Interlaced to Progressive vs Interlaced to Interlaced?

Charade · Post by **Charade** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 5:59 pm

I have a Canon HG10 which came with Ulead DVD Movie Factory 5.6SE. If I set the output to "custom" and just use defaults (except set size to 720x480) the program produces progressive output. This looks very good on my PC especially when I pause. However when I play that on my DVD player to my TV, I get pretty severe panning blur.

Now if I set the program to output "fast output DVD compliant" and use the defaults, it produces interlaced output.

There is no choice in the options for either of these choices for selecting progressive or interlaced.

When I play this on my PC I see quite a bit of artifacts (I believe interlace and compression) in some of the more detailed section (like gravel). When I play this on my DVD player/TV, I still see the artifacts but the panning/motion blur is gone.

Aside from the panning/motion blur, why is the progressive output (especially paused) so much better than interlaced? How do I get the best of both worlds? When I play the original files on my TV (it's an HD monitor) via my camcorder, the motion and clarity are excellent. Why is the conversion from HD to SD so difficult?

I've also tried Studio X2 (among many other programs) with similar results however, the Ulead 5.6SE seems to produce better output.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 7:59 pm

Why is the conversion from HD to SD so difficult?

Are you trying to do this with software? You don't really say.

If your cam does the conversion you should do it that way first.

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:06 pm

Apart from what Black Lab says, an HD tv will not be great at showing an SD movie, first you've lowered quality by going from hd to sd, then you are upscaling the movie back to HD sizes.
Best bet is to invest in a BluRay burner and stick to HD.

Charade · Post by **Charade** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:16 pm

Black Lab wrote:
Why is the conversion from HD to SD so difficult?

Are you trying to do this with software? You don't really say.

If your cam does the conversion you should do it that way first.

I'm using the software listed in my op. The camera only outputs HD.

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 10:14 pm

If you wanted to spend around £300 on an encoding app you'd get better quality, but as I mentioned earlier it still won't look crisp.
I'd rather spend my money on keeping it HD throughout.

Charade · Post by **Charade** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:16 pm

skier-hughes wrote:Apart from what Black Lab says, an HD tv will not be great at showing an SD movie, first you've lowered quality by going from hd to sd, then you are upscaling the movie back to HD sizes.
Best bet is to invest in a BluRay burner and stick to HD.

SD material (especially commercial DVDs) look just fine on my HD (it's older tube CRT) TV.

I still need to make SD DVDs for other people.

My original question is still why does SD progressive output from an HD interlaced source look better than an SD interlaced output from the (same) interlaced source from the same program?

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 4:03 pm

I've never seen an HD crt tv, but if I remember right was it Samsung that made these slimeline crt models.

What resolution does it show?

Commercial dvds are made using a low bitrate but the quality is enhanced by using an encoder that makes over 20 passes and costs hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Can you give us the parameters of each file, so we have as much info as we can get.

Charade · Post by **Charade** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 4:35 pm

skier-hughes wrote:I've never seen an HD crt tv, but if I remember right was it Samsung that made these slimeline crt models.

What resolution does it show?

Commercial dvds are made using a low bitrate but the quality is enhanced by using an encoder that makes over 20 passes and costs hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Can you give us the parameters of each file, so we have as much info as we can get.

The Sony HD monitor (no ASTC tuner), circa 2000, can display up to 1080i via a DVI or component connection.

The parameters of the source file are 1920x1080 AVCHD at 60i.

I understand about multiple passes (very time consuming) and some programs allow 2 or more passes through their encoder.

Why can't I reduce (using software) the output size (to DVD 720x480) and still be at 60i? Why does it drop to 29.97? Why does the reduction cause so many artifacts? Converting to interlaced produces interlace and compression artifacts while converting to progressive causes panning/motion blur/smearing.

Am I expecting too much from a program that costs about $100?

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 4:45 pm

Are your camcorder files upper or lower field first?
What about your interlaced dvd files?
What settings are you using in MF to make your SD dvd file?

Is the tv a proper tv or a monitor? Can you point me to an on-line review, I didn't know Sony made any.

Whereabouts in the world are you?

60i does not exist, it is an easier way of saying 59.94, or 29.97 x 2. Interlaced is made up of two lots of 29.97 fields per frame per second , one lot is upper field and then the lower field is displayed, for upper field first. LFF is when the lower field is displayed first.

If you swap which way round these are displayed, so your cam records UFF, then you burn a dvd of LFF this will cause problems.

Changing from interlaced to progressive often means omitting one range of fields, so bye bye UF and this leads to motion problems - the reason interlacing was invented in the first place.

If you record in i, then stick with i is often best if your tv is i as well.

Charade · Post by **Charade** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 6:14 pm

skier-hughes wrote:Are your camcorder files upper or lower field first?
What about your interlaced dvd files?
What settings are you using in MF to make your SD dvd file?

Is the tv a proper tv or a monitor? Can you point me to an on-line review, I didn't know Sony made any.

Whereabouts in the world are you?

60i does not exist, it is an easier way of saying 59.94, or 29.97 x 2. Interlaced is made up of two lots of 29.97 fields per frame per second , one lot is upper field and then the lower field is displayed, for upper field first. LFF is when the lower field is displayed first.

If you swap which way round these are displayed, so your cam records UFF, then you burn a dvd of LFF this will cause problems.

Changing from interlaced to progressive often means omitting one range of fields, so bye bye UF and this leads to motion problems - the reason interlacing was invented in the first place.

If you record in i, then stick with i is often best if your tv is i as well.

I'm in the US.

The specs for the camcorder are:
Supported Playback Modes
1080/60i, 1080/24F

The TV specs are:
From the Manufacturer
The KV-36HS500 36-inch FD Trinitron WEGA Hi-Scan TV combines our newest WEGA design with new, innovative features. Featuring a Hi-Scan 1080i Display, DRC MultiFunction (960i or 480p) Circuitry. CineMotion Reverse 3-2 PullDown Technology, Auto 16:9 Enhanced Mode, a 3-D Digital Comb Filter, and New ClearEdge VM Wideband Velocity Modulation, this television offers you images that are more vivid, sound that is more superb, and overall entertainment that is more outstanding than ever.

I've made sure I've match fields and I understand that converting from interlaced to progressive tosses out one of the fields. So perhaps I shouldn't really worry about that. I'm more concerned that I can't seem to maintain fairly decent image quality when reducing a 1920x1080i video to 720x480i video file.

I've tried producing DVDs and MPEG files (my dvd player can read both) and the results are the same. The only notable difference is some programs produce progressive output when creating DVDs and do not give you the option of keeping them interlaced.

Here's a screen shot of how X2 "sees" the file.

Here are sample screen caps of the original file and an interlaced output from Pinnacle. Corel X2 produced similar results.

The first one is a screen cap from Pinnacle (interlaced output) The second is a screen cap from the original Canon file.

Post by **Ron P.** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 6:38 pm

Please resize your images... Size of Avatars and Posted Images

Charade · Post by **Charade** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 10:14 pm

vidoman wrote:Please resize your images... Size of Avatars and Posted Images

Sorry! Done!

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 5:00 pm

We need two identical images to do a comparison, as the movement of items in shot can lead to problems in deciding on what is happening.
UNless of course that is an identical frame and we see more from one side on one than we do on the other.

Does your cam record in 1440x1080 in any of it's modes, as if it doesn't VS appears to have the dimensions down wrong, if it is outputting 1440 from a 1920 file this will cause some distortion.

A dvd is really the same as mpeg, as the mpeg file is wrapped up into a vob of max 1gb and burned to the disc.

Can you give a screenshot of the properties used for the end result in VS, but I'm afraid I'm away for a week, so hopefully someone else will pick up on this and takeover.

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:21 pm

VS appears to have the dimensions down wrong

I have an HG10 camera in PAL and it shows the same properties as in the above screenshot. (Apart from the PAL size and frame rate).

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:56 pm

Are you recording in 1920 JOhn?
As you have the cam, I'll leave Charade in your capable hands