[MEncoder-users] Encoded DVD video has motion flicker

[Chris Capon]

RC wrote:
> On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:21:59 -0500
> Chris Capon <ttabyss at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> With these video files, when I run mencoder with 'scale' as the first 
>> filter, it seg-faults.  
> 
> Make a bugreport.  The HTML docs explain how.

Already did.  No response yet.

    http://bugzilla.mplayerhq.hu/show_bug.cgi?id=1588


>> Deinterlacing with pp removes the flicker but motion still jumps or
>> hops  rather than flowing smoothly. 
> 
> You picked a lousy deinterlacer.  Try yadif, kerndeint, or pp=lb.

Have tried pp=lb before.  yadif and kerndeint work well and produce 
decent looking video, but motion still hops during playback on a TV.

    -vf yadif,scale=presize=ntsc,dsize=16/9,harddup
    -vf kerndeint,scale=presize=ntsc,dsize=16/9,harddup

It makes me wonder if I need to keep the video interlaced to get smooth 
motion from a source which is interlaced.

>> format=dvd:tsaf -vf il=d,scale=presize=ntsc,dsize=16/9,harddup,il=i 
>> I may not be using the il filters correctly
> 
> No.  It takes two arguements, not one.  You don't seem to have any
> method to your madness.

The madness behind the method is a man page with ambiguous option 
parameters and a manual with no 'il' usage examples.  Care to enlighten 
me?  Show me an example of how to use -vf il properly.

Since,

    -vf scale=interlaced:presize=ntsc,dsize=16/9,harddup

does a seg-fault, is there some other filter I can put in front of scale 
that will leave the video interlaced?  If scale is 2nd in the chain 
mencoder doesn't seem to crash.


> MEncoder and MPlayer are nearly identical.  You
> should be trying just WATCHING the videos with the filter options,
> before you encode anything.  For instance, if you just ran mplayer on
> your video with "-vf il=d" you would instantly see something is very,
> very wrong.

The problem is, MPlayer is not a good tool for diagnosing artifacts that 
appear during playback on a TV set.  MPlayer does its own scaling and 
smoothing which distorts the on-screen result.  I see artifacts in 
MPlayer which don't appear on TV sets and vice-versa.


Thanks again for your input.  I feel I'm getting closer to an answer.

Cheers,
Chris.