Podcast: Archiving 480i & Interlaced Video with Dan Mons
Вставка
- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- Here's a podcast-style discussion about archiving 480i and interlaced video issues. Ever wonder how some 480i games could be 60fps...even if 480i runs at 29.97? Or how come camcorder footage isn't actually 30p? And how do you even capture interlaced video!?!?!? Dan's expertise in the field really added a good perspective to these topics and I'd suggest giving this a listen, even if you're already familiar with how this stuff works. Hope you enjoy!
Dan's Website: stickfreaks.com/
RetroRGB Contributions: www.retrorgb.c...
.
Mediainfo: mediaarea.net/...
Mediainfo's QC tools: mediaarea.net/...
Brovicon: www.retrorgb.c...
Displaced Gamer's 240p video: • The History of 240p
.
RetroNAS Podcast: • Interview with RetroNA...
MAME Podcast: • RetroRGB Interview: D...
Please consider supporting this channel via monthly support services, tips, or even just by using our affiliate links to purchase things you were already going to buy anyway, at no extra cost to you: www.retrorgb.c...
T-Shirts: www.retrorgb.c...
All equipment used to shoot this video can be found here: www.amazon.com...
I think when people describe 480i as being 30fps they never lean on the fact that the 2 fields are taken at 2 differents moments in time, so it's still a smooth 60 (incomplete) images per seconds. Dan Mons sort of says that when he described a camera panning, but I think it should be made clearer because a lot of people still think the fields are just odd/even lines of the same picture. That could be the case and it's been discussed in the video (you really get 30 images per second that way, and it's easier to deinterlace) but the combing effect and interlacing artifacts are all because 2 fields belong not only to 2 different "places" (the odd and even lines contain different spatial information, hence the flicker) but also different times.
As someone who’s been doing an AI remaster of the Super Mario Bros Super Show (and AI NES composite->RGB), this kind of discussion is always pretty interesting to me.
Tinkering with my own retro stuff, while listening to Bob and Dan talk tech, sure made for a wonderful rainy weekend afternoon. Bravo.
A lot of great topics here. Big fan of Dan’s RetroNAS too 👍🏻
You probably don't have to worry that much about the audio. I can hear the conversation perfectly. 😊
I can’t stress enough how helpful and insightful videos like this are. Thank you so much! It was a pleasure hearing Bob’s questions and comments combined with Dan’s in depth experience and insight from his archiving work. The fact that Dan is also passionate about retro-gaming and accuracy and happens to be a CPS marvel/sf fan = icing on the cake! :D
So to give some insight into why this video is so helpful for me and how you guys are speaking my language:
1 ) I’m currently at the beginning phase of wanting to convert old VHS, S-VHS, Hi-8, standard 8mm tapes that I never properly converted many years ago. Luckily I have: RT4K, Sony 8mm player, and S-VHS player so I just need to get hardware capture device to be all set (Bob’s prior VHS video covered that thankfully)
2 ) You guys mentioned cinepak and VLC doesn’t play Saturn cinepak movies on Win11 Pro properly for me. VLC is still critical in giving you the encoding details which makes the ffmpeg process easier. E.g. the audio sample rates can be outside of the preset import ranges from audacity. I use ffmpeg commands to strip out both the video and audio so I can convert them to .aac/.avi or .mp4 to use them in audacity and premiere/AE.
I went down this rabbit hole because I’m trying to improve some Saturn games with better quality encoded videos based on guidance from SegaXtreme forums and user:TrekkiesUnite118. I’ll spare you guys from the details on the MacOS VM rabbit hole aka SheepShaver.
3 ) I tried using pre-made ffmpeg GUI for some of the Sega Saturn conversion work but found them fairly limiting for what I needed and went with .bat files instead. It’s awesome that you can set things up to just auto-convert any files with a specific extension within a certain folder or even just strip audio or video from them cleanly. My excuse for not going down the GUI creation rabbit hole is better explained in (4) below..
4 ) For my full time job, I work heavily in Autodesk Maya and I write a LOT of advanced GUI for art/anim tools but what’s pretty sad to admit is I don’t use python. I write in Maya’s own language: MEL and develop from scratch. I only use QTDesigner for quick layout mockups. Writing a good GUI that works cleanly, has a good flow, supports alternate button presses, has detailed annotations, icons, etc can definitely be a huge time sink but the improvements to workflow in the long haul are hard to argue against.
I need to take the plunge and switch to QT + python so I can learn how to write GUI for retro projects like this :D
Thanks VERY MUCH! And I'm so glad talks like this can be a help. Since you already have a RT4K, that's going to be a really awesome way to transfer. If you find any really important footage, you can always see if someone with a Domesday kit can help. But for most stuff, your RT4K is great.
My type of guy, by the way Maya lisence is 5000 dollars per user. Maya script MEL is similar to 3ds Max Maxscript. Similar in a way they are owned by Discreet corporation. You can swap *.bat files with Windows 11 shellscript. You don’t need to know programming. Ask your IT department or general coding forum to write out Windows 11 Powershell shellscript. Look around command | pipe aka “ | “ it gets nuts how you can direct software responses to text files and save them.
On the topic of crappy marketing with things like ProLogic, I remember when talking to Dan on the discord about decoding prologic in software, he was initially confused about what I meant. Because he thought that ProLogic was just a marketing term for Dolby Digital AC3, when it wasn't. And he didn't completely get it until I explained it. And I'm not faulting him for that, a lot of people don't seem to understand the differences between this stuff And I am fully aware that I was able to make my way through the weeds of all the terminology and figure everything out.
On the topic of movies being better on LaserDisc, might go to example is A Goofy Movie. Specifically in terms of the sound presentation. The laser disc had a four-channel Dolby surround encode of the movie in the stereo tracks, and it it's really nice 44.1 kilohertz 16 bit PCM. The DVD and 2019 Disney Movie club Blu-ray releases of the movie unfortunately use what I assume is the same stereo track but heavily compressed into AC3. So what I ended up doing when ripping the movie to my Plex server is I took an audio of the LD and decoded it into a 5.1 audio track, And then glued it into my rip of the Blu-ray just so I had the better audio quality.
He's not old enough to remember ProLogic 😅
Technically, a pro logic 2.0 track can be encoded using AC3 Dolby Digital as a 2.0 track, but as noted by another commenter, it’s encoded in a lossy format. That’s part of what makes it confusing.
@@pokepress I believe the ProLogic matrix encoding gets somewhat damaged by being processed again with a further lossy encoding.
@@pokepress oh yeah, but I find that some releases do you have special icons showing a four(or even three)-channel arrangement with a little blurb mentioning how you have to engage your prologic decoder for it to work. So I think unless you were paying attention to this stuff, it was very easy to get confused.
Used to be if Premiere couldn't open a file directly, one could frameserve to it via the Avisynth plug-in or Avisynth Virtual File System. Both aren't developed anymore, so I don't know if either works with the current versions of Premiere CC.
Back int he day, I bought Fmaily Guy Season 3 dvd box set. Disc 1, the intro song had the wrong field order! Hilariour to see how mesed up it was, on a crt tv. Becuase on a pc monitor when I riped the dvd I cold not tell,but it was so messed up on a crt, as one would expect when u understand interlaced sources. I was surprised the INTRO SONG was actually interleaced source, why would they do this for a cartoon? Weird.
I'd say you save the original 480i not only for preservation purists and because storage is cheap, but because as image processing improves, it's better to do it on the source than one that's already processed
You don't need a QC tool to check your field order, just drop a clip -- something with side to side motion works best -- from your capture device into VirtualDub. Add the deinterlace filter (the mode doesn't matter), and pick either Double frame rate, top field first or bottom field first. The motion will look smooth in one, and will jerk forwards and backwards in the other. This will vary from card to card, so if you have more than one, keep notes. For example, my Yuan SC512 is top field first, but my Digisuite (captures in 720x486 D1) is bottom field first. I think DV is always BFF.
This is 100%, totally spot-on. I actually figured it out with Fudoh’s help a few days after this was recorded, but you nailed the issue: Step frame by frame through the original capture, then after deinterlacing. It doesn’t matter what field order it was recorded in, it only matters that the capture was truly 480i (some capture cards deinterlace ALL signals no matter what) and that the post-processing picked up on the correct order.
I think my issue was some of the original test captures were deinterlaced by the card itself and not true 480i. I got it sorted though!
What is the term you guys are using that sounds like.. bravacon.. obv that's wrong because I've googled a dozen different spellings and i'm coming up blank here.. So i'm just hearing it wrong, little help?
Sorry, I should have added that to the description: www.retrorgb.com/discussing-video-conversion-with-simon-aarons.html
@@RetroRGB Ah ok! Brovicon! The difference a few letters make.. Got it, thanks!
I'm not an expert here but I think there's some inaccuracies. One, you can't see the interlacing on a CRT, partly because of the phosphorus of the tube and the resolution of the tube itself. The lines are blended together. Now if you are talking about the digitization and a 60+ hz computer monitor it is much more apparent. I also feel that saving at 480i digital signal loses some of the information of the original analog signal. I guess that's what the doomsday project is for? I want to see someone record a real CRT with a 4K camera with those old hoods that they used to use to take photos of CRTs. I think that would be a really great way to capture a more accurate representation of what the video looked like back in the day. Phosphorus does a great job at hiding interlacing.
You can see interlacing on CRT, try with interlaced menus in DVDs or home computer video signal.
@@jimbotron70 I think that is because the 720p signal being unevenly being scaled. You never see it with a old video camera or something like the 3DO.
@@tigheklory I speak from experience with DVD players and Amiga. When they outputted interlaced video the flickering was clearly visible on CRT.
Oh and I would add the effect was visible also with Playstation 1.
@@jimbotron70 are you hooked up to a TV or a monitor?
@@tigheklory I was hooked to a CRT TV
Huh?
What's there not to understand? This is a podcast with people talking about a subject you may or may not care about. If you're trolling, this is the weakest attempt I've ever seen.
@RetroRGB no troll, it's a lot to take in. I'll get it through my thick 💀 eventually. Keep up the good work bud!
Hahahahahahahaha, MY BAD!!!!! I got like 10 troll comments in a row and assumed this must be another. 100% my mistake.
...but you're also correct, this stuff is CONFUSING. I think this podcast laid the groundwork for an upcoming video about "how interlaced video works". I still enjoyed this podcast, but I think it NEEDS visual examples. I'm on it!
All generation six consoles where 480i, 480i is standard television signal. Who make standards know what they do. It is compromise on quality and reasonable business. More we dig, the clearer topic gets. It is good midnight listening zzz, approved!
@@seasonsalt3228The best way to understand it. Connect your PC to a TV. Go to display settings then go to graphics settings. You should see a resolution of 1080i 59.94. Your TV will display 1080i on your modern TV. Your Internet will be faster and you'll notice when watching UA-cam videos. 59.94i will give a 60fps motion effect. The best use of interlaced resolution is the gaming part. Interlaced resolutions kill most of online lag. Some monitors can't do interlaced but it's 100 percent guaranteed it will work on any TV no matter how new it is.