Has anyone done Casino (pal) in DVD-RB

[nimbles]

Hey chaps, i've just redone Casino (R2 Pal) with RB (0.52)- it was one of the first discs i did when i first started trying out RB (backing the 0.20's) but last time i enabled and botched the interlace option- so thought i'd give it a try again (since i had some spare time)

Ok this time- I set the VBR bias to 15 and the Qualtiy prec to 24 (was going on the "if over 3000kb/s use 25-30"- i read elsewhere on the forum- i actually miscalculated the overall bitrate- it was actually just over 3000), 5pass , plus converted the frames from the dirty pseudo widescreen (4:3 with black bars) to widescreen- for both the film and the extras (trailer), additionally "half D1 & half spaced" the extras.

The resulting dvd is pretty good, but to me it seems that with bright colours against a dark back ground in paritcular (e.g. the open scening where he's wearing that garish bright pink/red jacket and gets in his car) there is the sheen or bleeding of the bright color around the edges , kind of like someones put vaseline over the camera lens and soft focus'ed that area- I'm looking at the original and it is there a little but nowhere near the same extent- i know the original disc isn't particularly well mastered in the first place, but i was just wondering if anyone had done his back up and had any issues with it? maybe my set up was incorect :confused:

[wmansir]

I'm thinking it was the resize function. You said you botched the interlace option, but I'm unclear on what exactly this means. Some questions:

1. Is the move marked "interlaced" or detected as such by DVD-RB
2. Is it really progressive?
3. Did you have the "disable interlaced" option turned on?
4. What did the resize line look like in your .avs files?

Because you are using the 4:3->16:9 option DVD-RB may degrade the video quality on interlaced (or detected interlaced) sources. This is because it has to resize the two fields separately, otherwise they would get blended. This process does soften the picture slightly, like you describe. The low bitrate probably doesn't help.

If you source is really progressive, you should try the "disable interlaced" option for that VTS. The only problem with this is that any interlaced frames will get blended (and sometimes there are a few in a progressive stream).

Otherwise, you can disable the 4:3->16:9 option. It's just a matter of whether you think it is worth it. On the plus side the letterbox picture will compress better.

[nimbles]

Thanks a lot for replying wmansir :)
when i say i botched it the first time (it was a couple of months back with rb 0.26/0.27 iirc) i think i enabled "disable interlaced" and didn't have a valid decomb.dll :rolleyes: (schoolboy error)

1. I'm looking at RB now having pointed it to the original source- there's no mention of interlaced anywhere- i've now previewed the main title set in dvd2avidg 1.77 and the info i have from there is AR 4:3, Video Type Pal, and Framerate 20fps (which i'm a little confused about- thought pal was 25), for both main title set and the trailer extra (which is half d1 and half size- but doesn't seem to suffer from the softening/colour bleed as much).

2. I'm pretty sure its not- also when i was contemplating cutting extras from the original source using dvd remake- the preview frame looked interlaced (lots of horizonal lines)

3. I didn't enable the "disable interlaced" option as to quote jdobbs original reply to the question i asked back then:

... the options are for experts -- the defaults should always work. The only time you really need to use this is if you are planning to play your movies back on a computer because some computer players don't handle interlacing well. It "smooths" the edges of frames that result from interlacing. A television is designed to work with interlacing -- so in that case its almost always best to leave it alone

and as you can judge by my posts i'm no expert ;)

4. Here's one of the avisynth scripts

LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\MPEG2Dec3dg.dll")
mpeg2source("D:\NEW FOLDER\D2VAVS\V01.D2V",idct=7)
trim(95226,124313)
SeparateFields().LanczosResize(720,288,0,36,720,216).Weave()
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)
AudioDub(BlankClip())


ok well i'll give it a bash without the resize (unless you guys think there's a way of editing the script files to rectify the problem)

I was thinking that maybe the CCE expert settings were the culprit

[wmansir]

Someone from PAL land can probably help you more than me (I'm NTSC). I know how the program works, but have almost no experience with PAL sources. Still, I'll do my best.

1. From your script, DVD-RB is treating it as interlaced.

2. OK, so we will assume it is not progressive.

3. I think you're confusing "Disable Interlaced" with "Deinterlace with Decomb". To clarify:

Deinterlace with Decomb: When this is enabled, if DVD-RB detects a source as interlaced it will be Deinterlaced. here (http://www.doom9.org/ivtc-tut.htm) is one example of deinterlacing (scroll down to the picture). There are better examples online, just google the terms deinterlace or deinterlacing.

Disable Interlaced: Some sources are labeled as interlaced, but are really progressive. This is (usually?) only found in PAL because they are both at 25fps and so mis-labeling them can go undetected. But it can cause DVD-RB to treat them wrong. By enabling this option you are telling DVD-RB "don't treat this VTS as interlaced, regardless of what you detect". This option does not require Decomb.dll.

The response from jdobbs referred to Deinterlacing with Decomb, not Disable Interlaced.



Anyway, if the source really is interlaced we don't want to turn on "disable Interlace". You basically have 3 choices:

Keep it as it is. (no expert options)
Pros: No additional quality loss from processing, LB might look better at lower bitrates.
Cons: Still be LetterBoxed.

LB Convert as Interlaced (Convert 3:4->16:9)
Pros: Now it's anamorphic.
Cons: Soft picture.

Deinterlace and LB convert (Convert 3:4->16:9,Deinterlace with Decomb)
Pros: Anamorphic, picture not softened, Progressive.
Cons: Deinterlacing artifacts (and increased CPU time, if that matters).


Option C could produce the best results, it depends on how good a job Decomb does. You could also find a different deinterlacer and try that. I was never big on Deinterlacing so I don't have much advice here.

If your source really progressive your options would be:

Keep it the same.

LB convert, treat progressive (Convert 3:4->16:9, Disable Interlaced)

[nimbles]

thanks wmansir- i was getting confused about the difference with disable interlace- and deinterlace with decomb- the weird thing is that i've somehow bungled along without hitting this problem before and so have just stuck with the default settings without considering/researching what all the options are :rolleyes:

ok well it did take me almost 14 hours (athlon xp 2000+, 5 pass may be overkill) to do it the first time (which isn't a major biggie, but i may hold off doing it for a while, or until some other person, more clued up than me, from pal land can tell me about their own experiences with this title.

Damn multiple video modes :(

[nimbles]

ok going for wmansir's option c (with decomb 521- thats ok isn't it?)

will report back when it gets done (in a couple of days- CCE's now dropped to below 1.0 speed :( )

thanks again for your help on this wmansir (and to jdobbs of course)

[nimbles]

seems like i've been doing DVD-RB a diservice

I just finished it with dvd with letterbox->widescreen conversion and deinterlace with decomb. similar results, and the picture is bit more grainy (maybe as a result of deinterlacing artifacts). I then loaded the original source dvd in the tray and turns out that it is that soft and fuzzy in the source too- so unlikely that RB was repsosible for the problems in the first place :(

looks like 1 disc casino has been deleted in anticipation for a new two disc digitally remastered set- maybe they'll gett round to sorting out the video too.. :rolleyes:

[k-c-ksum]

Alot of PAL material is detected as interlaced but is actually Progressive. The best way to check is to open up the avs in media player classic and check for interlaced artifacts. Also some episode discs are progressive with interlaced credits. PAL is a pain when it comes interlaced/progressive. Personally i would just deinterlace the extras and encode them progressive and check the avs files for the main feature.