Help with ripping interlaced DVDs

[wonkey_monkey]

Torchwood: MIracle Day suffered from this, presumably because they didn't want to do the usual 4% PAL speed-up because they thought the audience were too familiar with the usual pitch of the character's voices, so we got blended 24->25fps frames instead. And don't get me started on Doctor Who blu-rays...

Pitching the audio back down seems to be becoming more common these days now they've got algorithms that can do it without introducing too many artefacts.

[James2001]

And don't get me started on Doctor Who blu-rays...

Seems to be far too common for blu-rays of 25p and 50i material to be released at 24p or 60i. The issue there is, for some reason, very few TVs and equipment in the US support 25/50Hz output- even though pretty much everything over here supports 60Hz at least (and usually 24p as well), and most Blu-Ray producers seem to have just decided it's easier to produce one master for international distribution rather than different 24p/60i and 50i versions, particularly as most blu-rays tend not to be region coded. And as 24p/60i is pretty much universally supported, but 50i isn't, that's what we end up with far too often.

There's also the rather curious fact that the blu-ray standard doesn't support 25/30p (well, regular Blu-Ray at least, UHD Blu-Ray supports them), and they have to be encoded as 50/60i (not that I think that really makes a significant difference), whereas the HD-DVD standard did support them. Does seem to be a factor on why some 25p material gets slowed down to 24p though, even if it isn't released in a 60Hz territory, seems like a progressive master is preffered even if it is at the wrong frame rate.

Why US versions of equipment often don't support 50Hz seems strange to me. Even going back to the 90s, every TV I've owned with some sort of Aux input will switch to 480i60- admittedly with a couple of exceptions it will only come out in colour with a Scart RGB connection, and only black and white with composite, presumably because it can't decode the NTSC colour, but they still always supported it at least in black and white (even a mid-90s portable we had that only had an RCA composite input), and every DVD player I've owned can output 480i as well. In Europe, TV's won't even get HD Ready certification if they don't support 60Hz (and 24Hz as well for 1080p HD ready). Surely it wouldn't be difficult for manufacturers to include that capability in US models, even if it isn't likely to be used by many.

[simpfeld]

Here's a question, is there any merit in turning a 50i DVD or TV recording of a film into 25p? That way you are just getting the two half frames merged, into one progressive full frame, recreating the original film frame at some level. Or is this meritless as telecine isnt that line accurate?

I'm thinking with virtually no algorithm for deinterlace, as the source media wasnt interlaced?

Thoughts

[Neil Jones]

Here's a question, is there any merit in turning a 50i DVD or TV recording of a film into 25p? That way you are just getting the two half frames merged, into one progressive full frame, recreating the original film frame at some level. Or is this meritless as telecine isnt that line accurate?

I'm thinking with virtually no algorithm for deinterlace, as the source media wasnt interlaced?

Thoughts

You only have to see some of the half-arsed "remasters" of music videos on YouTube to see what a hash converting to 25fps can look like...

If you want to convert an off-air recording of a film you'd do better in all honestly to buy the DVD (or "Obtain" it elsewhere) and do it properly, because the film will have been converted (and maybe "edited to fit your TV", which is code for pan-and-scan 4:3) for TV viewing, and the film would have originally been done on film anyway (hence the name) at 24fps. So you'd just be butchering something that's already been butchered even just to update it to 25fps which for PAL is just a case of speed it up by 4%, job done. Yes the soundtrack will always sound like the Chipmunks have done it but there you go.

Plus of course once you add all the other artifacts in from the transmission compression (unless its a really old analogue recording and then you may have ghosting), its going to be relatively mushy before you add your own extra compression on top of it.

[simpfeld]

Here's a question, is there any merit in turning a 50i DVD or TV recording of a film into 25p? That way you are just getting the two half frames merged, into one progressive full frame, recreating the original film frame at some level. Or is this meritless as telecine isnt that line accurate?

I'm thinking with virtually no algorithm for deinterlace, as the source media wasnt interlaced?

Thoughts

You only have to see some of the half-arsed "remasters" of music videos on YouTube to see what a hash converting to 25fps can look like...

If you want to convert an off-air recording of a film you'd do better in all honestly to buy the DVD (or "Obtain" it elsewhere) and do it properly, because the film will have been converted (and maybe "edited to fit your TV", which is code for pan-and-scan 4:3) for TV viewing, and the film would have originally been done on film anyway (hence the name) at 24fps. So you'd just be butchering something that's already been butchered even just to update it to 25fps which for PAL is just a case of speed it up by 4%, job done. Yes the soundtrack will always sound like the Chipmunks have done it but there you go.

Plus of course once you add all the other artifacts in from the transmission compression (unless its a really old analogue recording and then you may have ghosting), its going to be relatively mushy before you add your own extra compression on top of it.

This question applies to DVD rips too. Plus you assume all films are available on DVD aren't interlaced, very old films often aren't. So my question stands, as the best way to do this.

[IndigoTucker]

If the original transfer is 25fps in the 50i container, either in sync with the fields or out of sync, Handbrake sorts it out easily. Set the output frame rate to 25fps, but set Interlace detection to default, and switch on detelecine. Avoid the EEDI and Decomb settings. Works normally for me.