Free codec that preserves interlaced video

[alexh110]

Hi all.
I'm using AviSynth to remove video noise from some DVD vob files recorded from old Betamax tapes. Would like to save the resulting footage with lossless compression, inside an avi, mp4, vob or mpg container, so that I can burn it to a DVD data disc and play it back on my blu-ray player.

There are lots of ways to do this for free when the video is progressive; but I haven't found a free codec that will preserve the interlaced field structure of the vob. (E.g. DIVX will only allow you to do this with the Pro version of the codec. TMPG will preserve interlaced fields when creating an MPEG; but again it's not free.)

My blu-ray seems to recognise quite a wide range of codecs, so I wondered if anyone can suggest any freeware I could use? Or alternatively some free codecs that will work with Virtual Dub?

(N.B. I don't want to deinterlace the video with AviSynth because in my experience blu-rayers do a much better job of deinterlacing than AviSynth filters. Plus I would like to have the option of single field freeze mode.)

[Didée]

Losslessly compressed files are HUGE, as are the resulting datarates, and there is a 99.9% chance that your BD player will not play any of the lossless codecs.

Why not just use x264 to create interlaced AVC?

[alexh110]

OK will try that, thanks.
I could live with a slightly lossy compression, but would like to preserve as much detail as possible.
I found the trial version of TMPG produced far too many compression artefacts to be acceptable, even on the best quality settings.

[alexh110]

Forgot to ask: is it possible to open the avs script directly with x264; rather than encoding to an uncompressed avi as an intermediate step? I know there's a way to do this with TMPG; but can't remember how it's done.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Forgot to ask: is it possible to open the avs script directly with x264; rather than encoding to an uncompressed avi as an intermediate step?

Sure. x264 supports Avisynth input just fine. Just be aware that 64-Bit x264 requires an 64-Bit Avisynth, while 32-Bit x264 can work with standard 32-Bit Avisynth.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Regarding deinterlacing.. have you tried TGMC?

[alexh110]

Can't remember which deinterlacing filters I tried? Several of them certainly, and the results didn't impress!
In any case I prefer to preserve the original interlaced character of the footage.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Can't remember which deinterlacing filters I tried? Several of them certainly, and the results didn't impress!
In any case I prefer to preserve the original interlaced character of the footage.

Use a good bobbing deinterlacer, such as QTGMC. With "bobbing" you also don't loose any "smoothness".

When you watch your video on a LCD or Plasma screen (or projector), it will have to be interlaced anyway.

It's very unlikely that your screen's real-time deinterlacer creates better results than QTGMC ;)

(But first of all you should establish that your footage is "true" interlaced and not Telecined material)

[alexh110]

When you watch your video on a LCD or Plasma screen (or projector), it will have to be interlaced anyway.

I thought HD TV's were capable of displaying both progressive and interlaced pictures? My LG TV has a native 720p resolution; but can also accept 1080i input. (Not sure whether it converts 1080i signals to 720p before displaying them?)


It's very unlikely that your screen's real-time deinterlacer creates better results than QTGMC

The deinterlacing is done by the blu-ray player; not the TV. That's providing I've set the player to HD upscaling mode ofcourse.
However I prefer to keep the original fields so I have the option of 576i playback, and can step through the footage one field at a time in single-field freeze mode. That way freeze-frames will be less blurred when there is rapid motion.

To be honest I'd rather have real-time noise reduction and deinterlacing if I could, and avoid processing with AviSynth altogether.
I'm thinking of buying the Oppo BDP-93 to see whether it's QDEO chip can produce real-time results comparable with AviSynth's 3D FFT Denoiser filter.
Does anyone else have experience of using blu-ray players with the QDEO chip?


(But first of all you should establish that your footage is "true" interlaced and not Telecined material)

It's definitely true interlaced: I shot the footage myself on PAL Video 8, then dubbed it to Betamax (the original Video 8 tapes have long since been wiped).
The main errors are severe ringing and mosquito noise, dropouts and line-timing instability. 3D FFT denoiser removes the noise and line-timing errors; but I have to use such an aggressive sigma setting that it also removes fine detail from the picture content. Can anyone suggest a way to tweak the filter parameters to preserve more picture detail? I'm currently using a sigma setting of 8, with no sharpening, and default settings for all other parameters.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I thought HD TV's were capable of displaying both progressive and interlaced pictures? My LG TV has a native 720p resolution; but can also accept 1080i input. (Not sure whether it converts 1080i signals to 720p before displaying them?)

LCD and Plasma screen technically are not able to display interlaced video.

TV screens (not PC screens) have a built-in hardware deinterlacer though, so interlaced video can be converted "on the fly" and then displayed.

The deinterlacing quality will depend on the individual screen, of course...

The deinterlacing is done by the blu-ray player; not the TV.

That is another possibility. But it doesn't change the fact, that the result will depend on the individual device that is used for playback/deinterlacing.

Again: Most hardware-deinterlacers do a decent job nowadays, but they hardly reach a QTGM-like quality ;)

[Ghitulescu]

Does anyone else have experience of using blu-ray players with the QDEO chip?

The Philips BDP9600 is considered to be the reference in terms of video quality. Pay attention though, the manufacturers often cripple the HW of lower price series (in order to sell the more expensive ones, too) nevertheless they advertise them as well. In other words, it is not always sufficient to see QDEO-processing √ on a leaflet in order to get QDEO quality.

[MrVideo]

Why not just use x264 to create interlaced AVC?

Exactly. No AVISynth filters are required to manipulate the video.

A simple script in which to feed x264:

LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\DGAVCDecNV\DGDecodeNV.dll")
dgsource("=DRIVE=\=FILENAME=.dgi")

The =DRIVE= and =FILENAME= are replaced with the appropriate into.

There are lots of options for the x264 encoder, but the one that you will need is --tff, as it tells the encoder the file is interlaced and to keep it as such.

The dgi file is created from this program: http://www.neuron2.net/dgdecnv/dgdecnv.html

There is a free older version that will work with MPEG-2 source files that creates a different output file. The AVISynth script is modified to use the output from that program.

[alexh110]

LCD and Plasma screen technically are not able to display interlaced video.

Just out of interest, what does an LCD TV do with a 1080i input? Does it convert the signal to 720p or 1080p? (I'm guessing that depends on the TV's native resolution?)
I presume a 576i input would be converted to 576p?

Most hardware-deinterlacers do a decent job nowadays, but they hardly reach a QTGM-like quality ;)

The software deinterlacers I've tried in the past produced a very disturbing ripple effect down the picture whenever there was motion: so that put me off using them!
This may just have been because Virtual Dub wasn't capable of playing them back probably? I never tried burning the deinterlaced files to DVD and viewing them on my HDTV.

The Philips BDP9600 is considered to be the reference in terms of video quality.

Is it better than the Oppo BDP-93? I'm loathe to buy Philips because I've recently had one of their blu-ray players break down just out of guarantee! Also their technical support department are unbelievably useless!

[amtm]

Just out of interest, what does an LCD TV do with a 1080i input? Does it convert the signal to 720p or 1080p? (I'm guessing that depends on the TV's native resolution?)
I presume a 576i input would be converted to 576p?

Deinterlaces then scales.

The software deinterlacers I've tried in the past produced a very disturbing ripple effect down the picture whenever there was motion: so that put me off using them!
This may just have been because Virtual Dub wasn't capable of playing them back probably? I never tried burning the deinterlaced files to DVD and viewing them on my HDTV.

Yes, you should actually preview the encoded result on your target screen would be the best thing to do. The preview of some program is guaranteed to not going to look the same as on your TV, due to all sorts of factors such as differing calibration of your preview devices vs the TV, display quality of the TV, etc. And especially trying to base it on the VirtualDub preview is extremely absurd.

[2Bdecided]

OK will try that, thanks.
I could live with a slightly lossy compression, but would like to preserve as much detail as possible.Recording noisy video to MPEG-2 DVD has already killed that possibility before you even started your restoration - though depending on the bitrate, the amount of noise, the amount of detail (Beta is hardly full SD resolution), and how picky you are, it may be good enough. I've restored from 8Mbps DVD-R captures of S-VHS and been quite happy with the results - not too much noise in the source though.

I found the trial version of TMPG produced far too many compression artefacts to be acceptable, even on the best quality settings.HcEnc is a good, free MPEG-2 encoder. Try that first.

MeGUI is a great way of controlling x264 and feeding it AVIsynth scripts, if that's what you want.

DVD-compatible MPEG-2 is a useful standard for interlaced SD video - if you can achieve the quality you want - because it'll play on almost anything, and almost anything will expect it to be interlaced. With H.264 you might not be quite so lucky (though the quality can be better, if needed).

Cheers,
David.

[2Bdecided]

There is a free older version that will work with MPEG-2 source files that creates a different output file. Since the guy has MPEG-2 files from a DVD (hence needs MPEG2Source / DGIndex), it's not very helpful to point him to the version for loading H.264/AVC ;)

Cheers,
David.

[Ghitulescu]

The Philips BDP9600 is considered to be the reference in terms of video quality.

Is it better than the Oppo BDP-93? I'm loathe to buy Philips because I've recently had one of their blu-ray players break down just out of guarantee! Also their technical support department are unbelievably useless!

I don't have neither the Philips nor the Oppo. Oppo is quite rare in Germany, because of the EU import taxes that more than double the retail price in comparison to US. Reviews in paper form (not online, which most of the time mirror the announcements of the marketing dept) I don't recall to ever seen one. I've seen seen however several for the Philips, and more than one magazine ranked it on the first place.

And yes, I said it many times, Philips is not reliable in terms of optical pickups.

[alexh110]

Recording noisy video to MPEG-2 DVD has already killed that possibility before you even started your restoration - though depending on the bitrate, the amount of noise, the amount of detail (Beta is hardly full SD resolution), and how picky you are, it may be good enough. I've restored from 8Mbps DVD-R captures of S-VHS and been quite happy with the results - not too much noise in the source though.

Thanks for your reply.
Can you suggest a better way of digitising the Betamax tapes?
I was thinking of buying a PAL TBC with noise reduction built-in, and retransferring the footage to DVD. Hoping such a unit could provide enough noise reduction to avoid the need for any further processing.

N.B. In an attempt to avoid compression artefacts, I always use the maximum quality setting on my DVD Recorder (which corresponds to 1 hour of recording time per disc).