How to produce a progressively encoded PAL DVD?

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Level 1

99 points

How to produce a progressively encoded PAL DVD?

I've been tearing my hair out trying to get a conclusive answer to this. I'm trying to learn how to produce a PAL DVD that is encoded "progressively" and is not interlaced.

First I posted about it here in the Compressor forum, and then over at Ken Stone's forum.

To summarise , here's what I've been doing:

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1. Export from FCP using Compressor
2. Apply the DVD preset
3. In the Inspector window, click the Frame Controls tab
4. Set the Resize Filter to Better or Best
5. Set Output fields to Progressive
6. Set Deinterlace to Better or Best
7. Uncheck Adaptive Details
8. Hit Submit and give your job a name
9. Import .m2v and .ac3 to DVD Studio Pro
10. Author and burn DVD
---

However, this is not producing a proper progressive encode - inspecting the .m2v asset (using VidoSpec) tells me that it is "lower field first."

Can anybody please advise? This is driving me crazy, and each time we issue a DVD reviewers pick up on the fact that it is not "flagged for progressive". Is this something that needs setting up as an option in DVDSP?

G5, dual 2.7, 1.5 GB DDR SDRAM, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on May 9, 2009 9:07 AM

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Answer 1

Marc Morris Author

Level 1

99 points

May 12, 2009 4:18 AM in response to Marc Morris

I can therefore assume that nobody has the answer to this?

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Answer 2

May 12, 2009 5:11 AM in response to Marc Morris

I suspect this may be that not many folks actually do PAL progressive discs AFAIK... I looked in to this a while back and concluded that there was little advantage in creating PAL progressive...

If I understand correctly the main advantage is when encoding NTSC as you encode at 24fps (actually 23.98 I believe) which means your encode takes up less space. The player then - if it needs to - creates the 3:2 pulldown pattern to make the NTSC 29.97...

It's a real can of worms and I don't profess to understand it fully

Steve

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Answer 3

Marc Morris Author

Level 1

99 points

May 26, 2009 1:35 AM in response to Steve Kirkham

Out of sheer curiosity I contacted Sonic and asked the following question regarding their Scenarist authoring app:

Regarding your question about Progressively Encoded PAL - The Sonic Encoder has an option to encode either by 'frame' or 'field'. To produce a progressive encode simply set the encoder to encode 'field'.

So there you have it folks!

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Answer 4

May 26, 2009 3:46 AM in response to Marc Morris

the daft thing is this... ins't PAL progressive anyway? I'm in the UK and I've always thought that we use 'progressive' tv's over here. If you want to create a PAL dvd it should be 'progressive' by default... or am I missing something here?

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Answer 5

May 26, 2009 6:05 AM in response to Marc Morris

Marc Morris wrote:
To summarise , here's what I've been doing:

---
1. Export from FCP using Compressor
2. Apply the DVD preset
3. In the Inspector window, click the Frame Controls tab
4. Set the Resize Filter to Better or Best
5. Set Output fields to Progressive
6. Set Deinterlace to Better or Best
7. Uncheck Adaptive Details
8. Hit Submit and give your job a name
9. Import .m2v and .ac3 to DVD Studio Pro
10. Author and burn DVD

You forgot to change +Field Dominance+ setting in +Encoder - Video Format+ tab to Progressive. Setting output fields to progressive in Frame Controls tab will make visual difference, but won't make resulting MPEG stream have proper progressive flag.

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Answer 6

Aug 15, 2009 2:51 AM in response to Witold Oleksiak

I need to read up about this topic also. I release Retail DVDs and have always shot in interlaced mode and released that way up until now

Now I am doing my first proper feature. I am advised to shoot progressive scan.

I am assuming from this thread that to produce commercial DVD that will play on all TVs and with all DVD players I will need to encode the final film to DVDStudio pro in Interlaced mode. (in other words in order to be played on all TVs the DVD needs to be interlaced not progressive scan. But to achieve a "Film Look" I need to shoot progressive. (I have not yet considered whether 24 fps or 25)

The film is aimed at a wide film fest, probably using a digital print, but I doubt we will get as far as transferring from High Def video to film (because of the expense) But I imaging the major market for the film internationally will be on DVD.

I am hoping to use a DOP, so hopefully will get more technical help there.

Best
Ian
Corolo Film & Video

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Answer 7

Aug 16, 2009 1:59 PM in response to Ian Powell

I recently researched this, where? in the DVDSP manual.
This is a fact. The Pal SD DVD specification IS Interlaced and the Pal SD 16:9 DVD specification is Interlaced and Anamorphic. That's everything you need to know. DVDSP requires Interlaced footage for both 4:3 and 16:9 ARs.
So if you shoot progressive and edit and encode it to m2v as progressive, DVDSP WILL import it into a Pal DVD project but it will ONLY have interlaced tracks and you will be dumping your progressive footage on an interlaced track therefore inviting the playback problems associated with RE-interlacing progressive footage.
Peter

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Answer 8

Marc Morris Author

Level 1

99 points

Sep 3, 2009 3:45 PM in response to peter stephen

Is what Paul said above a fact, about the footage being re-interlaced?

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