to be using an mpeg2 encoder, trying to create a DVD video disc, not encoding with DivX.
Perepandel mentioning doing a later test encoding to DivX where he didn't encounter the problem.

[hello_hello]

Perepandel mentioning doing a later test encoding to DivX where he didn't encounter the problem.

Ah.... sorry, my bad. I obviously missed/forgot that.

[TheSkiller]

Without samples we can only guess. My guess is you resized/cropped the video at some point which destroys the interlaced structure, leaving a big ugly mess with interlace-like lines when watched.

I have used HCenc plenty for interlaced PAL DV-camcorder videos, no problems at all, you're doing something wrong.

[2Bdecided]

Well, if you have a flatscreen TV, I think you should check its settings, too ;)Or just watch the video on your PC using VLC player, with deinterlacing set to Linear or Yadiff X2.

If you still see "interlacing", your source is broken.
If you now see no "interlacing", your TV is broken. ;)

HCEnc can encode PAL interlaced video. I use it for exactly that. You need high bitrates for anything like half-decent quality with fast movement, but the interlacing itself is just fine.

FWIW even if you encode in the wrong mode, the result won't look too bad. "Minor" chroma + quality issues appear when you select "progressive" settings for an interlaced source, but the interlacing survives OK.

Cheers,
David.

[Mug Funky]

made tons of interlaced PAL DVDs (commercial and non-commercial) with HC. it's one of the best MPEG-2 encoders there is, hence the positive feedback.

maybe you're doing it wrong.

make sure the video itself isn't bung. no vertical resizing unless you bob-deinterlace first and weave after. set the correct field order. tell HC what that field order is and set alternate scan. it will work.

[Taurus]

Using HCEnc on an almost daily basis I must say: User error.
PAL interlaced, progressive, etc., it has never let me down.

Post a sample of the source (a few seconds with movement) and your avisynth script.

[Perepandel]

I'm sorry I forgot this thread for many months.

I must say yeah, it's likely the error comes from me (the user). After trying several different encoders and several configurations and always getting almost the same results, probably the fault comes from the "denoiser" avisynth (or virtualdub; I'm not on my computer and I can't remember, but will look for it later) filter I'm using, probably unable to handle interlaced sources properly (or, again, I didn't read the manual).