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How to deinterlace video

I am having a hard time finding out how to deinterlace video as online tips seem to refer to older versions of FCPX and Compressor. So now, in 2018, can anyone tell me how best to deinterlace? Either in FCPX or Compressor or any other software.

iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6), 3.4 GHz, Fusion drive

Posted on Aug 1, 2018 6:34 PM

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Aug 2, 2018 3:00 PM in response to Cartoonguy

If your source video is DVD/MPEG-2, DV, DVCPro or any codec that starts with DV - set the Field Dominance Override to Lower First. Everything else, set the Field Dominance Override to Upper First. Select your clip in the Event browser and you can find the Field Dominance in the Info Inspector > Settings. If this setting is set to Progressive, then FCPX will not conform interlaced video in a progressive project... because it thinks the clip is already progressive. If the setting is set to "Off", then FCPX will try to infer by the clip's codec what the status is — it doesn't always make the correct guess.


Since you're dealing with a cartoon, you may also have a frame rate issue. Cartoons are generally created with around 15fps (some as slow as 10!) and if your cartoon video has been "normalized" (or conformed) to 30 fps (by which I also mean 29.97i) then that interlacing might be burned into at least every other frame (there may be no "fixing" it without the original.)


Your video is no longer available on Dropbox and I missed being able to download it and inspect it, so, what are the specs of the original video? (Codec/Format info - not "container" info like mov, mp4, etc.)


User uploaded file

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Aug 2, 2018 5:14 PM in response to Cartoonguy

This is what I got:

User uploaded file

which is pretty good... (this still is taken from the rendered output movie from FCPX.)


When I open your original in Quicktime, I get this:

User uploaded file

Quicktime is reporting this clip is 29.97fps.


FCPX is reporting that this clip is 59.94p:

User uploaded file


FCPX also set the Field Dominance Override to Progressive.


I "manually" created a project of 720x480 DV 29.97p (Use Custom Settings)


With the clip selected in the Event Browser, I set the Field Dominance Override to Upper First. Since this is a 60p clip, I also checked the Deinterlace option (one of the very few instances where it is required - it effectively halves the frame rate of the clip). [With the Deinterlace option off, there are more jpeg "jaggies" left in the cartoon lines.]


User uploaded file


HTH

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Aug 2, 2018 7:50 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

I have no experience with Compressor 4.x. , but it shouldn't be necessary to use Compressor to conform any video to another frame rate — Cinema Tools is supposed to be built into FCPX. The problem is: FCPX has to know *how* to conform the video and it cannot do a good job if it cannot tell what the format of the video is. A lot of consumer grade camcorders use funky custom adaptations of (likely open source) codecs that do a terrible job of reporting the specifics of the generated video.


That report of 59.94 is very much like PsF. It's not real. The clip reports (lies) 29.97 to a player. I have no doubt the original is 60 fps, but it is definitely *not* progressive. FCPX imported the (OP's) video and automatically set the Field Dominance to Progressive (it's not nice to lie to FCPX) typical of the "lie" PsF reports to disguise its 60i original as a lower progressive frame rate (like 24p, or 30p). Checking the Deinterlace option compacts 2 frames to 1 and doubles the even or odd scanlines on the frame used (I not sure which FCPX uses — I'm fairly sure the algorithm used is "doubling"). Even if your project is 59.94, the "effective" frame rate is already reduced by half. If the original was intended as 29.97 (p) then checking the deinterlace option should be unnecessary in conforming to a 29.97p project, and in this case it is optional. I just thought the "ink" outlines looked less jagged with the Deinterlace option turned on (and there are enough frames per second to work with).

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Aug 2, 2018 8:03 PM in response to Cartoonguy

I have no idea why your copy of FCPX is reporting 29.97p!


I did not "Import" the video file in the conventional manner -- by selecting the file using the Import dialog — I simply dragged and dropped it into the Event Browser from the Finder (because I'm very lazy 😉).


I just tested importing via Import and got 29.97i!! However, the clip imported with the correct Field Dominance and dropping the clip into the "Custom" 29.97p project resulted in no interlacing detectable.


... go figure...

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Aug 2, 2018 11:52 PM in response to fox_m

When FCP shows the frame rate as 29.97p it would not allow checking o Deinterlace. If I checked it, it simply unchecked it.


For me FCP conformed 29.97 to 59.94 by frame doubling.


The file was I’m guessing either DV NTSC or taken from a DVD because of the 720x480 frame size., the only formats that use that rectangular pixel format. Whatever it was it’s now MPEG-4 AVC in a QuickTime wrapper. Both Media Info and Invisir also see the scan type as progressive. I wonder if your file is different from mine.

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Aug 3, 2018 12:22 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

The OP had to reupload the video to dropbox after I requested it (he had taken down the original you had downloaded earlier.) I don't know if he used a different version, but it was named the same (from what I could tell). I was surprised to see that FCPX treated the video I downloaded differently when I used the Import dialog as opposed to just dragging it in from the Finder (which I have become accustomed to doing lately). I didn't think there would be a difference, but apparently there is! Dragging from the Finder and FCPX showed 59.94p... using Import and the inspector showed 29.97i. The OP's info inspector display showed 29.97p... so I really have no idea what's going on here.

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Aug 3, 2018 9:48 AM in response to fox_m

Well, this is all a bit odd, but I do appreciate all the efforts both of you have made to help. Thank you. I have imported the file into Jes deinterlacer and that did a decent job, although there still is ghosting. I then brought it into FCPX to sharpen a bit, which also improved it. I would have to go back to the original video master to try to get a better job, I guess, which I can't do, but this helped.

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Aug 3, 2018 9:53 AM in response to Cartoonguy

FCPX is not the app to handle something like that.

Motion isn't that helpful here as well.

Additionally the Apple DV Codec is poor (always had been) and makes the fields a bit blurry.


You can do it with AfterEffects - but even there it's a bit tricky.

Import the clip twice (as 30 fps), for one interpret footage as lower field first for the other one upper field first. Set the interpolation to something like "field changes" - I can't remember and don't have access at the moment.

Put them both in a comp and slow down to 50% duplicating the frames.

Switch off the version with upper field (that's the one which contains all even frames in motion)

Render the comp as image sequence to a folder named yourFile-even_frames.

Go back and switch on the upper field version and off the lower field one.

Render the comp again as image sequence to a folder named yourFile-odd_frames.

In the yourFile-even_frames folder remove all images with odd frame numbers - can be done by a simple script.

Copy the left images to the folder yourFile-odd_frames replacing the files with same names.


Now the real tricky part if you want to have nice ghosting (which can be done in Motion as well I think):

Import the image sequence as 60 fps and create a comp for that with 4 times the duration.

Now slow down the image sequence to 25% to match the duration but use optical flow or Twixtor.

Render out again - you can put that comp into another comp as well.

Now speed up the resulting movie 400% to get the original length at 60 fps using motion blur/optical flow.

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How to deinterlace video

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