deinterlaced output is not deinterlaced

I haven't tried using the share video export, mainly because I can't export at true HD. I will try this when I get home from work and report back. I am also going to try a different mac and version of QT.

No, no need to choose deinterlace since the source is already progressive (960x540p). IF you happen to have any DV content in your movie as well, it's best to go ahead and check deinterlace. I noticed that DV material is deinterlacing properly.

Hope this helps everyone.

"But to put it simply, take a sample clip of 1080i and export it at 720p in im08, and im09, the im08 export will give me a 9/10 for quality, the im09 export gets a 1/10, the results are chalk and cheese, your explanations whilst understood are not the reason for this difference."

Given 09 is what we've got -- unless you stay with 08 -- I'm explaining how iMovie 08/09 works internally. As I said, when ALL lines are output from interlace video there must be combing no matter the export size.

There's two ways to use all 1080-lines -- for maximum resolution -- and get rid of combing for 720p output. (1) Use the QT de-interlace function during export -- which now seems to not be working. (In other words, iM is working as it always has for HD -- it's the QT export function that seems broken.)

Or (2), export at 1920x1080 and de-interlace with JES. Since JES de-interlaces better (adaptive) than does QT during export -- you'll get better quality by using JES. (I would do the encode to h.264 in JES and export from iM using AIC. Actually, I would use Episode because it not only has a great deinterlacer it also has a far better -- than Apple -- h.264 encoder!)

Now you can keep using iM09 while you wait for Apple to fix this. And, since folks say this is happening with QT 7.5.5 the question is -- does this happen with 7.6 as well?

PS: Someone asked if iM can override QT during exports. YES. Several examples: you cannot set the export frame rate to be different than that used by iM; one (UPPER) 1920x1080 option allows interlaced output while one does not (LOWER). Both should use interlace. The LOWER should only engage Clean Aperture. Perhaps they wrote bad code: IF you choose 540 output THEN progressive ELSE interlace. It should be: IF you choose 540 OR 720 output THEN progressive ELSE interlace.

No doubt they already have a list of many bugs that will be fixed in a .1 release.

There's two ways to use all 1080-lines -- for maximum resolution -- and get rid of combing for 720p output. (1) Use the QT de-interlace function during export -- which now seems to not be working. (In other words, iM is working as it always has for HD -- it's the QT export function that seems broken.)

I probably agree with you in terms of QT being the culprit.

Or (2), export at 1920x1080 and de-interlace with JES.................

No, exporting at 1920 x 1080 is no longer an option that works either, exporting at 1080i AIC now causes combing even though you still have 1080 interlaced lines in your export. I'm not talking about the combing that you always see when you view interlaced video on a computer monitor, this is different, it is a second set of combing so to speak.

If I view my source video in QT (or indeed if I view a 1080i AIC export from im08) and check single field or de-interlace, while the image is softened, the combing goes away. If I do the same with an export from im09 at 1080i AIC, the combing is still there (not the combing from viewing an interlaced image on a monitor but another, albeit not as obvious combing)

My issue is not that I can't export to 720p (I have no need to) but that I cant export to 1080i anymore without this problem. The issue is clearly more pronounced when exporting 720p but it occurs when exporting 1080i as well.

Now you can keep using iM09 while you wait for Apple to fix this. And, since folks say this is happening with QT 7.5.5 the question is -- does this happen with 7.6 as well?

I have 7.6 and whilst I can't be certain, I don't believe I had this problem with 7.6 before installing im09. However someone over in the tv forum has taken a source clip provided by me (1080i AIC) and obtained the same issue with 7.5.5 and im08 installed, but when they put the source through im08 had no problem at all. No that's really quite weird.

"No, exporting at 1920 x 1080 is no longer an option that works either, exporting at 1080i AIC now causes combing even though you still have 1080 interlaced lines in your export. I'm not talking about the combing that you always see when you view interlaced video on a computer monitor, this is different, it is a second set of combing so to speak."

That has been my fear -- that Apple would break the way to get interlace out. OR, perhaps Apple did change the inside of 09. Here's a thought.

Let's assume Apple has done something inside 09 that screws-up video with something that "looks like" combing.

When you export interlace you get THIS combing.

When you export as 720p -- even though it IS de-interlacing, you still get THIS combing.

Could that be what you are seeing in both cases?

Here's my thought. One can de-interlace 2 ways: One takes each frame and does something (bob or weave) to the frame. This cuts temporal resolution in half: 60i to 30p.

The other way is what's done inside an HDTV. Something (bob or weave) is done to successive pairs of fields. Half the new progressive frames come from the same video frame and half come from DIFFERENT video frames. Thus, 60i becomes 60p. No temporal resolution is lost.

If de-interlacing is done by weave (which is what I think iM uses) -- then half the new frames have lines that came from the same video frame. But, half have lines from the previous video frame and half from the current video frame. MONGRL FRAMES.

QT interlace output does NOT understand this kind of de-interlaced video. It assumes every frame should become a video frame again. When this is done with a MONGRL frame -- the new video frame has one field which is wrong.

Progressive output, will also look bad -- I think. Unless, perhaps it only uses one field in each frame.

I need to think hard on this. It may be even worse. Is this a bug?

I find it interesting that it screws-up 1080i video that one would use for BD (which Apple wants to fail) and 720p exports to internet sites other than MobileMe (which Apple wants to fail). iM09 seems to work correctly only with ATV, iPhone, IPod, and MobileMe.

If this is also screwing up SD exports -- as some say -- then it also screws-up DVD burning. If folks can't burn DVDs -- it opens the way for future MacBooks to have no optical drives. Software and media are downloaded. Move iWork files via Apple's new function in MobileMe.

Bottom-line -- perhaps you can input anything you want, but the maximum output is 540p -- which Apple claims is just as good as any other type of HD. Apple may have defined its own HD standard. One that is perfect for the internet streaming world.

PS1: Perhaps the first sign of this was the 960x540 capture mode in iM08.

PS2: I wonder if 720p30 will still pass through. (It's what I'm shooting now.)


PS3: Or, maybe I'm crazy.

After dinner thoughts:

Why would Apple change how iM09 worked in the manner I described.

If you look at the future -- interlace is going away. We are going toward 1080p. Already some on-demand services do 1080p24. BD is 1080p24. However, sports and concerts must be 60p.

ATV now offers 540p24, 540p25, and 540p30. Fine for movies. Can't be used for sports and concerts! And, as our camcorders move to 1080p60 -- our own video will look horrible at 540p30 because it will strobe.

Rightly or wrongly -- Apple has claimed we don't need more than 960x540. Apple never changes its mind since that would look like it had made an error. So, it won't make Apple TV use more than 960x540. It, however, has said nothing about frame-rate -- so it is free to increase it to 540p50/540p60.

Now, iTunes can stream sports and concerts. Sports from ABC and ESPN -- both owned by Disney on who's board sits SJ. And, your 2010 camcorder -- and iPhone -- that will record 1920x1080p60 will match perfectly to 960x540p60.

So by enabling iM09 to internally work at 60p -- it is ready for the future. (I wonder if one can export 540p60 now?)

ALSO SEE: horizontal lines in quicktime export FOR MORE ABOUT HOW THE LINES LOOK.

Why am I wrong?

1) Because working at 60p requires twice as much GPU power. HOWEVER, SEE POSTS ON JERKY PLAYBACK IN iM09 THAT WASN"T THERE IN 08!

2) During export, QT would seem to have to It skip Mongrl Frames to get 60i and 30p. So, I can't see how during export the Mongrl frames would be used.

Hopefully -- even though I'm wrong it will stimulate someone to see how folks are seeing what they see. In fact, even if one assumes there is a bug. A bug that will be fixed. HOW is the bug creating the bad video?

Message was edited by: Steve Mullen

How do you keep the 1080i content intact on import? If you are importing at 960x540, how is it going to keep 1920x1080? Are you talking about keeping an archive and importing from the archive?

Thanks...this is very helpful. I just got a new Canon HG21 and I'd like to decide whether to buy FCE. I certainly want to use a consistent workflow and not jeopardize any future decisions.

If I'm correct -- you don't. 😟

You can input whatever HD you like. But, unless your are inputing 720p30 -- and even this may be screwed-up -- you can't get anything but 960x540 (or smaller) output from iM09.

And, if correct -- SD is totally screwed. Although, you can externally convert SD to 960x540 and that should work fine.

I sure hope I'm wrong. But, so far no one is reporting acceptable quality from anything other than 540p. I hope my Apple store will let me try with 720p30.

Steve Mullen wrote:
In 08, they did it by dropping a field from DV which lowered V rez. but prevented combing on motion. In 09, they kept static V rez. high, but now you get combing.

Everyone needs to look more closely. The so-called interlace combing in all the examples I have seen to date clearly shows at least two or three scan lines forming the 'combs', not individual scan lines. Something far more nefarious is going on. This isn't just a question of sending out interlaced material when it should be progressive; the output is neither interlaced nor progressive. It's just plain broken.

A screamingly obvious whopper of a bug to let through the door - and I was hoping 2009 might see an improvement in Apple Q.C.; ah well...

stevebuk wrote:
Has anyone found a workaround? All my exports at 1280 x 720 are now ruined since "upgrading". Okay, I'v got some nice new features but my HD export is a mass of interlaced lines 😟

At a guess (don't have '09 and given reports here to date, not going to buy it yet!) - export using QuickTime as follows:

• Video: compression type Apple Intermediate Codec, frame rate Current, compressor preset "Other", Interlaced and "top field first" ticked

• Size: "1920 x 1080 HD" and not "HD 1920 x 1080 16:9" is vital for iMovie '08 since it holds video at true 1080i, but since reports indicate that iMovie '09 scales this a bit, you may need to exactly swap the advice on choosing size

• Audio: As you like.

Output should be a huge 1080i AIC .mov file. You'll see combing in Quick Time player, but only of a single scan line, not the bizarre multiple combined line broken scaler combing indicated in example screenshots and video clips posted by other form users. Then use JES Deinterlacer or MPEG Streamclip (former is probably a bit easier to use due to its custom "Deinterlace" project settings) to get your 720p file.

Any use?

Steve Mullen wrote:
Rightly or wrongly -- Apple has claimed we don't need more than 960x540.

I reckon that Apple TV is limited by CPU power and, more importantly, home users are limited by bandwidth. This is most likely the reason for choosing the half-way house of 960 x 540. There are numerous 720p and 1080i/p options available to me in QuickTime.

Now, iTunes can stream sports and concerts. Sports from ABC and ESPN -- both owned by Disney on who's board sits SJ. And, your 2010 camcorder -- and iPhone -- that will record 1920x1080p60

I had a nightmarish time trying to persuade QuickTime to produce 720p60 video. Even feeding QuickTime a 720p60 AIC source and telling it explicitly to output 60 frames/sec caused all sorts of problems, including half speed playback or dropped frames. It really, really seems to want to do 720p30. Only way I found to do it was via MPEG Streamclip writing H.264 streams into .mp4 files; couldn't get a non-AIC .mov to do it no matter what I tried, even though in theory .mov is just a container, same as .mp4.

TV producers in the UK seem to love "filmic effect", the process of destroying high quality source video and transmitting something roughly equal to 288p25, complete with visible vertical judder caused by repeat fields in some cases. The quality is rock-bottom even on major channels and leading programmes like Channel 4's Grand Designs. Unfortunately I don't see any rush to p50/p60 soon.

1) Because working at 60p requires twice as much GPU power.

Perhaps not really the blocker as far as I can see, given the proliferation of increasingly high performance embedded AVCHD encoder and decoder chipsets. The main problem is onboard storage space for embedded devices like camcorders and bandwidth constraints of all currently available transmission media. You're quite right that playing back 1080p60 will be too much for a fair few computer systems, but just getting hold of that video in the first place could be a greater challenge.

540p60 would be nice to have though!

Hopefully -- even though I'm wrong it will stimulate someone to see how folks are seeing what they see. In fact, even if one assumes there is a bug. A bug that will be fixed. HOW is the bug creating the bad video?

I just created a striped image at 1920x1080. It had alternating lines of black and white pixels. I then scaled it down to 1280x720 with nearest-neighbour scaling (i.e., I used a really, really crap scaling algorithm). The result contained two-pixel high lines of black and white, instead of 1. Looked exactly like the 720p60 examples posted here.

Best guess: iMovie '09 gets an interlaced 1080i60 frame internally but treats it as progressive (as you've said many a time). When iMovie '09 is asked to produce a 720p60 file, it uses a nearest-neighbour scaling algorithm on the full frame, not realising that it consists of interlaced fields. The result would have been broken either way, but might have been masked by better scaling algorithms. That's why 540p30 output works - it's accidental - 1080i60 nearest-neighbour scaling to half the height just happens to discard every other line.

Conclusion: iMovie developers sadly appear to be asleep at the wheel and the internal engine quality looks highly suspect regardless of interlaced/progressive processing bugs.

Sorry, forgot the links. JES Deinterlacer:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html

MPEG Streamclip:

http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html

From what I've read so far, I think the following is equally relevant - possibly even more so - to iMovie '09 than it was to '08 (it's something I wrote a few days ago):

http://pond.org.uk/misc/imovieandhd/workflow.html

So I'm not sure if this will help anyone but here's what I've found....

IM08 was terrible and even exporting video from my Canon HV30 from IM06HD I got this interlacing problem. That did stop on both IM06 and IM09 when I started recording in 1080 30p and exported through the "Share" "Export Quicktime" and choose the H.264 option 1080 or 720. I exported on the share to itunes using 540 and that looks great on my aTV. Using share to IDVD produced less quality results than exporting to quicktime and dragging the movie file into iDVD project. Although the first try produced a Muxing conversion error (I have no idea what that means). A second try was successful.

A finished video I uploaded to Vimeo using my Canon HV30 1080, 30P footage through export to Quicktime can be seen here:
http://vimeo.com/3029476

I am very excited about IM09 and hope to settle on a workflow soon. I am getting close though.

These are user to user forums.