Progressive to Interlaced issues

Simmo1985 wrote on 12/4/2015, 10:26 PM

Hoping to get some help with my settings. I am trying to create a PAL DVD. I have many different video sources, 720 25p, 1080 25p, 1080 50i, 1080 50p. The varied formats/resolutions is not something I can change.

I can burn my project as a 25p DVD and have no issues whatsoever playing on a computer. I've tried the disc in a physical DVD player though and I have some issues (the DVD player for some reason gets thrown off and thinks it is 2.35:1 anamorphic resolution).

With that in mind, I've been trying to burn the DVD as interlaced.

When I render as an interlaced MPEG2-DVD (25i), the quality of the footage is great for the sections that were filmed at 50i, however the quality of stuff that Vegas has converted from Progressive (25p / 50p) to Interlaced is really bad.

In the progressive footage there are noticeable lines when playing back with VLC player unless you enable de-interlacing. Even afterwards the footage quality is pretty ordinary. The portions of the video that were filmed interlaced are fine with VLC regardless of whether interlacing is on or off.

Any ideas how to solve the problem? I've used other conversion software in the past (SuperDVdate) that converts 25p and 50p to perfect 25i footage, so it should be possible.

Comments

Simmo1985 wrote on 12/4/2015, 10:28 PM

Using VP13.

I feel like I've tried all deinterlace methods, manually setting the source video files from Progressive to Interlace, tried different field orders...

Former user wrote on 12/4/2015, 11:20 PM

One thing to check is to right click each progressive file in the media pool and make sure that Vegas has them flagged as being progressive.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/5/2015, 11:07 AM

Select a deinterlace method ("Interpolate")
Select Best rendering quality
Disable Resampling for all affected events
Be sure to render to a COMPLIANT DVD Template.

*Note that needing to turn on a deinterlace filter each time in VLC is normal behavior.

Simmo1985 wrote on 12/5/2015, 7:21 PM

Thanks guys, no success so far though. I've tried all the suggestions with no luck so far.

Here's a pic that shows what is happening:
http://imgur.com/pgYAkew

OldSmoke wrote on 12/5/2015, 9:33 PM

Here is what I would do.

Project properties: Deinterlace=interpolate, 1920x1080, 50, progressive.

Timeline:
all interlaced footage leave smart resample on
all progressive footage switch smart resample off.

Render:
use the build in DVD Architect PAL template wide screen.
Render a separate AC3 audio track.

That should do it. Look at the rendered out put in DVDA or burn a DVD-RW for testing.

Simmo1985 wrote on 12/6/2015, 2:25 AM

Thanks OldSmoke. I'm trying to get the interlaced footage to play normally on VLC player without the need for any de-interlacing turned on. The footage of my hand moving in front of the camera does this fine, no lines at all. Just having a problem with the progressive stuff, perhaps it is just how Vegas handles it's conversion of Progressive to Interlaced.

If I convert the exact same clip with SuperDVdate to a MPEG2-DVD (interlaced) it plays back as I want. Refer to attached pic.

http://imgur.com/nIGRbmQ

Here's a breakdown of the differences between the two MPEG2 files.

http://imgur.com/oDfgouE

Simmo1985 wrote on 12/6/2015, 3:14 AM

Ok... Well for the 50p footage, I got it working how I wanted... I set the "Undersample rate" to 0.5 in the clip properties for that footage. It now plays back properly. Setting it to 0.5 is fine because it is 50 progressive frames initially, so it is reduced to 25fps which is perfect.

Now just to figure out how to fix 25p footage....... Open to suggestions!

OldSmoke wrote on 12/6/2015, 4:23 AM

I don't use VLC so I am not sure what you are trying to archive. DVD is interlaced and interlaced footage seen without a deinterlace filter must have jagged lines.

I don't see your system specs but you may be running in circles if your graphic driver has already an auto deinterlace, my AMD driver does have such a setting and it's always off on my system. If you want all to look the same in VLC, try and render out a 50p intermediate with the settings in my previous post. You can then put the 50p back into Vegas and render for DVDA.

Simmo1985 wrote on 12/6/2015, 4:47 AM

Ok, I'm starting to figure it out....

So one of the other clips I was having problems with was recorded at a framerate of 29.97. I adjusted the Undersample rate in the clip properties to 0.835 which brings the framerate down to 25.025. I couldn't get it exactly on 25. At this setting the clip plays back perfectly once rendered. Interestingly enough, if the framerate was set to 24.995, I had jagged lines. This is "CLIP #1" in the pic, linked below.

http://imgur.com/msXssXb

"CLIP #2" is showing as being 24.845 FPS for some reason. I can't adjust the "Undersample rate" to be any larger than 1.000, I can only make it slower. So I can't bring the rate up to 25. If I drop it down to 24 FPS and export as a 24 FPS MPEG2, then the clip plays fine.

So there's some problem with how Vegas is processing sources that do not exactly match the output framerate. Well, at least the problem occurs when outputting to an interlaced format. If I output to progressive it's fine.

Smart resample / Force resample are not fixing the issue.

Anyone have any ideas on a solution? As stated at in my original post, unfortunately I do not have control over the variances in framerates etc.

Simmo1985 wrote on 12/6/2015, 4:51 AM

Ah sorry, OldSmoke, didn't see your previous reply. Yeah, I'm starting to think that the best solution is to render a progressive copy and then re-produce as interlaced.

It may be that my graphics card is de-interlacing already and when I'm playing back perfect interlaced footage, it's showing normally. I think that the interlaced footage I'm currently producing with Vegas (prior to adjusting the sample rates) is not working properly, and therefore when being de-interlaced it's showing the imperfections. Even when I play back on the TV the DVDs were a bit "jittery"... I've heard the term "marching ants" used before to describe poor interlacing, and I think that's what's happening on these.

Simmo1985 wrote on 12/6/2015, 5:13 AM

Just exported as 25p, imported and exported as 25i. Footage plays back perfectly. Thanks for your help OldSmoke. Would love to be able to skip that step, so I'll keep tinkering for a bit, but at least I've got a work around.

OldSmoke wrote on 12/6/2015, 8:25 AM

Maybe that is specific to PAL footage of PAL renders but I never had to take that extra step. Vegas does a good job interlacing on my end with NTSC footage of different frame rates. I often have 60i, 60p and 30p on the time line and never had an issue making a 60i DVD or 30p for YT from the timeline in one go. However, 30p in 60i will look a bit jittery if panning or zooming is too fast.