comparison DOCS/xml/en/mencoder.xml @ 14734:0b91f9428c4d

Update the MEncoder telecine documentation. patch by Corey Hickey <bugfood-ml at fatooh dot org>

14733:04cd0fc0a425

  If you use <option>vqscale=2</option>, then you're wasting bits. If you
  use <option>vqscale=3</option>, then you're not getting the highest
  quality rip. Suppose you rip a DVD at <option>vqscale=3</option>, and
  the result is 1800Kbit. If you do a two pass encode with
  <option>vbitrate=1800</option>, the resulting video will have <emphasis
  role="bold">higher quality</emphasis> for the <emphasis role="bold">same
  bitrate</emphasis>.
</para>

<para>
  Since you're now convinced that two pass is the way to go, the real
  question now is what bitrate to use? The answer is that there's no

  are interlaced (such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer) whereas some are a
  mixture of progressive and interlaced (such as Angel, or 24).
</para>

<para>
  It's highly recommended that you read the section on <link
  linkend="menc-feat-telecine">How to deal with telecine and interlacing
  in NTSC DVDs</link> to learn how to handle the different possibilities.
</para>

<para>
  However, if you're mostly just ripping movies, likely you're either
  dealing with 24 fps progressive or telecined video, in which case you can

</para>

<para>
  When you watch progressive video, you should never see any
  interlacing. Beware, however, because sometimes there is a tiny bit
  of telecine mixed in, where you wouldn't expect. I've encountered TV
  show DVDs that have one second of telecine at every scene change, or
  at seemingly random places. I once watched a DVD that had a
  progressive first half, and the second half was telecined. If you
  want to be <emphasis>really</emphasis> thorough, you can scan the
  entire movie:

  immediately above will show you the time at which the change
  occurred.
</para>

<para>
  Sometimes progressive video is referred to as &quot;soft-telecine&quot;
  because it is intended to be telecined by the DVD player.
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-telecined">
<title>Telecined</title>

  Watching a telecined video, you will see interlacing artifacts that
  seem to "blink": they repeatedly appear and disappear.
  You can look closely at this by
  <orderedlist>
  <listitem>
    <screen>mplayer dvd://1 -speed 0.1</screen>
    </listitem>
  <listitem><para>
    Seek to a part with motion.
    </para></listitem>
  <listitem><para>
    Look at the pattern of interlaced-looking and progressive-looking
    frames. If the pattern you see is PPPII,PPPII,PPPII,... then the
    video is telecined. If you see some other pattern, then the video
    may have been telecined using some non-standard method and
    <application>MEncoder</application> cannot losslessly convert it
    to progressive. If you don't see any pattern at all, then it is
    most likely interlaced.
    </para></listitem>
  </orderedlist>
</para>

<para>
  Sometimes telecined video is referred to as &quot;hard-telecine&quot;.
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-interlaced">
<title>Interlaced</title>
<para>

  Interlaced video was originally filmed at 59.94 fields per second,
  and stored on the DVD as 29.97 frames per second. The interlacing is
  a result of combining pairs of fields into frames, because within
  each frame, each field is 1/59.94 seconds apart.
</para>

<para>
  As with telecined video, <application>MPlayer</application> should
  not ever report any framerate changes when playing interlaced content.
</para>

<para>
  When you view an interlaced video closely with <option>-speed 0.1</option>,
  you will see that every single frame is interlaced.
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-mixedpt">
<title>Mixed progressive and telecine</title>

  23.976 frames per second, but some parts of it ended up being telecined.
</para>

<para>
  When <application>MPlayer</application> plays this category, it will
  (often repeatedly) switch back and forth between &quot;30fps
  NTSC&quot; and &quot;24fps progressive NTSC&quot;. Watch the bottom of
  <application>MPlayer</application>'s output to see these messages.
</para>

<para>
  You should check the &quot;30fps NTSC&quot; sections to make sure

</para>

<para>
  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -ovc lavc -ofps 23.976</screen>
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-telecined">
<title>Telecined</title>
<para>
  Telecine can be reversed to retrieve the original 23.976 content,
  using a process called inverse-telecine.
  <application>MPlayer</application> contains two filters to
  accomplish this: <option>detc</option> and
  <option>ivtc</option>. You can read the manual page to see their
  differences, but for DVDs I've never had a problem with
  <option>ivtc</option>. Note that you should
  <emphasis role="bold">always</emphasis> inverse-telecine before any
  rescaling; unless you really know what you're doing,
  inverse-telecine before cropping, too
  <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes">[1]</link>. Again,
  <option>-ofps 23.976</option> is needed, too.
</para>

<para>
  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf ivtc=1 -ovc lavc -ofps 23.976</screen>
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-interlaced">
<title>Interlaced</title>

  framerate of your original source.

  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf tfields=2 -ovc lavc -fps 59.94 -ofps 59.94</screen>
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  If you plan on downscaling dramatically, you can excise and encode
  only one of the two fields. Of course, you'll lose half the vertical
  resolution, but if you plan on downscaling to at most 1/2 of the
  original, the loss won't matter much. The result will be a
  progressive 29.97 frames per second file. The procedure is to use
  <option>-vf field</option>, then crop

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-mixedpt">
<title>Mixed progressive and telecine</title>
<para>
  In order to turn mixed progressive and telecine video into entirely
  progressive video, the telecined parts have to be
  inverse-telecined. There are two filters that accomplish this
  natively, but a better solution most of the time is to use two
  filters in conjunction (read onward for more detail).
</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
  Currently the most reliable method to deal with this type of video
  is to, rather than inverse-telecine the telecined parts, telecine
  the non-telecined parts and then inverse-telecine the whole
  video. Sound confusing? softpulldown is a filter that goes through
  a video and makes the entire file telecined. If we follow
  softpulldown with either <option>detc</option> or
  <option>ivtc</option>, the final result will be entirely
  progressive. Cropping and scaling should be done after the
  inverse-telecine operations, and <option> -ofps 23.976</option> is
  needed.

  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf softpulldown,ivtc=1 -ovc lavc -ofps 23.976</screen>
  </para>
  </listitem>
<listitem><para>
  <option>-vf pullup</option> is designed to inverse-telecine
  telecined material while leaving progressive data alone. Pullup
  doesn't really work well with the current
  <application>MEncoder</application>, though, and is really intended
  for use with <application>MEncoder G2</application> (whenever it's
  ready). It works fine without <option>-ofps</option>, but
  <option>-ofps</option> is needed to prevent choppy output. With
  <option>-ofps</option>, it sometimes fails. The problems arise from
  <application>MEncoder</application>'s behavior of dropping frames to
  maintain synchronization between the audio and video: it drops
  frames before sending them through the filter chain, rather than
  after. As a result, <option>pullup</option> is sometimes deprived
  of the data it needs.
  </para>

  <para>
  If <application>MEncoder</application> drops too many frames in a
  row, it starves <option>pullup</option>'s buffers and causes it to
  crash.
  </para>

  <para>
  Even if <application>MEncoder</application> only drops one frame,
  <option> pullup</option> still doesn't get to see it, and will end
  up operating on an incorrect sequence of frames. Even though this
  doesn't cause a crash, <option> pullup</option> won't be able to
  make correct decisions on how to reassemble progressive frames, and
  will either match fields together incorrectly or drop several fields
  to compensate.
  </para>
  </listitem>

<listitem><para>
  I haven't used <option>-vf filmdint</option> myself, but here's what

  the scope of this document.
  </para>
  </formalpara>
  </listitem>

</orderedlist>

</sect2>

</sect1>

14734:0b91f9428c4d

  If you use <option>vqscale=2</option>, then you're wasting bits. If you
  use <option>vqscale=3</option>, then you're not getting the highest
  quality rip. Suppose you rip a DVD at <option>vqscale=3</option>, and
  the result is 1800Kbit. If you do a two pass encode with
  <option>vbitrate=1800</option>, the resulting video will have <emphasis
  role="bold">higher quality</emphasis> for the
  <emphasis role="bold">same bitrate</emphasis>.
</para>

<para>
  Since you're now convinced that two pass is the way to go, the real
  question now is what bitrate to use? The answer is that there's no

  are interlaced (such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer) whereas some are a
  mixture of progressive and interlaced (such as Angel, or 24).
</para>

<para>
  It's highly recommended that you read the section on
  <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine">How to deal with telecine and interlacing in NTSC DVDs</link>
  to learn how to handle the different possibilities.
</para>

<para>
  However, if you're mostly just ripping movies, likely you're either
  dealing with 24 fps progressive or telecined video, in which case you can

</para>

<para>
  When you watch progressive video, you should never see any
  interlacing. Beware, however, because sometimes there is a tiny bit
  of telecine mixed in where you wouldn't expect. I've encountered TV
  show DVDs that have one second of telecine at every scene change, or
  at seemingly random places. I once watched a DVD that had a
  progressive first half, and the second half was telecined. If you
  want to be <emphasis>really</emphasis> thorough, you can scan the
  entire movie:

  immediately above will show you the time at which the change
  occurred.
</para>

<para>
  Sometimes progressive video on DVDs is referred to as
  &quot;soft-telecine&quot; because it is intended to
  be telecined by the DVD player.
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-telecined">
<title>Telecined</title>

  Watching a telecined video, you will see interlacing artifacts that
  seem to "blink": they repeatedly appear and disappear.
  You can look closely at this by
  <orderedlist>
  <listitem>
    <screen>mplayer dvd://1</screen>
    </listitem>
  <listitem><para>
    Seek to a part with motion.
    </para></listitem>
  <listitem><para>
    Use the <keycap>.</keycap> key to step forward one frame at a time.
    </para></listitem>
  <listitem><para>
    Look at the pattern of interlaced-looking and progressive-looking
    frames. If the pattern you see is PPPII,PPPII,PPPII,... then the
    video is telecined. If you see some other pattern, then the video
    may have been telecined using some non-standard method;
    <application>MEncoder</application> cannot losslessly convert
    non-standard telecine to progressive. If you don't see any
    pattern at all, then it is most likely interlaced.
    </para></listitem>
  </orderedlist>
</para>

<para>
  Sometimes telecined video on DVDs is referred to as
  &quot;hard-telecine&quot;. Since hard-telecine is already 59.94 fields
  per second, the DVD player plays the video without any manipulation.
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-interlaced">
<title>Interlaced</title>
<para>
  Interlaced video was originally filmed at 59.94 fields per second,
  and stored on the DVD as 29.97 frames per second. The interlacing effect
  (often called &quot;combing&quot;) is a result of combining pairs of
  fields into frames. Each field is supposed to be 1/59.94 seconds apart,
  and when they are displayed simultaneously the difference is apparent.
</para>

<para>
  As with telecined video, <application>MPlayer</application> should
  not ever report any framerate changes when playing interlaced content.
</para>

<para>
  When you view an interlaced video closely by frame-stepping with the
  <keycap>.</keycap> key, you will see that every single frame is interlaced.
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-ident-mixedpt">
<title>Mixed progressive and telecine</title>

  23.976 frames per second, but some parts of it ended up being telecined.
</para>

<para>
  When <application>MPlayer</application> plays this category, it will
  (often repeatedly) switch back and forth between &quot;30fps NTSC&quot;
  and &quot;24fps progressive NTSC&quot;. Watch the bottom of
  <application>MPlayer</application>'s output to see these messages.
</para>

<para>
  You should check the &quot;30fps NTSC&quot; sections to make sure

</para>

<para>
  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -ovc lavc -ofps 23.976</screen>
</para>

<para>
  It is often the case, however, that a video that looks progressive
  actually has very short parts of telecine mixed in. Unless you are
  sure, it is safest to treat the video as
  <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-encode-mixedpt">mixed progressive and telecine</link>.
  The performance loss is small
  <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes">[3]</link>.
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-telecined">
<title>Telecined</title>
<para>
  Telecine can be reversed to retrieve the original 23.976 content,
  using a process called inverse-telecine.
  <application>MPlayer</application> contains several filters to
  accomplish this; the best filter, <option>pullup</option>, is described
  in the <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-encode-mixedpt">mixed
  progressive and telecine</link> section.
</para>
</sect3>

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-interlaced">
<title>Interlaced</title>

  framerate of your original source.

  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf tfields=2 -ovc lavc -fps 59.94 -ofps 59.94</screen>
  </para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
  If you plan on downscaling dramatically, you can extract and encode
  only one of the two fields. Of course, you'll lose half the vertical
  resolution, but if you plan on downscaling to at most 1/2 of the
  original, the loss won't matter much. The result will be a
  progressive 29.97 frames per second file. The procedure is to use
  <option>-vf field</option>, then crop

<sect3 id="menc-feat-telecine-encode-mixedpt">
<title>Mixed progressive and telecine</title>
<para>
  In order to turn mixed progressive and telecine video into entirely
  progressive video, the telecined parts have to be
  inverse-telecined. There are three ways to accomplish this,
  described below. Note that you should
  <emphasis role="bold">always</emphasis> inverse-telecine before any
  rescaling; unless you really know what you're doing,
  inverse-telecine before cropping, too
  <link linkend="menc-feat-telecine-footnotes">[1]</link>.
  <option>-ofps 23.976</option> is needed here because the output video
  will be 23.976 frames per second.
</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
  <option>-vf pullup</option> is designed to inverse-telecine
  telecined material while leaving progressive data alone. In order to
  work properly, <option>pullup</option> <emphasis role="bold">must</emphasis>
  be followed by the <option>softskip</option> filter or
  else <application>MEncoder</application> will crash.
  <option>pullup</option> is, however, the cleanest and most
  accurate method available for encoding both telecine and
  &quot;mixed progressive and telecine&quot;.

  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf pullup,softskip -ovc lavc -ofps 23.976</screen>
  </para>


  </listitem>
  <listitem><para>
  An older method
  is to, rather than inverse-telecine the telecined parts, telecine
  the non-telecined parts and then inverse-telecine the whole
  video. Sound confusing? softpulldown is a filter that goes through
  a video and makes the entire file telecined. If we follow
  softpulldown with either <option>detc</option> or
  <option>ivtc</option>, the final result will be entirely
  progressive. <option>-ofps 23.976</option> is needed.

  <screen>mencoder dvd://1 -nosound -vf softpulldown,ivtc=1 -ovc lavc -ofps 23.976</screen>
  </para>
  </listitem>

<listitem><para>
  I haven't used <option>-vf filmdint</option> myself, but here's what

  the scope of this document.
  </para>
  </formalpara>
  </listitem>

<listitem><formalpara>
  <title>About the performance of pullup:</title>
  <para>
  It is safe to use <option>pullup</option> (along with <option>softskip
  </option>) on progressive video, and is usually a good idea unless
  the source has been definitively verified to be entirely progressive.
  The performace loss is small for most cases. On a bare-minimum encode,
  <option>pullup</option> causes <application>MEncoder</application> to
  be 50% slower. Adding sound processing and advanced <option>lavcopts
  </option> overshadows that difference, bringing the performance of
  decrease of using <option>pullup</option> down to 2%.
  </para>
  </formalpara>
  </listitem>

</orderedlist>

</sect2>

</sect1>