Encoding VOB from DVD with both NTCS/FILM and interlaced/progressive

Which template are you using in TMPGEnc? If it's an NTSC movie you're encoding, it's most likely telecined.

You might want to give this procedure a shot:
1) Load the SuperVideoCD (NTSCFilm).mcf -profile in TMPGEnc
2) From the Advanced MPEG Settings select: Video source type: Interlaced, Source aspect ratio: (as reported by DVD2AVI, 4:3 or 16:9 NTSC), and check the Inverse telecine -box.
3) Choose a respectively small source frame range for a test run.

Let me know what happens =)

 

BobL: Region 1 NTSC discs that are combo interlaced/progressive are notorious buggers to deal with.

I have found that such discs can't be corrected with the Flask/BBMPeg-plugin combo. I always got the same, particularly annoying 'jerkiness' of motion you refer to.

What title is your vob from? Disney dvds are particularly irksome, and I can tell you what settings *I* used with TMPGEnc to get a gorgeous (standard) vcd of "Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs", if you would like to try out any of the settings for yourself.

I assume you have your .d2v project and .wav files ready-to-go.

Yes, in TMP, under 'Settings/Advanced', choose 3:4 or 16:9 NTSC as reported by DVD2AVI. For the Disney disc (images are stored as *both* Prog AND Int), I chose "Interlaced". For Field Order I chose "Top Field First (field A). (The other option <bottom field> gave me hopelessly jerky/blurry motion).

Put a check-mark in the "De-Interlace" box, then double-click the line itself. From the drop-down menu with it's bewildering list of options, I chose "Odd Field (adaptation)".

Encode as usual. Maybe you could try these settings for just a short test run. Walt Disney Studios would probably be quite annoyed with me for the outstanding quality vcd I got using those settings.

Good Luck.

-- KlingonAgent --

 

Yo Bob! (L) .....

So like, *who* is 'Jari'?

I am s*o*o*o*o*o jealous!

You have at your disposal, the collected works of Star Trek (TOS) on (rental?) dvd! Geeze, I'd kill for that. 80-some episodes, right? I swear, you'll burn out (maybe) a coupla hard-drives encoding these to (s)vcd. No rental outlets around here carry (or intend to), the original series OR The Next Generation either. [[Shit]]

I'm watching you. Please let me know how you make out with the (jerky-ish) motion of your star trek conversions.

--Senior Advisor To The Klingon High Council --

 

Klingon: I'm Jari! =) Jari Ketola, AfterDawn.com administrator, and founding member. I'm the guy to point your finger at when our servers experience hickups ;-)

Of course you can always _buy_ the TOS episodes =) I have 25 (or was it 24.. or 22) of the DVDs so far. Grew sick of buying them about a year ago, and I've been thinking about getting rid of them. I've only watched like.. two episodes so far. Thank God they release TNG in season boxes! Already ordered the S1 box. Can't wait to see how it is!

 

Ooops! (Sorry Jari)

Oh no, the forum boards work well, so I won't 'get after ya'. This is a fun place.

But my God, it will take a fortune to gather *all* the Star Trek episodes together. Any of the TV series are very VERY desireable items - Trekkies have been waiting for these dvds for years. But can anyone really *afford* to collect on dvd all the currently-available titles plus those which are yet to come? I believe Paramount plans to have the entire Next Generation FULL series released by years' end.

About 80 original TOS (40 dvds?) I believe, plus 6 seasons' worth of TNG. (Wow!) How long can it be before Deep Space Nine and Voyager make it to disc? I know that selected episodes of Voyager exist on vhs, but we want 'em all, right? (And on DVD).

I confess to not being wealthy, so there is absolutely no need to agree with me here Jari -- but -- these 55-ish minute episodes would (will) fit awfully well on single vcds. (ahem). No, please don't agree with me on that, but you see, if the local video rental stores here ever decide to stock these titles (Blockbuster/Rogers Video/some independants), they will make a killing just in rentals alone.

I appreciate your comments and those of BobL regarding how these dvds are laid out (Prog/Interlaced etc). Don't tell anyone, but sooner or later I *will* have this entire series on vcd.

(Don't agree!!)

If you are the originator of AfterDawn then I owe you a debt of thanks. I've come to meet some very intelligent, helpful and fun people in this place.

This is where I come to first nowadays when I can't figure something out and I ned to find some answers.You are permanently bookmarked.

Very Much Obliged Jari.

-- The Klingon Agent --

(Guess you can tell I'm a trekkie, eh?)

 

Klingon: I agree. The ST:TOS DVDs are ridiculously expensive. $15 for two episodes.. Bah! It was the good old days of coupons, pre-order discounts, and free shipping offers, when I bought the first 22 discs. They ended up costing less than $5 per disc, I think.

103 euros (or 90 USD) for the first season of TNG ain't so bad IMO. Still a bit steep, but I can manage it. I have tons of lousy movies I can get rid of to pay for TNG, if it comes to that =)

Your comments about our site warms the cockles of my heart. There were more than just me and dRD getting AfterDawn.com started, though dRD is, of course, the heart and soul of the Dawn. You can find a bit more information about us at:

http://www.afterdawn.com/general/company.cfm

Live long, and prosper!

- A Vulcan Mindbender -

;-)

 

Bob (and Klingon): Forgot to mention about Voyager and DS9. Never really watched either of them. Dunno why, but I just couldn't find that "something" in them, that was still present in TNG. Haven't watched a single episode of Enterprise either.. I've actually been waiting more for B5 to show up on DVD, than TNG.

I'll try and take a look at TOS this week and see how they should be encoded.

 

Ran a couple of tests and the following settings seemed to provide rather good results:
Profile: SuperVideoCD (NTSCFilm).mcf
TMPGEnc settings:

Video:
Highest quality motion search, use DV Tool to calculate appropriate bitrate (probably around 1850kbps, which is too low for CBR, so use 2-pass VBR instead)
Advanced:
Video source type: Interlaced
Field order: Bottom field first (field B)
Source aspect ratio: 4:3 525 line (NTSC 704x480)
Video arrange method: Full screen
Deinterlace: Double

That's it. Beautiful! Glorious! etc. =)

Didn't do any VCD tests, but the same settings should apply.

Let me know how these settings work out for you!

 

Wow.

Never having made an (s)vcd, and having NO local access to any TOS discs, whether retail or rental; not really being sure if BobL was using Region 1 or 2 discs; trying to discern what his particular form of "jerkiness" of motion was like; trying to determine whether his intended use of the svcds was for computer or stand-alone player/television playback; *all* had me scratching my head as to how I might make useful suggestions.

You have made some *terrific* suggestions in the meantime, Jari!

If my burning software (Sony CD-Extreme) supported svcd (it doesn't) I might be tempted to try my hand at svcds (I don't like Nero), *especially* since I have just recently discovered from vcdhelper.com that my Sanyo standalone player *does* support svcd playback!

I think svcd is a mixed bag though. When I upgrade from vcd, I want it to be from dvd-to-dvd. If Hollywood doesn't get its way by crippling future dvd-burners, then I think we can forego svcd in general, and make straight(ish) mpeg-2 to mpeg-2 conversions.

I honestly can't imagine making dvd-to-dvd backups can be one iota harder than currently making a svcd. Or even an mpeg-4 divx.

Good work, Jari! Bob, will you try his settings?

-- K.A. --

P.S. Jari: dRD is a Region 2 PAL 25fps kinda guy. Are you a Region 1 NTSC 29.97 fps kinda guy? Your settings would suggest so.

 

SVCDs sure are worth giving a shot! If you dislike Nero, you can always use VCDImager to create (S)VCD images, and then use a burning software (eg. Nero, heh-heh) to burn them. Though I've noticed, that (S)VCDs created with VCDImager behave exactly the same way as the ones I've toasted with Nero.

If I recall correctly, you've had problems with your DVD player showing "PBC" instead of "VCD"? My Pioneer behaves the same exact way - no matter what software I use to author the disc. If I hit play, only "PBC PLAY" shows up on the screen, _but_ if I start the playback with ">>|" (ie. skip chapter), the screen displays the VCD title and timecode. Dunno why, though..

I'm from Finland my self, as is dRD and the rest of the AfterDawn staff, so I'm a PAL kinda guy as well. Most of my DVD collection consists of R1 titles, though, since when I started with DVD, region 2 movies were far and between, and the quality left a lot to be desired.. And of course one had to pay, on average, less than $10 per disc. Recently I've been purchasing most of my movies from region 4 stores in Australia.

So I guess you could say I'm a multi-standard kinda guy =)

 

I did a rather short test clip, so I might have missed any jerkiness in the movement (even though I tried to find a high-motion scene). I'll do some more tests, tweaking the IVTC and other settings.

I'll get back to you over the weekend by latest.

 

When playing back my vcds (and presumably svcds are no different) on my stand-alone, I've noticed two sporadic problems with the picture.

The first relates to my dvd player's inability to read cd/r-r/w media perfectly. Occassionaly the picture will 'pixellate', that is, clearly defined blocks will appear, then rapidly vanish. I think most dvd players, while not having problems with the (s)vcd *formats* themselves, DO have hiccups when using those formats made on self-recorded discs. In other words, those pixellations would probably not occur if the vcd was a factory *pressed* commercial one.

I know the discs themselves are not at fault, nor are they recorded incorrectly (the above problem vanishes entirely when I play the discs back on the computer). Also, and this is very telling, - when I play the exact same portion of the disc again, it will now *not* pixellate in that particular section, but *may* now pixellate in *another* totally different section that didn't pixellate before. In other words, the macroblocks are entirely at random - a product, I think, of the dvd player's inability to read the cd/r media perfectly. Hopefully, more modern dvd standalones are addressing this matter. I don't think the more expensive players (those with two separate laser assemblies - one optimised for each media type <dvd/cd>) are not subject to this problem.

The second problem is the one I think you are experiencing Bob. It is a particularly annoying form of "jerkiness" that you have described well. I have seen it often. You will be going along nicely, then all of a sudden, a tiny, short little "jump" in the motion will take place. If you weren't watching closely, you might miss it. Then it will happen again - and again..... It's not the continual, predictable jerkiness-of-motion that you would experience, I don't think, by using the wrong settings for example, in TMPGEnc or another mpeg encoder.

The motion is otherwise smooth, tight? To date, only a few of my vcds exhibit these irksome little mini-jumps, but when they DO, they do it in exactly the same place, and so I *know* it originates from some vagarity or particular incompatibility in the way the dvds themselves are mastered/recorded. You don't have to have a particularly action-intensive scene to see these little 'jumps' either - often, they will be more noticeable in simple, low-action scenes, such as when an actor is simply walking forward, for example.

Have I identified the problem?

I experience this headache, by far, more with dvds that have their images stored as BOTH progressive *and* interlaced at the same time. Purely progressive images rarely if ever, give me the same problem. Maybe PAL Region 2 users are luckier in this regard.

Over the many months I've been encoding discs, I have not found any combination of settings, using any combination of software that can totally elimate this problem. The problem was far worse (more pronounced) when I routinely made mpeg-4 divxs, but with vcds, the incidences of these 'mini'jumps' is way less, although still sometimes visible.

I don't know how to get rid of them Bob. Although terribly irksome, I have learned to accept them when they occassionally occur. Not the ideal solution, I agree.

I doubt that your use of 'Full-Screen-Keep Aspect Ratio' is the culprit, as it's not related to this motion problem. I always use 'FS-KAR' whether the disc is 4:3 *or* 16:9.

Sigh.............

-- K.A. --