Confusing results of Bitrate Viewer for CCE

[snowbeach]

Currently I am trying CCE 2.66! Now following the "RoboCop" Guide ;) at Doom9 and opening my 1st VOB file of the main movie I get weird results from Bitrate Viewer (Pic. structure & DCT type and the rest) and I am quite not sure what video, quality options I have to check in CCE in the end? :confused:

The results of Bitrate Viewer:
Pic. structure: Frame
Field topfirst: Yes
DCT type: Field
Quantscale: Linear

Are these info given by Bitrate Viewer the only one that are important for CCE?
Should not the DCT type be "Frame" or the Pic. structure "Interlaced" in this case? :confused:

[RB]

I think you are talking about the Getting the Best out of CCE Guide (http://www.doom9.org/mpg/cce-advanced.htm), right? If you want to fill your DVD to the edge, I'd save myself a lot of time by not following this guide but simply doing a standard 3 pass multipass VBR encode, see also http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52343

About Bitrate Viewer: the only information from BV that is useful is "Aspect Ratio" and "Field topfirst". To find out whether the movie is interlaced or progressive, load the VOBs into DVD2AVI and move the slider around to check for the typical interlacing artifacts. Many DVDs are marked "interlaced" although they are really progressive.

[snowbeach]

First of all a big thank you for answering my questions!

I uploaded a doc explaining, more or less, the settings I want to use. Because I am a n00b to CCE I am very confused, because many guides are based on CCE 2.50 and I am using CCE 2.67.00.10 at the moment. I would ask you to look over this "guide", if you have a little time ;) , and tell me if it is ok or not. You can write your comments into the guide and mail it to me, if you like. Link removed!
You can download the doc Link removed! .

Thank you very much in advance!

[RB]

Snowbeach, almost all of your questions in this document (thanks) will be answered by reading the CCE FAQ in this forum.

But no, you cannot trust the DVD2AVI statistics window for whether the video is interlaced or progressive. After loading the VOBs, drag the slider at the bottom to move through the movie. If you see artifacts like this (http://forum.doom9.de/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1102#post7600), then it is interlaced.

EDIT: also look at DVD2DVD-R (http://www.dvd2dvd-r.de), it already automates the steps you are trying to write a guide for.

[snowbeach]

Now, I have the time to go on with testing. But one question regarding interlaced stuff.

Watching the DVD source in DVD2AVI at 29.970 FPS I can see these interlaced artifacts, black horizontal lines. But when I activate Forced Film and start the preview one more time at 23.976 FPS, I do not see these artifacts. I save the project then and my source in CCE is then 23.976 FPS. The thing that confuses me is, how to encode in CCE: As interlaced or progressive? It confuses me, because I do not see these artifacts anymore and I am dealing with this "correct" .d2v project, but the source originally is interlaced. What to do?

What also confuses me is the fact that you said "the only information from BV that is useful is 'Aspect Ratio' and 'Field topfirst'". But in case of Field topfirst I got a Yes, which means, if I understood your FAQ right, that this source is progressive, but it cannot be (as described before). BTW DVD2AVI is saying that the source is progressive too.

[auenf]

Originally posted by snowbeach
Watching the DVD source in DVD2AVI at 29.970 FPS I can see these interlaced artifacts, black horizontal lines. But when I activate Forced Film and start the preview one more time at 23.976 FPS, I do not see these artifacts. I save the project then and my source in CCE is then 23.976 FPS. The thing that confuses me is, how to encode in CCE: As interlaced or progressive? It confuses me, because I do not see these artifacts anymore and I am dealing with this "correct" .d2v project, but the source originally is interlaced. What to do?

leave it at 29.97, press F5 (i think) then watch the stats, if it says FILM, then its 23.976, otherwise, check the guides (even some of the divx guides might help here) to see what you should do for what % of NTSC

Enf...

[snowbeach]

to be honest, this was not very helpful to solve my confusion. :(

I do mpeg-4 encoding for nearly a year and i always force film to 23.976 fps, when i have 29.970 fps. but i described my situation and i am clueless what to do regarding mpeg-2/cce.

[RB]

Originally posted by snowbeach
What also confuses me is the fact that you said "the only information from BV that is useful is 'Aspect Ratio' and 'Field topfirst'". But in case of Field topfirst I got a Yes, which means, if I understood your FAQ right, that this source is progressive, but it cannot be (as described before). BTW DVD2AVI is saying that the source is progressive too.
Well, the FAQ says that progressive material is always top field first, but that of course doesn't mean that interlaced material has to be always bottom field first.

What material are you trying to encode? I think that if you are sure that the source is 100% interlaced, then you should not force film and encode as interlaced in CCE.

[snowbeach]

I want to encode Forrest Gump (NTSC 29.970 FPS).

Well, the FAQ says that progressive material is always top field first, but that of course doesn't mean that interlaced material has to be always bottom field first.
Ok. I see.

What material are you trying to encode? I think that if you are sure that the source is 100% interlaced, then you should not force film and encode as interlaced in CCE.
Quoting myself. ;)
Watching the DVD source in DVD2AVI at 29.970 FPS I can see these interlaced artifacts, black horizontal lines when things are moving. But when I activate Forced Film and start the preview one more time at 23.976 FPS, I do not see these artifacts. I save the project then and my source in CCE is then 23.976 FPS. The thing that confuses me is, how to encode in CCE: As interlaced or progressive? It confuses me, because I do not see these artifacts anymore and I am dealing with this "correct" .d2v project, but the source originally is interlaced. What to do?
What confuses me is, when I forced the film I do not see these artifacts, as said before, and that is why I am not sure how to treat the forced .d2v project in CCE. As progressive or interlaced?
I would treat it as interlaced, because I see them, when not forcing film and leaving the original 29.970 FPS. So changing the FPS with forcing film to 23.976 FPS I do not see the artifacts, but the source material should be still interlaced - from my logic.

Is it not better to encode video at 23.976 FPS than at 29.970 FPS? (Gives you better picture quality. I read sth about this some time before, but I am not sure.)

[RB]

Hmm, I have the R2 (PAL) edition of Forrest Gump, I'll have a look. Anyway, what I'd suggest is that in DVD2AVI you don't force film (leaving it at 29.97 fps) and then in CCE check the "3:2 pulldown detection" option and encode as progessive. Make sure you do not set the timecode in CCE to 00:00:00:00 in this case, leave it at the default of 01:00:00:00. There is no need to run Pulldown against the resulting M2V.

Maybe someone else has better ideas, my experience with NTSC material is basically not existant.

[snowbeach]

Probably it is best to see what I mean...

This script using the Forced Film .d2v project (23.976FPS) of DVD2AVI 1.76 and its preview in VDubMod:

LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\GORDIA~1\mpeg2dec3.dll")
mpeg2source("E:\DVD\Projects\cce\FORREST_GUMP_23.976FPS.d2v")
Letterbox(48,64)
ConvertToYUY2()

Screenshot of the 23.976 FPS .d2v project. (http://snowbeach.gmxhome.de/FORREST_GUMP_23.976FPS.jpg)

And this script just making a .d2v project (29.970FPS) of the DVD as it is with DVD2AVI 1.76 and its preview in VDubMod:

LoadPlugin("C:\PROGRA~1\GORDIA~1\mpeg2dec3.dll")
mpeg2source("E:\DVD\Projects\cce\FORREST_GUMP_29.970FPS.d2v")
Letterbox(48,64)
ConvertToYUY2()

Screenshot of the 29.970 FPS .d2v project. (http://snowbeach.gmxhome.de/FORREST_GUMP_29.970FPS.jpg)

[RB]

Interesting. But again, I have no experience with NTSC. Just encode a short clip from both D2V's (choose progressive and interlaced settings in CCE, respectively) and decide for yourself what looks best.

[r6d2]

Originally posted by RB
Anyway, what I'd suggest is that in DVD2AVI you don't force film (leaving it at 29.97 fps) and then in CCE check the "3:2 pulldown detection" option and encode as progessive. Make sure you do not set the timecode in CCE to 00:00:00:00 in this case, leave it at the default of 01:00:00:00. There is no need to run Pulldown against the resulting M2V.

Maybe someone else has better ideas, my experience with NTSC material is basically not existant.
@snowbeach,

RB's suggestion should work. The movie is probably telecined, not just interlaced. Most NTSC movies are telecined, which means that you can safely turn them to 23.976. You can do that by force film in DVD2AVI, then feed 23.976 to CCE, or let CCE do the inverse pulldown.

Alternatively you may used DVD2SVCD, which will do that automatically if the movie allows (it asks DVD2AVI internally).

Some movies are badly telecined, in which case DVD2AVI may miss the point. Please look at this page to follow directions on how to detect if it is a telecine or not:

http://www.doom9.org/ivtc-tut.htm

Force-filming correctly, if possible, is always encouraged, because it will save you 20% space, which is 20% more bitrate.

Regards,

[auenf]

best way ive found to determine field order is to start up tmpgenc in wizard mode, choose a dvd profile, and when you give it the avs or avi or whatever, it tried to determine the field order.

Enf...