Jerky playback with 1080i / 29.970 fps source

[RobertM]

Hi Folks,

I've met virtually nothing but success using BD-RB, but every now and then I get resulting video that is jerky when it plays back; constant hesitations throughout. I noticed this on a backup of "La Vie en Rose" a while ago (virtually un-watchable), and I now see the same thing on a backup of "Heavenly Creatures" that I'm working on now.

It's not a fault with BD-RB, because the source video shows the same thing. Both of these sources are 1080i and 29.970 fps, so I'm wondering if that's what is causing the problem; either the interlacing or the non-24 fps.

By way of comparison, when I preview a 'normal' BD video file using MediaPlayerClassic I can advance frame by frame with each tap of the right arrow key. With this current source (Heavenly Creatures) I have to alternate between 2 taps or 3 taps for each frame advance. So it kind of sounds like a 3:2 pulldown issue (just guessing here)?

Any suggestions on alternative settings I can use in BD-RB to try to smooth things out? Or are these sources just bad?

[Sharc]

@RobertM
What is you playback device? Is the playback jerky on a standalone player / TV as well?
It looks like your source is hard telecined. If you are positive that your source is originally from film, you may want to put in the .ini IVTC_480i=1.
You can still keep "IVTC sources with 3:2 pulldown" and "SD_progressive=1" enabled.
Uploading a sample would be helpful for better advice.

[RobertM]

I've got 3 different Sony BD players, one attached to a TV, the other 2 connected to my projector. They handle this recent project (Heavenly Creatures) fairly well; there's slight jerkiness, but not offensively so. Playback on the PC shows more of an issue.

When I did "La Vie en Rose" however, all playback devices produced terrible results. If I stepped through frame by frame I could see that every so often 2 frames would be superimposed on top of one another for a couple of frames; a truly horrible viewing experience. It wasn't as often as just a few frames, more like a second or so, so it doesn't really sound like a standard telecine problem to me, but I really don't know that much about it anyway.

HC is a studio film from 1994, one of Peter Jackson's first films, so I'm pretty sure it's not from video.

I was just wondering if anyone had suggestions about settings I could try to attempt to smooth things out. Or if anyone else has had similar horrifying experiences with superimposed frames. After Googling 3:2 pulldown I can see that it's probably a feature, instead of a bug. It almost sounds like it was shot in 24fps, telecined to 30 for NTSC, and now I need to reverse that; so the IVTC options, as you've pointed out, look most promising. But if it's hard telecined I'm euchred.

I'll keep googling and playing.... thanks for your help.

[worknstiff]

Hey, RobertM. RE:telecined to 30 for NTSC.

I feel your pain. Have you ever played around with TDecimate? I bought a Hauppauge HD 1212 and was doing cablebox captures. Of course the .ts output was 1080i @ 59.976 fps. I then tried to run this thru AviSynth to de-interlace it and change it to 29.976. I spent weeks playing around with all sorts of command line plugin's and different filters and conditional functions. I finally used TDecimate and eventually figured out how to get it down to 23.976. I found that I could make it look pretty sweet but if you looked too closely at it you could always see the judder in the panning shots and if some of the actors had high pitched voices you could tell the pitch was sorta-kinda goofy. The perfectionist in me could not be satisfied and I just gave up. I came to the conclusion that these kinds of transmissions were plagued with lots of hick-ups in the broadcast and it's really hard to get the frames to line up perfectly enough to remove frames precisely without cutting some of them in half, or something like that. I remember reading lots of posts and guides on Doom9 and AfterDawn and there are plenty of people that will be willing to help you like they did me.
hope this helps, worknstiff

[Sharc]

@RobertM
Perhaps your source is simply butchered, but why not upload a sample? Without a sample we move in the dark.