[SportiveUK]

Hi,

I have been editing my home movies for years now and currently use Canopus DV Storm to output 16:9 high quality MPEG2 files for use on DVD.

Having just purchased a new 50" HDTV (Sony) I was worried that they might look rather dodgy but to my surprise they looked fine on my average VCR/DVD Toshiba combi via S-Video. Yesterday I picked up a Toshiba 350e DVD player that has upscaling and whilst it has made a huge difference to commercial DVD's, it does weird things with the home created ones.

It's hard to explain but lets just say that it appears as if I have loads of "interlace flicker" that I don't have from the old DVD player. I also have a DVD player as part of my editing setup connected to a CRT TV and there is no hint of flicker on that either... and there shouldn't be because I have applied filters in my editing app that specifically address this problem!

I have noticed that when using stills, the flicker seems to appear during transitions (eg crossfade) but then kind of "snaps" solid, almost like it is interlaced during the transition and de-interlaced on the still part of the shot.

So the question is why does a new DVD player, connected via HDMI that is supposed to upscale the video to 720p appear to display interlace flicker on a TV that inherently works de-interlaced? I just don't get it....

[laser]

Have you encoded your camcorder footage as interlaced MPEG2 or progressive MPEG2?

I can't comment on the Canapus software but Pinnacle Studio 9/10 and Liquid 6 provide the option to encode progressivly if you intend to replay on a TV or display capable of progressive scan.

The flickering effect you see is not uncommon and is usually the result of poor upscaling to 720p. Although your MPEG footage is probably interlaced the upscalling should still work without flicker but you may find encoding progressivly sorts out the problem.

If it does then the scaller in the Sony display or DVD player is probably not up to the job of correctly converting interlaced video to progressive 720p.

Have you tried upconverting the camcorder footage to 1080i?

[SportiveUK]

Originally Posted by laser

Have you encoded your camcorder footage as interlaced MPEG2 or progressive MPEG2?

At present I can only encode as interlaced MPEG2 using Canopus Pro-coder Express... this gives far superior results to using Studio (which I also have) as far as quality at lower bitrates is concerned.

The new DVD player (in my opinion) upscales commercial DVD's to look totally awsome on the new display and I always assumed that these were interlaced MPEG2. Is this not the case?

I guess if they are not then perhaps indeed the upscaling from interlaced to 720p is not that great and is what is causing problems. I can see alot of people having problems with this! I will try encoding in Studio using progressive MPEG2.

Thanks for your input

[MarkE19]

The only other thing that I can think of off hand is that it might be a field order error that the deinterlacer in the new DVD player can't handle that well.
Do you capture your footage with 'lower field first' or 'upper field first'? I think it is fairly standard to capture lower field first with PAL video.

Mark.

[SportiveUK]

Originally Posted by MarkE19

Do you capture your footage with 'lower field first' or 'upper field first'?
Mark.

Lower field, which is what I have always used. It seems daft that I will probably have to go back to connecting the DVD player via component instead of HMDI just so that I can view my home made DVDs in any decent form.. and I bought that DVD player specifically so that it would do a good job of upscaling SD video!

[laser]

[QUOTE=a.wright]The new DVD player (in my opinion) upscales commercial DVD's to look totally awsome on the new display and I always assumed that these were interlaced MPEG2. Is this not the case?

I guess if they are not then perhaps indeed the upscaling from interlaced to 720p is not that great and is what is causing problems. I can see alot of people having problems with this! I will try encoding in Studio using progressive MPEG2.

QUOTE]

As far as I'm aware DVD's are not recorded interlaced as such. Interlacing is a method CRT's or some ALIS panels use to display a video frame. Most DVD's are also recorded in film mode i.e. 24fps as opposed to 30fps (NTSC) or 25fps for PAL. There are many different factors to take into account.

If you checkout the plasma forum there is more information on interlacing, progressive and upconverting.

The film mode could explain why commercial DVD's look OK upscalled but camcorder footage at 25fps flicker. It's a bit of a minefield

[Mr.D]

Originally Posted by laser

As far as I'm aware DVD's are not recorded interlaced as such. Most DVD's are also recorded in film mode i.e. 24fps as opposed to 30fps (NTSC) or 25fps for PAL. There are many different factors to take into account.

If you checkout the plasma forum there is more information on interlacing, progressive and upconverting.

The film mode could explain why commercial DVD's look OK upscalled but camcorder footage at 25fps flicker. It's a bit of a minefield

Commercial dvds are interlaced regardless if they originated on film.