Windvd Platinum "progressive" decoder

[mkenney]

Hey guys,

I wanted to watch a DVD (NTSC, region1) on my computer (FlCl, an anime, the fact that its animated might be part of the problem?) on my computer with mpc (latest version), but the there were problems with the picture. There was, I guess you could call it "blurring between the frames" and stuff like that; a decoded frame would have elements of the current frame and the next frame in it. This was pretty noticable throughout, not in certain parts nor just when i paused the movie to check the frame to verify.

WinDVD Platinum has an decoding option (next to "force bob" and "force weave") called "force progressive", and with that enabled the video looks fine (although then the edges don't look quite as sharp as they did using mpc, but at least it gets rid of the blurring-between-frames effect).

I don't have other dvds to check it with, but is this a result of just a poorly encoded dvd? (some of the progressive-flags might be missing or something)? Does MPC have a similar option somewhere that I have been missing?

[gabest]

In mpc NTSC video is automatically output as progressive IF the pulldown was done with the repeat field flags. But if it's trully interlaced at 29.97 then only the field blending mode can be used.

[mkenney]

Is mine a pretty isolated case or are there a lot of dvds improperly made that way (without the proper field flags in place)? Enough to possibily warrant a "force progressive" option in another release of mpc? :)

[Pyocola]

The problem is the companies that produce the anime DVDs. For some reason they simply don't seem to care about progressive scan, and as a result most anime is encoded in interlaced NTSC.

[joshyg2]

Its not only that they dont care about proggressive scan, but some of the anime material is hybrid, so it runs at 24fps and 30fps in different scenes.

For example, Initial D, the CG scenes (races) are all in 30fps Progressive, where as the pure drawn scenes (animated) are 24fps.

So in order to the mix the material and still maintain smooth video, they have to Interlace the animated material to match the frame-rate of the proggressive CG video. Result, in smooth video on your TV.

But when it comes to playing it on the computer (proggressive display) its a different story.

The new WinDVD is the best software player out there at the moment.
That proggressive de-interlacer is much better than bob, because it doubles the frame-rate of the video (50/60fps) and keeps the picture sharp, and it dosnt 'bob' up and down like bob. Which means the static still images dont look low-res.

Also WinDVD uses "True PAL technology", meaning that if you live in a PAL country or have any PAL DVD movies, WinDVD will automatically slow the frame-rate down to 23.976 fps and the audio pitch, on-the-fly and still maintain the PAL 576 line resolution.
This means you can watch all your movies in Cinema FILM format.

Not to mention WinDVD also has the best support of all the high end sound cards, like SoundBlaster Audigy2, giving you true 24 bit 192khz 5.1, 6,1, 7.1 crystal clear sound for you DVD-Audio and Video needs.
And gives great results with 2 channel sources, like VCD, SVCD, and 2ch DVD, with full support SRS and Dolby ProLogic decoders.

Thats my experiance with the player anyway.

As with hybrid anime sources like Initial D, I convert them to 120 fps XviD files, meaning the frame rate is variable, and changes from scene to scene, giving you smooth, proggressive, digital bliss.

Josh

[Pyocola]

That's of course an issue. I wish they would animate it all in 30 fps progressive like some stuff lately, but I guess that's more work. Or they should just ditch these old NTSC systems and do everything in 24 fps progressive.

Anyway, I tried WinDVD but was not impressed. This "force progressive" seems just about as bad as every other method I've tried, but instead of having blended frames on those 2 bad frames in a sequence of 5, they are extremely pixelated. And pixels in a static frame, the DVD menu for example, were jumping up and down like crazy with this mode on. Best would of course be some kind of real-time IVTC but I guess this would require quite an amount of CPU power. The last time I tried it, mplayer actually had this feature, but it didn't work very well. At least not well enough for practical use.

[joshyg2]

Originally posted by Pyocola
Anyway, I tried WinDVD but was not impressed. This "force progressive" seems just about as bad as every other method I've tried, but instead of having blended frames on those 2 bad frames in a sequence of 5, they are extremely pixelated. And pixels in a static frame, the DVD menu for example, were jumping up and down like crazy with this mode on.
I have never ever had these problems with WinDVD.

What video card are you using?
What is your desktop resolution?
Does your video card support accelerated fullscreen overlay at that resolution?
What is your CPU speed?

These are all factors in DVD playback. WinDVD uses more CPU power than PowerDVD so that is something to consider.

Your video card must be able to handle 50/60fps overlay at your desktop resolution.

What is the quality of your source DVD? Is it a cheap copy from the market, or is it a licenced DVD from a store?

My setup:
AMD Athlon 2100+
Triplex GeForce 4 Ti4200 128mb - DVI to Digital Monitor
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS

I get smooth fluid video on all sources, and still non-jitter static images in menus.
The only time I get pixelations are with SVCD - low bitrate sources and cheap anime DVDs.
All my anime on DVD are licenced R1 NTSC or Original Japanese Imports. And they play great with WinDVD on Force Proggressive mode.

Note: Anime releases from "Anime Cartoon" which is a anime distributer does release some poor quality DVDs and they have caused some pixelations and ghosting as well. However they do also release good quality DVDs as well.

Note2: Never put it on Auto Mode, on Interlaced sources it will use Bob by default. For movies use Force Weave, and for Interlaced sources, Anime and Telecined movies use Force Progressive.

Finally, have you tryed playing it back on your Standalone DVD player, with a Interlaced TV? Are there any pixelations on those 2 frames?

It might be just a poorly authored/encoded DVD.

Also try WinDVD with other DVDs, other animes (newer), Concerts, Live events, etc. Concerts are sweeet on WinDVD.

Oh, have your tried the "Video Desktop" feature? Its pretty cool.

Josh

[mkenney]

Pyocola, I notice a lot of "Jittering" on the menus too, but only when I watch movies windowed. When I make them fullscreen, its nice and static, like it should be. YMMV I guess.

Thanks for the detailed responses guys, very informative stuff!

[ppera2]

Originally posted by joshyg2
...
The new WinDVD is the best software player out there at the moment.
That proggressive de-interlacer is much better than bob, because it doubles the frame-rate of the video (50/60fps) and keeps the picture sharp, and it dosnt 'bob' up and down like bob. Which means the static still images dont look low-res.

Also WinDVD uses "True PAL technology", meaning that if you live in a PAL country or have any PAL DVD movies, WinDVD will automatically slow the frame-rate down to 23.976 fps and the audio pitch, on-the-fly and still maintain the PAL 576 line resolution.
This means you can watch all your movies in Cinema FILM format...



I just searched about progressive scan software DVD players and found this thread, therefore is my late reply.

Progressive deinterlacer??? Must say that no need for deinterlace with FILM source, actually you can't do deinterlace and get sharp and smooth picture. And of course can't get 50 or 60 fps, only 24. You can get it only from video (interlaced) source.
We will have probably in future some frame calculation techniques to achieve any, progressive framerate, but it is still very slow and low quality now.

@Gabest:
"In mpc NTSC video is automatically output as progressive IF the pulldown was done with the repeat field flags. But if it's trully interlaced at 29.97 then only the field blending mode can be used."

Nice feature in MPC. However saying that 'only field blending...'
is not correct. There are some better deinterlacing techniques, which are normally more CPU hungry. Of course nobody expect that you implement them in your free player... At least not immediately and at all cost :D