%^*@#!*%$!@# Field Order Problems

[DrivenByDemons]

Ok after searching and experimenting and getting *^&*%) PO'd, I am finally going to post this thread. I am using Adobe Premiere 6.1 with the CCE 2.62 plug-in. My source material is from my Sony DV cam and was captured using Scenalyzer over my 1394 link. No matter what I set in CCE for my SVCD's I get choppy output on my T.V. during fast motion scenes. I KNOW it should be lower field first for DV material and I KNOW how to change the MPEG2 field order using pulldown.exe and Darim's Easy Changer but none of these solutions seem to work. There are so many conflicting answers on this board from people trying to help but everyone seems to have a different reason for their thoughts. Please note if I use the Premiere Video Server plug-in and send this to TMPGenc it looks perfect. I have to say from my experience that CCE is always going to encode top field first NO MATTER WHAT!!!

So here I am, begging that someone can help me. I am not looking to re-hash all that has been said in previous posts. I just want to understand why CCE always looks like crap. Thanks in advance!!!!

Dimeboy

[MITSUI_1]

You're right.

From here:

http://stanwebber.dirtyhosting.com/main.html

(scroll down to the 4-6-02 article)

Here's what he says:



Contrary to the obvious, the upper field first checkbox has nothing to do with setting the TFF (top field first) flag. In fact, Cinemacraft encodes with the TFF flag ON regardless of any setting. Enabling upper field first in reality inverts the field order by shifting the entire image up 1 pixel....even scanlines become odd and vice-versa

This causes order reversal or mismatch problems if your source is anything other than top-first as indicated on the chart. The solution is to pre-empt Cinemacraft from altering anything (upper field first OFF) and set the TFF flag with Pulldown at a later stage. Progressive material (IVTC/forced film or PAL standard telecine) is unaffected other than being shifted 1 pixel and thwarting attempts to letterbox on 16x16 macroblock boundaries

He also has a good table of possible results.

[DaveF71]

The article isn't too clear on what we users of lower-field-first video should do to get acceptable results, though. I've just been dropping my 720x486 files straight into CCE, selecting Top Field First, and they come out looking fine. Something about them sometimes makes Maestro hiccup during the authoring phase ("Invalid Frame Rate" error), though, so I'm guessing that it's this field shift.
Any suggestions?

[DrivenByDemons]

Well, I've tried that whole pulldown thing and it simply does not work for me. It changes the TFF flag but still looks like crap on my T.V. I just went ahead and did another test in TMPG last night and it is perfect. Is there any way to change an AVI from BFF to TFF before encoding????? Seems to me like that would do the trick....

[MITSUI_1]

Question (of another sort).

Since you only have the problem with CCE and seem to understand the use of pulldown to play with the field order thing, I think it useful to inquire about how much CCE noise reduction you are using.

In my experience, the CCE noise reduction is not "field aware" and, therefore, if used too strongly, will blend the interlaced fields into frames. This cause a field flicker.

Another question: When you say "looks like shit" do you mean the stutter jumping that happens when you definately get field order wrong, or do you mean just a lack of smoothness or clarity?

[DrivenByDemons]

I am using no noise reduction.

When I say it looks bad I'm refering to the jerky movements during motion scenes.

I am happy with TMPG's output but CCE is so much easier (and quicker) with the premiere plug-in.....

[Mosaic]

Tell me if I have this right.....
For a pure interlace 29.97fps movie
In DVD2SVCD (since I want perm subs) I do the following:

Set up CCE for Bottom field priority otherwise ...the automatic or TFF setting will cause the TFF button to go active in CCE resulting in a pixel/field shift in the m2v.

Once Bottom field first is set ....CCE will encode without doing any pixel/field shft and then tag the new m2v as TFF (:angry:).

Then I check the original VOBs with dvd2avi and if they are tagged TFF ...I proceed to author.

If the original VOB is bff then I do a pulldown to tag the m2v as even, while using the nopulldown flag to prevent going to 23.976fps.

This way I keep the field order intact......

What do you think?

[robshot]

drivenbydemons

findme at #doom9 on EFNET. we can talk about your field order problem

regards,
rob

[nhope]

drivenbydemons, Robshot, I have similar trouble. TMPGenc better than CCE. My material is PAL from Premiere. Did you sort this out in the end?

[nhope]

My source material is PAL and I'm exporting using the CCE Premiere Plug-in. I am using 8K CBR for DVD, with no anti-noise filtering. My DVD's were coming out choppy too on my TV.

After reading this thread I too tried leaving CCE's "upper field first" box unchecked and then reversing the field rendering with pulldown, but Sonic DVDit sees the resulting file as NTSC and won't accept it in a PAL project. Maybe my command line was wrong?:

pulldown.exe source.m2v target.m2v -nopulldown -tff even

Now however I seem to have solved the chopiness by leaving CCE's "upper field first" field checked. But that just doesn't make sense to me, as DV is lower field first. Can anyone explain?

(By the way I'm still not convinced my CCE DVD's are quite as smooth to watch as the comparisons that I've made with TMPGenc 2.57 at "high quality", although that is not an option for me as it's 3 times slower than CCE).

I tried reversing the frames with pulldown

[Pyre8]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21029&highlight=reverse+field+order - there appears to be a tool that helps reverse field order - have not tested it myself.

[robshot]

i also do a lot of pal minidv editing using premiere 6 and cce plugin.
i always use the pal minidv template i have for my canon xm1 in premiere to ensure that i'm outputting a correct a/r minidv pixel aspect ratio and LOWER FIELD DOMINANCE.

On editing, i have 2 optiona.
1. when I record interlaced video with my pal miniDV camera, i edit and save my premiere project, and then open the project in AE for field dominance correction. Indeed I have an .avi again in the final result, but doing it in DV codecs, there's only recompression in the edit points.
2. when i record progressive video with my pal miniDV camera, i can directly output premiere project to cce plugin.

after CCE session done, i do this command:

pulldown source.mpv final.mpv -nopulldown -framerate 25 -tff even -prog_seq p -prog_frames i

[nhope]

Thanks Robshot. I think I always have to shoot in interlaced mode because I want my video to look it’s best on TV for my customers who buy a PAL format DVD’s, cassettes or VCD’s.

I’ll investigate the AE route. I have AE but haven’t used it yet.

A couple of questions just for clarification:

1. When you put the output of the AE field dominance correction into CCE, do you have “upper field first” checked or not?

2. Am I right in thinking you only do a pulldown command on PROGRESSIVE video (your 2nd option)?

(Pyre8, I started to download DVMPEG yesterday but stopped when I thought it's pay-only. But having read your other thread it sounds like the field-changer part is free. I will report back with results!)

[nhope]

...and I can report that the Darim changer works well. And I see also now that the reason my Pulldown attempt originally failed was that I missed the part of the readme that said framerates default to 29.97. Oops! And to be honest, I can’t really tell the difference today between my latest CCE DVD and my TMPGenc “high quality” DVD.

So here follows a mini-guide for future visitors who might also get lost in the in minefield of using CCE to encode a DVD-compatible MPEG-2 stream from INTERLACED PAL DV footage…

Deselecting “upper field first” in the CCE options does NOT make your encode lower-field-first to match your lower-field-first PAL DV footage (!!!). Your DVD will come out choppy because the fields are reversed. But by picking “upper field first” in the CCE video options, the whole image is shifted up one pixel and will make your DVD appear smooth. In this situation “Upper field first” in the CCE options is a misnomer, and would be better described as “bodge this encode so that LOWER-field-first input comes out looking OK even though it is still actually encoded as upper-field-first”.

Better from a puristic point of view to deselect “upper field first”, let CCE encode a “normal” upper-field-first stream, and then switch the field order afterwards by one of the following 2 methods (or Robshot’s method described above, but which requires After Effects software):

1. Download Pulldown.exe from the doom9 downloads page, and run the following command on your file:

Pulldown inputfilename.m2v outputfilename.m2v –nopulldown –framerate 25 –tff even

2. Download DVMPEG from www.darvision.com Don’t worry that it looks like just a demo, the bit you need is free and works past the demo limitations. Install it and, assuming you don’t want the rest of the program, copy the file changer.exe elsewhere (it’s just 35Kb of that 4Mb download and also comes up on the start menu as “MPEG Fixer”) then uninstall DVMPEG using it’s uninstaller in the start menu. Run changer.exe, ignore the aspect ratio stuff, but UNCHECK the “Top field first”, and hit process. Your MPEG-2 file will now make a nice, smooth looking DVD.

If I’ve got any of this is wrong, or if anyone knows where to download changer.exe without the whole DVMPEG package, please let us know!

Nick

[bbiandov]

DrivenByDemons,

What do you specify in your FIELD selection under 'keyframe and rendering' menu of prempiere export settings? Would that have an effect? I see upper, lower and none as possible options?