Proper technique to convert old DVDs to web?

Guyinpv wrote on 8/16/2018, 2:24 PM

I have old DVDs of ours that I want to convert and sell online as digital. Basically put up on Vimeo on Demand.

They are 640x480 of course.

I used a program WinX DVD Ripper to pull out the VOB files, although these DVDs I don't think ever had any kind of encryption or anything, so I've been able to just copy the VOBs right off the disks too.

In any case, after ripping and such, I get these MP4 files, but they are apparently interlaced as you can very easily see all the horizontal banding with any movement, like really bad.

I thought that would be fine and Vegas could render back to progressive etc. But that's not happening. I've tried many different profiles and played with the project settings and render settings but cannot get a render without the banding!

Obviously I'm doing something wrong but I'm not sure at what step. Did I rip them wrong? Convert them to MP4 wrong? Something I did with VOB is wrong? Vegas settings wrong? Render settings wrong?

So rather than diagnose my situation, I'd rather learn what is the best way to get these old square interlaced DVDs into a digital format for the web that looks as good as possible.

And since this project is already done, I don't want to have to do 2 hours of video editing again with all new source files, if it's possible to still get a progressive render out of Vegas, I would like to.

When looking at the properties of the source MP4, Vegas says it's AVC, 720x480x32, 29.970, PAR 0.8889, Field order "None (progressive scan)".

Even though it says progressive, it's quite badly interlaced/banding in the preview, but also all my renders.

The Vegas project settings are 640x480, progressive, square pixels, 29.970, smart adaptive deinterlace with gaussian blur, smart resample.

For rendering I've been playing with all the settings for the Main Concept MPEG-2. I use a profile here for Vimeo when I have "normal" source footage, but coming off these DVD rips and/or VOB files it just ain't working as well.

Any help would be great! Either fixing what I've got here, or just telling me how to rip and convert it better/properly.

Thanks

Comments

Guyinpv wrote on 8/16/2018, 2:27 PM

I should mention this is Vegas Pro 15, and I also tried the MAGIX AVC profile as well.

Musicvid wrote on 8/16/2018, 5:14 PM

Handbrake is designed to do exactly this, a lot easier than using Vegas.

fifonik wrote on 8/16/2018, 5:25 PM

You can check the SimpleSlugUpscale: http://www.gyroshot.com/simpleslug.htm (you should start from downloading source and processed files and checking them)

Under the hood it is avisynth with some plugins. SimpleSlugUpscale itself is just a helper script.

Unfortunately, it looks like you will need to start it from the scratch to get the best results. Or, at least, provide more information by publishing media info for your source vob and mp4 files you have.

P.S. I used to use the tool to deinterlace + upscale my old interlaced SD sources. Created cmd helper file that simplifies _my_ process. Tried different types of upscaling and this was the best I found then. Not sure may be there are some newer and better tools available now.

P.P.S. I have everything set up for this process. If you'd like to have a look how your source would be deinterlaced + upscaled and have not very big vob file - send me PM.

EricLNZ wrote on 8/16/2018, 6:25 PM

Try altering the properties one of the source files to field order top first. Check that your Project Properties has deinterlacing with interpolation then render out a few seconds to mp4 and see if this makes any difference. If it doesn't try bottom first. I've come across vob files that say they are progressive when in fact they are interlaced. I suspect that DVDs are always interlaced.

Guyinpv wrote on 8/20/2018, 2:54 PM

Thanks for the ideas.

I got rid of the directly-copied VOB files that I dragged off the DVD. I figure that's not really the best way to go anyway.

I went back to my WinX DVD Ripper and looked for any progressive settings and indeed there is a checkbox to Deinterlace. Since this program is specifically made to rip DVDs, I wonder why this is even an option and not a default?

Anyway, I checked that and ripped them again and this time the resulting MP4 files were not banding, they were normal. So I just went ahead and did the project over again in Vegas and it rendered out just fine. No banding.

That said, if I ever have any kind of source footage (or VOB files) which are interlaced and have banding, the suggestion seems to be to use Handbreak to deinterlace the source files directly first before trying to use in Vegas? Or can Vegas deal with interlaced sources or not? That's the part I couldn't find how to do if so.

Musicvid wrote on 8/20/2018, 4:37 PM

Handbrake.