[HELP] NTSC SD master, best De-Interlace?

[Miranda]

I have an NTSC ProRes 422HQ SD master file of an early 1980s feature film:

Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate          : 29.970 (29970/1000) FPS
Standard             : NTSC
Color space         : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:2
Scan type  : Interlaced
Scan type, store method : Interleaved fields
Scan order : Bottom Field First

I need to do the best possible de-interlace to 23.976 fps in order to edit sections into a newer master.

Am I right to use TIVTC rather than QTGMC?

Also, it has slight moire patterning in various scenes. Can this also be fixed?

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

[Selur]

I would suggest:
Bob the content i.e. using "Filtering->(De-)Interlace/Telecine->QTGMC Vapoursynth->Bob" and look at the output in the Vapoursynth Preview.
If each frame shows motion, the source is telecined, if you see a 3 frames with motion 2 identical ones the source is telecined.
If you see something else the content probably is some mix of interlacing, telecine and progressive fields.

Assuming your content is interlaced use "Filtering->(De-)Interlace/Telecine->QTGMC Vapoursynth->Bob" with Preset 'Slower', depending on the source using preset 'Custom' and adjusting the settings might also help to get a bit more quality.

Assuming your content is telecined:

• enable "Filtering->(De-)Interlace/Telecine->Deinterlace/Telecine->Overwrite input scan type to" and set it to "telecine"
  
• then try "TIVCT (Vapoursynth)" and "VIVTC (Vapoursynth)"
  
• if your content has mixed 3:2 pattern, keeping the content als bff, bobbing with QTGMC and using sRestore to get to 23.976 might help.
  

If you got some residual combing "Filtering->Vapoursynth->Frame->Vinverse / Vinverse2" might help.

Regarding the moire pattern: I would need a small sample which shows the issue to recommend anything.

Cu Selur

[Miranda]

I would suggest:
Bob the content i.e. using "Filtering->(De-)Interlace/Telecine->QTGMC Vapoursynth->Bob" and look at the output in the Vapoursynth Preview.
If each frame shows motion, the source is telecined, if you see a 3 frames with motion 2 identical ones the source is telecined.
If you see something else the content probably is some mix of interlacing, telecine and progressive fields.

Assuming your content is interlaced use "Filtering->(De-)Interlace/Telecine->QTGMC Vapoursynth->Bob" with Preset 'Slower', depending on the source using preset 'Custom' and adjusting the settings might also help to get a bit more quality.

Assuming your content is telecined:

• enable "Filtering->(De-)Interlace/Telecine->Deinterlace/Telecine->Overwrite input scan type to" and set it to "telecine"
  
• then try "TIVCT (Vapoursynth)" and "VIVTC (Vapoursynth)"
  
• if your content has mixed 3:2 pattern, keeping the content als bff, bobbing with QTGMC and using sRestore to get to 23.976 might help.
  

If you got some residual combing "Filtering->Vapoursynth->Frame->Vinverse / Vinverse2" might help.

Regarding the moire pattern: I would need a small sample which shows the issue to recommend anything.

Cu Selur

The video is a feature film, would that not indicate that it was telecined to video?

ps - congrats on the software, it's incredible.

[Selur]

The video is a feature film, would that not indicate that it was telecined to video?

Yes, it should be, but you never know for sure unless you look a the content.

Cu Selur

[shijan]

Note that if your source was shoot on something like Hi8 video camera, captured to ProRes and edited in that native format it could be real 29.970. So you can try to deinterlace with QTGMC Bob to native 59.94 progressive and keep it in that original framerate. Next if required you may somehow downconvert it to 24fps. Anyway as Selur suggested - using QTGMC Bob and looking to preview is the first thing that you need to do to understand what is really going on with your source.

[Miranda]

It was shot on 35mm film. The TIVCT option worked perfectly.

[Miranda]

Here is a frame grab from the TIVCT output, with no de-noise filtering. As you can see, it is rather noisy and a bit murky in general. Probably due to it being from an old 1980s telecine.

Any suggestions how to remove some of the noise?

[Selur]

Just from the screenshots it mostly looks like blocking artifacts, so a deblocker is probably what you want to use.
You probably need to use higher than the default values and test a bit to find a setting that a. removed the blocking and b. doesn't kill too much details in the process. You probably also might want to apply some sharpening after the deblocking.


Cu Selur

[shijan]

If it helps here is my basic starter pack filters chain for DVDs:
QTGMC Deinterlacer Preset Slower, custom Sharpness 0.3, OpenCL ON
Color Matrix Rec.601 to Rec.709
DeBlock QED
FineDeHalo 2.0...3.0
Sharpen CAS 0.5...0.7
Resize to height 1080
Convert output pixel aspect ratio to 1:1
Resizer NNEDI3 8x4 Neurons256 Network2 NEW GPU on (if you don't have OpenCL GPU use Neurons32 or 64)

SMDegrain TR3 RefMotion DCT0. Turn on OpenCL GPU there as well to speedup processing (there are plenty of other temporal noise reduction filters to experiment)

But it all depends of source quality...

[Miranda]

It's a digitised master from an analogue tape master of a 1980s telecine. Would those DVD settings still work?

---

Just from the screenshots it mostly looks like blocking artifacts, so a deblocker is probably what you want to use.
You probably need to use higher than the default values and test a bit to find a setting that a. removed the blocking and b. doesn't kill too much details in the process. You probably also might want to apply some sharpening after the deblocking.


Cu Selur

Which de-block settings did you use? Those in De-Interlace/TIVTC or those under filtering?