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Do I really need Magic Bullet for good deinterlacing ?
Hi 🙂
coming fresh from our local cinema, I had once again the pleasure of seeing my deinterlacing jaggies on the big screen :-/
Not so bad, but could be better.
I am completely familiar with the interlacing- and deinterlacing problems and always thought a good line interpolation is not that bad as one might think.
I also tried Virtual Dub, which has that smart deinterlacer (I guess thats the name) which deinterlaces only the moving areas. Which is a good idea, but wasn’t always sucessful on tests I once did. It left artifacts or deinterlaced the whole thing. The “moving map” was not very acurate.
So now (again) I ask myself, and of course you, if it is worth the money to get Magic Bullet for deinterlacing. I mean only the deinterlacing. Color correction is fine for me with standard tools.
I also wonder:
Probably it does the same like that virtual dub deinterlacer, but maybe …. better ?And are ther other options for bringing deinterlacing to the next level ?
Maybe in the end I keep line-interpolation. No tooo bad 🙂
Thanks !
Peter
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15 Replies
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The guys at revision effects have a great deinterlacer in their fieldskit product that you can see here…
https://www.revisionfx.com/products/fieldskit/
It is very powerful, effective and it is the best I have seen so far. If anyone knows of one that is better, I am all ears. (Well, except for the eyes, nose, hands, legs and all these other things that just get in the way of things.)
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net
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Thank You!
a long time ago you recommended the book called “Digital Compositing for Film and Video”, that was the best, if ever read on that topics. So I guess Your recommendation is very good this time, too 🙂
Did You compare it to magic bullet ?
Do You know the virtual dub solution ?The price for FieldsKit is really ok.
Anyone else ?
Thanks again!
Peter
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I agree, RE:Vision FieldsKit is going to be better bang for your buck, especially if you only need the deinterlacing features of Magic Bullet. It works VERY well and is attractively priced.
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Hi I haven’t used Fieldskit, but I tested Magic Bullet and another product Algosuite. My main interest was in “uprezzing” interlaced DV and HDV footage to to 1920X1080, removing the interlacing, etc. for a film output (the project at hand was an Indy feature).
I found Algosuite to provide the best results – although render times were very slow. The reason, I believe Algosuite was superior for this application was because it had very effective anti-aliasing and very good DV/HDV deartifacting. Magic Bullet also had good deartifacting.
The downside to both programs: On this particular project, we had to convert from 29.97 to 23.976. Both Magic Bullet and Algosuite had major problems producing smooth motion with this conversion. Ultimately, I ended up using a series of passes on the footage – starting with DV Film Maker – which provided excellent framerate conversion and then followed up with processing through Algosuite.
This may be more than you wanted to know. Algosuite is expensive, but you can purchase a week’s license for about $70. It’s a really good idea to test your footage with demo versions of these softwares before purchasing – as results can vary considerably based on what you’re doing. I believe each of the three companies I mentioned provideds Demo software.
I hope this helps.
Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com -
Thanks so far …
I think I’ll try the Demo of FieldsKit.
Still, I am very interested in Your opinions on the Virtual Dub “Smart Deinterlacer” option.
I gave it another chance and it doesn’t look bad.I am indeend only interested in the deinterlacing function.
As we are shooting PAL with 25fps, there is no need for changing the framerate.
And for colorgrading I prefer the good old curves and so 🙂
And not the “matrix” presets 🙂Thanks again!
Peter
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if you are shooting the video yourself, shooting with a low shutter speed can help reduce the field artifacts when you deinterlace… as a matter of fact you may often be able to use ae’s separate fields method with a little frame blending (frame mix) and get good results.\, although if the motion is pretty fast you amy still see some field artifacts.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
A big advantage of FieldsKit over the VirtualDub implementation is simply options:
– motion estimation-based deinterlacing (which can be good or bad, depending on the situation)
– 16-bit support
– pulldown and reinterlacing options
– Because Fieldskit is a plugin for AE (and FCP as well, I believe) you have more control and don’t have to render a file to get results. Using virtualDub, you would have to import your footage, deinterace, export, work the footage in AE and do a final export. That is a LOT of added rendering and quality loss just to deinterlace your footage.
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The VirtualDub also does motion based deinterlacing.
But the workflow is probably the best argument for FieldsKit.
Thanks!
Peter
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Hi! Any ideas if I can still buy a license of Algosuite somewhere ? Algolith discontinued this software on Oct 8 2007 and they are not allowing me to buy a license as a special case..
I’ve heard lots of good stuff about its uprezzing – and want to use it.. -
Hi,
I contacted Algolith and they won’t sell the Algosuite software anymore. Based on the way their licensing worked (it’s tied to your computer’s processor), I don’t think it would be possible to buy it from someone else. Unfortunately, I still haven’t found anything as good as this product.
Best,
Eric
Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com
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