Motion artifacts / interlacing HF100 AVCHD

WilliamI

Newbie Joined: Oct 22, 2008 01:05 Messages: 23 Offline

Solved by

Oct 22, 2008 02:54

First let me say Thank You to anyone who responds. I know it's on your own time and out of the love for video, the product and helping others...

I've been working with PowerDirector 7 (v 7.00.2206) for three months now and although I love the software and ease of use, I continually struggle with the quality of the final output. Most people don't see anything wrong until I point it out to them, but I see it right away. My source is from a Canon HF100 HD camera. My single biggest complaint is the existence of motion interlacing (some call it motion artifacting or motion blur). I've seen all sorts of things blamed for this, but I can't get past it being something with PD.

Below I've posted two HD clips. In both clips watch the virtical pole of the easy-up (you can also see it in the kids running around). The original always has rock solid objects moving around (even if they are jumping around due to me moving the camera too quickly :-/ ) while the bad clip show obvious horizontal interlacing. I know the clip bounces around a lot. I used this just to highlight the difference between the original and bad clip. It occurs just as bad in clips with motion and the camera fixed on a tripod. Fast motion just accentuates the problem.

The No_Interlacing_sm clip is the original .MTS file imported into PD and trimmed down to minimize the clip size. I was very careful to ensure that SVRT was used so the clip looks just like the original.

The Bad_Interlacing_sm clip is a trimmed portion of a 30 minute project that had many multi-trimmed clips from the same source as above. Oddly, PD said it could use SVRT for some of the trimmed portions and not others (even from within the same source clip). After rending the entire project using a multitude of 1920x1080 profile settings, it became obviuos that the portions of the movie that were rendered using SVRT looked as crisp and clean as the original. But all of a sudding (due to trimming it appears) the movie would show all sorts of motion interlacing and then suddenly go away as SVRT started up again.

Another project I worked on using the same camera, but rending to DVD HQ showed the same issue (although not as obviuos due to the lower quality output).

I've tried modifying the TV Format setting to all three options. Choosing the wrong option for TV Format just seems to make things worse as it forces video rendering of all scenes.

It should be noted that this interlacing doesn't always occur It has proven to be very allusive to recreate from scratch from a single or few clips. However, it has been very consistent on large projects using many clips each with many small edits.

I also see the problem where voice and video get out of sync with each other, but I'll save that for another time after I've done some more searching on the forum.

Bad_Interlacing_sm.m2ts http://www.savefile.com/files/1852022
No_Interlacing_sm.m2ts http://www.savefile.com/files/1852068

System:
PowerDirector 7.00.2206
Core2 Quad Q9450 @ 2.66 GHz, 4 GB DDR2-800 RAM, ATI Radeon HD 3850 Graphics
Windows Vista 64 bit SP1

I appreciate anyone's wisdom on the subject.

Bill I. Intel Core 2 Quad, 4 GB DDR2 RAM, Vista 64 bit, ATI Radeon HD 3850, Canon HF100

pjc

Senior Member Location: Aus Joined: Sep 12, 2008 03:48 Messages: 262 Offline

Oct 22, 2008 17:24

Hi Bill,

Just had a quick look at the two files. I note that the field order is designated as LFF on both the clips. Is this native from the camera? My files from the HF100 are UFF. This is however a PAL version not NTSC like yours.
Could this be contributing to your problem?

WilliamI

Newbie Joined: Oct 22, 2008 01:05 Messages: 23 Offline

Oct 22, 2008 19:12

I'm guessing that you are talking about the TV Format dialog, but I'm not familiar with the LFF and UFF terms. How does that map to Top Field First (TFF) and Bottom Field First (BFF)?

If we are talking about the TV Format, yes I've messed with that with limited success. When I import my clips, Interlaced - TFF is selected. If I click the button "Scan and Suggest", it selects Interlaced - BFF. However, as soon as I change the TV format to it's recommendation (BFF) SVRT says that all clips (even a single clip that hasn't been touched) requires video rendering. In TFF mode SVRT says no rendering is required.

Is there a tool that can tell me what field format my clips are naturally in? Intel Core 2 Quad, 4 GB DDR2 RAM, Vista 64 bit, ATI Radeon HD 3850, Canon HF100

pjc

Senior Member Location: Aus Joined: Sep 12, 2008 03:48 Messages: 262 Offline

Oct 22, 2008 20:23

I am pretty confident you should be using TFF (UFF). PD doesn't tell you under properties but VideoStudio does. There are also a few free downloads which analyze video clips for you (independent of PD) eg "Mediainfo"

I have had problems like yourself with the "preview" area of PD getting the field order wrong when there is obvious line doubling. It is though the preview defaults to LFF. But in the same point in the project window the frame is fine. My out put is read by my media player correctly and stills from the output file are correct in field order (ie no line duplication).

WilliamI

Newbie Joined: Oct 22, 2008 01:05 Messages: 23 Offline

Oct 22, 2008 20:59

I've got a small project now that recreates the problem every time I produce. I've tested all the possible TV Formats TFF (which is what PD selects as the default for my HF100 clips), BFF and Progressive. All give the exact same results. At the exact point in the video that SVRT says it's going to switch from no rendering to video rendering, the problem shows up.

The attachment is a picture of the workspace displaying the SRVT information. When the video transitions from the point in the green to the red, the interlacing starts. The blue part of the clip is where I have a lead-in title.

The workspace consists of one many minute AVCHD clip that was broken up into two small clips using Multi Trim. There is an overlay title at the very beginning of the clip.


Filename	SRVT.JPG	Download
Description	Workspace with SRVT displayed
Filesize	26 Kbytes
Downloaded:	239 time(s)

Intel Core 2 Quad, 4 GB DDR2 RAM, Vista 64 bit, ATI Radeon HD 3850, Canon HF100

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Oct 23, 2008 00:24

William,
Just a question, when you say you tried all possible TV format options, did you manually specify that the first clip is UFF and also the second clip and then review SVRT info again? I had a problem similar to this in a prior version of SVRT with an MPEG2 file. Somehow the TV format got messed up on my second clip from the same camera. I was manually able to reset it to match the first clip and then SVRT made sense again.

Jeff

pjc

Senior Member Location: Aus Joined: Sep 12, 2008 03:48 Messages: 262 Offline

Oct 23, 2008 00:58

I have had a little investigation into my ACVHD clips. I have a Panasonic SD9 but also access to files from a Canon HF100. Both are interlaced with Top Field First (TFF) according to VideoStudio and Mediainfo.

When you use the auto select TV format PD detects them as Bottom Field First (BFF).

When previewing the clip in the Media area incorrect deinterlacing caused "line doubling" on vertical lines (see attached snap shot). When previewing in timeline the same frame is deinterlced correctly (see second snapshot). This does not change if selecting either TFF or BFF in the TV format box.

I rendered the clip both setting the field order as TFF and BFF. I played both on my networked mediaplayer outputting 1080i onto a HD Plasma. The BFF juddered as would be expected with the incorrect field order info being read by the media player. The TFF was smooth. However both clips were recognised by VideoStudio as BFF. So I am very confused.

Anyway I deduce that PD is not reading the field order correctly for these ACVHD clips and you need to manually select TFF.

edit : can't seem to get the files to attach

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Oct 23. 2008 01:04

WilliamI

Newbie Joined: Oct 22, 2008 01:05 Messages: 23 Offline

Oct 23, 2008 02:21

After spending far too many hours on this, the issue very well may be the field order. JL, in the example of my workspace, both clips are from the same video file and PD7 sets the TV Format per video file, not per clip as setting it for one of my clips sets it for the other. In my example, the two clips were produced using the Multi Trim function from the same video file.

It seems that PD7 is having some trouble transitioning between the clips. Depending on where I set my start / stop frames on the two clips, I get different results. Sometimes I get good solid output. Other times the Interlaced output on the second clip, other times I get totally garbage output for the second clip. In all cases clip one is perfect.

SVRT is all over the place, generally only active for the first clip, then slowing to rendering speed on the second clip - even if I get the SRVT window to tell me that both clips will have no rendering.

PJC, could you test your HF100 file multi trimmed into a few small clips (varying the placement of the start / stop of those clips) to see if you get the same interlacing issues?

Oh yeah, as PJC suggested, I looked at my original .MTS files in various tools and the field order should be Top Field First, even though the TV Format dialog wants to suggest the use of BFF.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Oct 23. 2008 02:23

Intel Core 2 Quad, 4 GB DDR2 RAM, Vista 64 bit, ATI Radeon HD 3850, Canon HF100