Reverse Telecine: Does Interlacing mean it’s not done right

[Samuel Frazier]

I’m no expert, but if you see interlacing, then something has to be wrong if you can see interlaced frames on an lcd.

“is it normal that 2 selections will allow the keycodes to run in order?”
-I’m going to say no to this as it sound like what happened when I tried to remove the pulldown from some material and picked the wrong spot. It will look correct some of the time, but will look interlaced at others.

When I do this my lab gives me a circle burn to mark the A frame from. So, when I use Cinema Tools all I have to do is capture each reel from there then edit from a 24p timeline. But if you capture looking to edit from a 29.97 timeline and remove the pulldown later then I think that is a more difficult and error prone way to go. At least that is what I believe a DVD tutorial I watched said.
Have you tried G Cadence Detect?

[Joshua Lim]

hi,

thanks for your response! i agree with you, we are trying to edit in the 24fps environment.

the lab gave a circle burn as their “A” frame but for some reason when we tell finalcut that frame as the A frame, it doesn’t give keycodes that run in order.

their circle burn corresponds with “0” frame

instead “1” and “2” give keycodes that run in order.

with “1” the keycodes are all clear but there are some interlacing, it’s kinda of like motion interlacing, when there is motion it is slightly interlaced.

with “2” the keycodes, some of them are blur but we don’t see the motion interlacing.

…

what’s G Cadence Detect? haven’t heard of it. maybe that can help!

joshua lim

[Steven Gonzales]

G Cadence Detect is a tool to help decide which reverse telecine pattern to use in Cinema Tools. The plug-in is located in the free area of the nattress website:

https://www.nattress.com/free.htm.

I’m not sure if there are instructions there, but Graeme posted them here at this thread:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=8&postid=833858

Good luck.

[Samuel Frazier]

Yes, try this filter if all else fails. But, I’d be pretty pissed off if things aren’t working from the burn in circle thing. As I said, I once tried to deinterlace from miniDVCAM material where they put the burn in circle in the wrong place and everything was a mess.
My advice would be to call your lab and ask them what happened. Make sure they did 2:3 (not 2:3:3:2) pulldown and ask why using Cinema Tools doesn’t seem to work right from your burn in. When we did our reverse telecine we got some deinterlaced stuff, but with a slight blur during moving shots or swish pans. This is normal. Is this what you mean by the blur?

[Joshua Lim]

hi mus man,

yes, by blur i meant it was a motion blur and this was when we telecined with the “A” frame at the frame after the burn-in. so instead of “0”, we used “1” as the A frame.

the burn in was at “0” when we tried with “0” the keycodes did not run in order.

so when we tried with “1” the keycodes were clear and there was no motion blur

when we tried with “2” as the A frame, the keycodes WERE in order but some were blur and there was NO motion blur.

appreciate your advice on this!

thanks a billion!

Joshua

[Joshua Lim]

hi musman,

I’m not sure how to get the G Cadence to work in finding out what my A frame is for reverse telecine.

the G Cadence program requires finalcut pro to play at 100 percent square pixels off, I’m not sure how to set that.

and after putting the plug-in in the folder, what’s the next step?

sorry, am new to this. really appreciate it!

joshua lm

[Samuel Frazier]

Oh dear, I’m afraid I’m at the end of my knowledge on this one. I’ve never used G-Cadence or any of Nattress’ filters. He’s a really good guy though, and if you post a new post here or on the Apple FCP forum then you should get some help. You could also try emailing him.
I’ve got to tell you though, you really should give your lab some trouble about putting you in this position. I know, it might not help, but you never know. I’m actually a little confused by what you mean when you’re talking about keycodes playing in order. As I say, I’ve only done 1 project, so I’m green too. All I know is that when I captured, I did so from the circle burn and ended each cature on a ‘0’. Deinterlacing via cinema tools was then painless. Of course, when I did this, the burn in timecode became a blur on some frames. This was to be expected as the interlaced frames had been removed. Also, you should expect some motion blur as you’re shooting at 24 fps. Definitely different than 60i. Forgive me if you know all this already.
Can you answer me 1- what kind of tape are you capturing from (mini dv, digibeta, etc) & 2- can you try recapturing from the circle burn as I described?

Also, I believe you had some good results deinterlacing from the ‘2’ rather than the ‘0’.

[Joshua Lim]

hi musman,

thanks for responding! I am really quite upset with the lab.

i’m capturing from miniDV

we originally tried capturing from the circle burn and that’s what the lab said was the A frame but the keycodes were not in order. Meaning the burn-in keycode would run 1431, 1433, 1434… or something.

can i check with you? because my editor and i are really suspected frames 2 and 7 to be the A frame

but after reverse telecine, there are no interlaced frames but some keycodes are blurry. Was this for your case? The key codes were running in order tho like 1431, 1432, 14(blurry), 1434, 1435….

Thanks for checking in!

joshua

[Samuel Frazier]

Okay, now I think we’re getting somewhere. The 1st film project I did was transferred to miniDv and for some reason the lab messed up the circle burn. When I tried to remove the telecine, I still had interlaced frames. Part of the problem could be that miniDV does not have timecode built in like something like digibeta does.
But, this does not sound like your problem. If you have no interlaced frames then you’re golden. Don’t worry about the burn in timecode after you remove the telecine. That timecode only works or is relevant from its native 60i format. Once you remove the telecine, it is removing some frames and what not (there’s definitely a better description of what’s happening somewhere), so you will end up with blurred burned in timecodes. This is normal. This is what I have.
So, as long as there are no interlaced frames, you’re good to go. So, your lab may have done everything fine. Actually, I think your editor really should have known to disregard the burned in timecode. How experienced is he/she? This is a pretty basic concept of 24p behavior. Of course, I’m also to blame as I should have realized this was what you were talking about with your mention of keycodes. My bad.
Anyway, sounds like you’re good to go!

[Joshua Lim]

musman,

thank you so much, your help is invaluable.

my editor is new to this, we just graduated from usc and this is our first project on finalcut pro. we had been using avid in school.

thanks again!!!

joshua lim