deinterlaced output is not deinterlaced

Euisung Lee wrote:
One of the workaround is to export as 1080 50i and deinterlace / resize with JES deinterlacer. This gives you the best result anyway, because iMovie is like to simply drop one field to export clean 720p even if Apple 'fixes' the issue.

I just did what you suggested, exported from iMovie as:

AIC
Frame Rate=Current
Interlaced=ticked
Top field first

Then inside JES I deinterlaced using top field first and resized to H.264 720/24p

Unfortunately this did not work, the interlace lines went from like it is in the image on the left, to crazy wavy edges as shown in the image on the right.



Does anyone out there know what it is I'm doing wrong? Just so a novice can get around this issue until Apple fix it.

Many thanks,

Dave

When you exported out of iMovie, what was the 'size' setting?

Make sure to choose 1920x1080 HD (what's been referred as 'upper' setting) and not HD 1920x1080 16x9 (lower setting). Lower setting has a bug now, and your example of the left seems to show the artifact of that bug. Try the upper setting and JES deinterlacer, which I'm sure will work for you. (fingers crossed)

Euisung Lee wrote:
Make sure to choose 1920x1080 HD and not HD 1920x1080

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

That's where I was going wrong, just did again using '1920x1080 HD' and all is fine 🙂

Steve,

I have been doing a lot of experimenting with this, but have not finishing trying to figure it all out because I have so many variables and because I don't really speak this language (so I am trying to learn as I go). I THINK I am less confused than when I started, but that remains to be seen!

I have been importing 60i and 30p footage from my Canon HG21, into both iMovie 08 and 09 (on different Macs), and at both 960x540 and 1920x1080. Then I am doing a variety of exports, into QT at 1920x1080 HD and 1280x720 HD and "export more" at large. I reviewed what was good and bad, marked them as such in folders, and then copied all to hard disk and watched on WD TV.

All I know so far is that both 60i imports into iMovie 09, not surprisingly I guess, were bad... exported at both 1080 and 720. Everything from iMovie 08 was fine EXCEPT one file that was 60i footage imported at 1920x1080 and then exported 720. It showed jaggies, so am probably doing something wrong maybe unrelated to the problems with imovie 09.

Anyway.... back to your original points. The answer to your first question is "yes," the AIC files have combing on the computer but not when I make a BD. And I am exporting H.264 for the WD TV (it would not read AIC files)... as you can see from above, I am using a variety of files, both 1080i60 and 1080p30.

I am not exactly sure what the rest of your comments mean.. again this is not my language. But... WD TV does seem to accept anything straight from the camera (files copied from the card to the hard drive connected to the WD TV).... at least I know I have given it straight 1080i60 footage, not sure if I fed it any p30.

I

Hi twincities,

Are you in MPLS?

"It showed jaggies,"

Do you mean rough edges (aliasing) on diagonals or "combing" on the edges of rapidly moving objects?

1) When you imported 1920x1080i as 1920x1080 -- when you exported to H.264 using 09-- did you use the UPPER 1080i60 option? How did it look on WD? (It should look like the camera original.)

2) Try exporting in 09 to AIC and using the UPPER 1080i60 option. Now use JES to deinterlace to 1920x1080p30. How does it look on WD?

Steve,

Yes, I am in suburban Mpls.

Yes, rough edges... aliasing.

I am out the door now but will post stills tonight to show you, and answer your other questions. Thanks.

Any 60i imported at 1920x1080 into 09 does not seem to export to H.264 without aliasing, whether upper 1080 or 720. If I import as "large," there doesn't seem to be any problem.

I did the same import/exports with 08 and got slightly different results. In 08, the 1920x1080 import/1920x1080 export of my 60i footage was bad, but the export to 720 was fine. But in 08 I also then got a bad file with the "large" import/1920x1080 export.

So go figure. YMMV. And I am not convinced I would not get slightly different results doing it again.

I a viewing both in QT on my Mac and also transferring files to WD TV, same issues on both. Only time the problem goes away is if I burn the files to DVD using the BD option in Toast 10.

I trued exporting in AIC and using JES but nothing changed. But I think I need more instructions as to the JES settings, there are a lot of options.

Frankly, I am not seeing a whole lot of quality difference between the 60i and 30p stuff, and since 30p is not giving me any problems, I see no reason not to stick to that until this whole mess blows over.

twincities1 wrote:
Frankly, I am not seeing a whole lot of quality difference between the 60i and 30p stuff, and since 30p is not giving me any problems, I see no reason not to stick to that until this whole mess blows over.

iMovie or no iMovie, 60i is always a major headache in post production. Sticking to progressive video is always a good idea! (except for sports broadcast, I guess 😉 )

"I imported a ton of DV format video in iMovie 08 ..."

I've found something for DV shooters.

Since we now know we can import and export 1080i60 -- how could we do the same with 480i60?

You use MPEGstreamclip to batch convert DV files to 480i60 AIC. Yes -- Interlace not Progressive.

In the past the rule (my eBook) said to convert to progressive to avoid losing half the vertical resolution. The problem was that doing so caused a reduction by 50% of the video's temporal-resolution -- when 60i was converted to 30p. Motion becomes less smooth.

iMovie 09 will import 480i60 AIC and edit it as 720x480. You can then export it as AIC 720x480 for 4:3 and 854x480 (16:9). These files are perfect for iDVD.

So editing DV without a quality loss seems possible with iM09.

1) Capture DV tape.

2) Point MPEGstreamclip at each DV folder within iEvent(s).

3) Set LOWER field.

4) You'll have to Overwrite and Rename when converting.

5) Open iM09 -- "Move" to same Event.

6) New thumbnails will be made.

7) Now each clip will have a duplicate clip to the right. Delete the left of each pair.

Message was edited by: Steve Mullen

Just to confirm Steve, that DV workflow will overwrite time and date stamps of the clips I assume? This might be important to some people reading.

Luke

The original files are not overwritten.

But, the dates lost? Don't know -- depends on HOW the tags are stored. I've never worried about dates because the DV tapes are over 10 years old. Place seems more important.

It's a good question. What have you found?

I have reservation against converting DV to AIC. You may dodge the iMovie - DV singlefield damage, but transcoding DV to any other format already compromises picture quality. And you'll have DV converted twice instead of once. (DV->AIC->output format)

AIC has a minimal chroma subsampling of 4:2:0, which HDV, AVCHD, and DV PAL also have, but DV NTSC has 4:1:1. Besides inherent quality loss for re-compression to another codec, this chroma sampling difference makes AIC a bad intermediate codec for DV NTSC, because it'll end up with lower chroma resolution compared to original. You'll notice any strong red color in the scene - which shows poor aliasing in DV to begin with - deteriorates more.
So, with current policy iMovie has for DV, there is no real 'lossless' passage for DV in iMovie09 except exporting XML out to Final Cut.

Steve, your tip seems to at least provide a method to preserve temporal resolution of 60i (or 50i), so perhaps it's better than iMovie's native way of losing both temporal and spatial resolution. But it is not quite a lossless process. Perhaps using a codec with better chroma sampling (like free Avid DNxHD or Quicktime's legacy M-JPEG B) may be better for minimizing the spatial quality loss.

As soon it sees DV it drops a field. Maybe it will leave M-JPEG A alone. I use M-JPEG A as an export to Windows software. I'll try it.

OK -- here's the deal.

1) If you convert DV to 720x480 M-JPEG A and play using QT -- you see combing. Great!

2) Now, import into iM09 -- the clip will show combing when skimmed in an Event. Good! (Except that sometimes we don't see combing. iM09 seems to sometimes display combing from Weave de-interlacing and sometimes not -- using Field-blend de-interlacing.)

3) Tossing 720x480 M-JPEG A clip into a Project and exporting and then playing in QT Player -- no combing. Looks like M-JPEG A doesn't work at 720x480 as does 720x480 AIC.

4) BUT -- using a trick I've learned -- I put a 2 second 720x480 AIC clip as the first clip in the Project. (I dim it to black.) Now I can add M-JPEG A clips as I want. Exporting, as 720x480 DV or 720x480 ProRes 422 or 720x480 M-JPEG A -- I get combing showing that interlacing is still present. (You may be able to put the AIC clip at the end.)

If someone will please confirm, we have a way to edit DV!

PS: The conversion to M-JPEG A is very fast.

Hi Steve,
Where is your workflow published please?

I'll use it for selecting a HD Videocamera as well as for my existing DV materials if there is something in your advise for this apparently primitive medium.

I do play my materials on TViX mediaplayers by the way. I'm rather fond of the .mkv container, being able to input almost any videoformat into it. Plus i can get and play all my top movies in HD format using the same thing.

With kind regards,

Stangg