Trev's Articles

Trev's Articles

First Run of AVISynth Scripts

April 2009

There are so many example AVISynth scripts available to perform PAL to NTSC conversion, there was no way of determining which one provided the best results. In addition to the quality of the final video, there may also be some scripts that perform better, i.e. Take less time to convert..

PAL Video Clip of a beach scene with Seals, lots of Horizontal movement.

duration 1m 18s, size 286,889 KB

First run Results

Items highlighted in green were used for Second run testing.

Test Number	Quality	Overall Visual Rating	Conversion Time
1	Minor Combing Smooth movement		1m 54s
2	Bad Combing Jerky movement		1m 15s
3	Did not work		failed
4	Very Bad Combing Jerky movement		1m 6s
5	Medium Combing Very Jerky movement		47s
6	Medium Combing Very Jerky movement		1m 49s
7	Medium Combing Minor Jerky movement		1m 18s
8	Bad Combing Minor Jerky movement		2m 5s
9	Bad Combing Jerky movement		3m 40s
10	Medium Combing Smooth movement No Sound!		2m 42s
11	Minor Combing Smooth movement		46s
12	No Combing Smooth movement		3m 40s
13	Bad Combing Jerky movement		2m 29s
14	Minor Combing Jerky movement		51s
15	Minor Combing Minor Jerky movement		1m 38s
16	Did not work		1m 10s

Quality Definitions

Jerky movement is where the picture 'stutters' on a horizontal PAN

Combing is an artifact of an Interlaced picture

A note on determining the output quality

Visual quality of these tests is based on an actual DVD output on a television. All output AVI files were burned to a DVD for viewing on a TV using a regular DVD player. Viewing interlaced AVI files on a PC can often look worse than a regular DVD, or in some cases the application will actually perform a deinterlace, so not showing a true representation of the video.

Combing examples:

This first image shows how the image should look (often shown as a deinterlaced picture)

This second image shows how the image looks with bad combing

Test scripts and details

Test #1

# PAL DV (50 fps) to NTSC DV (59.94 fps)
LoadPlugin("SmoothDeinterlacer.dll")
AVISource("PalDV2.avi")
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)# Smoothdeinterlacer requires YUY2 
SmoothDeinterlace(tff=false, doublerate=true)
BilinearResize(720, 480)
ChangeFPS(59.94)
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4, 0, 3)
weave()

Test #2

v=AVIsource("PALDV2.avi") # source is 25 fps

return pal2ntsc(v)

function pal2ntsc(v)
{
last=v
#input TFF or BFF
assumeTFF
#assumeBFF
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)# Smoothdeinterlacer requires YUY2
SmoothDeinterlace(tff=false, doublerate=false)
#LanczosResize(720,480)
BilinearResize(720,480)
#ChangeFPS(59.94) # crisp but slightly jerky
ConvertFPS(59.94) # smoother but slightly blurry
#SeparateFields()

#output TFF or BFF
#SelectEvery(4,1,2) # TFF
SelectEvery(4,0,3) # BFF
#Weave()

return last
}

Test #3

LoadPlugin("Convolution3d.dll") 
LoadPlugin("SmoothDeinterlacer.dll") 
avisource("paldv2.avi", false) 
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)
Trim(40285,59711) 
crop(4,12,688,552) 
SeparateFields() 
odd=SelectOdd.Convolution3D (0, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0) 
evn=SelectEven.Convolution3D (0, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0) 
Interleave(evn,odd) 
Weave() 
AddBorders(16,12,16,12) 
SmoothDeinterlace(doublerate=true) 
LanczosResize(720,480) 
ChangeFPS(59.94) 
SeparateFields() 
SelectEvery(4,1,2) 
Weave() 
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)

Test #4

# PAL DV (50 fps) to NTSC DV (59.94 fps)
LoadPlugin("LeakKernelDeint.dll") 
AVISource("Paldv2.avi")
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)# Smoothdeinterlacer requires YUY2 
LeakKernelBob(Order=1,Threshold=4)
Lanczos4Resize(720,480)
ChangeFPS(59.94)
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4, 0, 3)
weave()

Test #5

#Load Video and Audio Sources
#Video = MPEG2Source("C:\Wherever\MyMpegFile.d2v")
AVISource("paldv2.avi")
#Split frames into fields
SeparateFields()
#Put frames in correct order, including duplicates
SelectEvery(10, 0,1,2,3,4,5,4,7,6,9,8,9)
#Slow down from 60fps to 59.94fps
AssumeFPS(60000,1001,sync_audio=true).SSRC(48000)
#Resize fields to NTSC-compatible size
Spline36Resize(720,240)
#Interlace video frames
Weave()

Test #6

v=AVIsource("PALDV2.avi") # source is 25 fps
return pal2ntsc(v)

function pal2ntsc(v)
{
last=v

#input TFF or BFF
assumeTFF
#assumeBFF
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)# Smoothdeinterlacer requires YUY2
SmoothDeinterlace(doublerate=true)
#LanczosResize(720,480)
BilinearResize(720,480)
#ChangeFPS(59.94) # crisp but slightly jerky
ConvertFPS(59.94) # smoother but slightly blurry
#SeparateFields()

#output TFF or BFF
#SelectEvery(4,1,2) # TFF
SelectEvery(4,0,3) # BFF
#Weave()

return last
}

Test #7

v=AVIsource("PALDV2.avi") # source is 25 fps

return pal2ntsc(v)

function pal2ntsc(v)
{
last=v

#input TFF or BFF
assumeTFF
#assumeBFF
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)# Smoothdeinterlacer requires YUY2
SmoothDeinterlace(tff=false, doublerate=false)
#LanczosResize(720,480)
BilinearResize(720,480)
#ChangeFPS(59.94) # crisp but slightly jerky
ConvertFPS(59.94) # smoother but slightly blurry
#SeparateFields()
#output TFF or BFF
#SelectEvery(4,1,2) # TFF
SelectEvery(4,0,3) # BFF
#Weave()

return last
}

Test #8

# PAL DV (50 fps) to NTSC DV (59.94 fps)
LoadPlugin("SmoothDeinterlacer.dll")
AVISource("PalDV2.avi")
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)# Smoothdeinterlacer requires YUY2
SmoothDeinterlace(doublerate=true)
lanczosResize(720, 480)
ChangeFPS(59.94)
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4, 1, 2)
Weave()
ConvertToRGB()

Test #9

Import("kernelbob.avs")
AviSource("PALDV2.avi")
loadplugin("kerneldeint140.dll")
AssumeTFF() # optional in this case
kernelBob(1) # for TFF source, (0) for BFF
Lanczos4Resize(720,480) # or (352,480) for Half D1, (720,480) if you prefer
ConvertFPS(59.94) # or ChangeFPS if you prefer
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()

Test #10

LoadPlugin("Convolution3d.dll")
LoadPlugin("LeakKerneldeint.dll")
avisource("PALDV2.avi", false)
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)# Smoothdeinterlacer requires YUY2
SeparateFields()
odd=SelectOdd.Convolution3D (1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)
evn=SelectEven.Convolution3D (1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)
Interleave(evn,odd)
Weave()
AssumeTFF()
LeakKernelBob(order=1,sharp=true)
Lanczos4Resize(720,480)
ConvertFPS(59.94)
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)

Test #11

#loadplugin("dgdecode.dll")
loadplugin("leakkerneldeint.dll")
AVIsource("PALDV2.avi")
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)
LeakKernelDeint(order=1, threshold=10, sharp=true, twoway=false, map=false, linked=false, debug=false)
LanczosResize(720,480)
ChangeFPS(59.94) # or ConvertFPS(59.94)
SeparateFields()
#SelectEvery(4,1,2)
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()
ConvertToYUY2(interlaced=true)

Test #12

loadplugin("kerneldeint140.dll")
Import("kernelbob.avs")
AviSource("PALDV2.avi")
KernelBob(1) # for TFF source, order=0 for BFF (DV)
Lanczos4Resize(720,480)
ConvertFPS(59.94) # or ChangeFPS if you prefer
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,0,3)
Weave()

Test #13

Import("kernelbob.avs")
LoadPlugin("kerneldeint140.dll")
AviSource("PALDV2.avi")
kernelbob()
LanczosResize(720,480)
ChangeFPS(59.94) #I would better use convertfps(59.94) here
SeparateFields()
SelectEvery(4,1,2)
Weave()
ConvertToRGB()

Test #14

Native VirtualDub was used for the conversion

Test #15

Windows Movie Maker was used for the conversion

Test #16

DVDate was used for the conversion

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