Why do we have to convert 25 fps to 23.97 fps ?

[Snowcrash]

In the case of appleworld, I don't see any blended frames, so this is apparently one of the few cases where the conversion to PAL was handled quite well.

To expand on that, the majority of PAL anime is going to look like this after you deinterlace it: http://a.imageshack.us/img413/7928/hamtalol.png

Which is why pal anime is bad.

Oh I see. But perhaps the Appleseed DVD is not considered as anime but 3D film ? Maybe it's not a problem when we deinterlace ?

Another case : I have the Animatrix DVD and the frames are originally progressive. So I suppose this kind of DVD is ideal for AMV-maker because we don't need to deinterlace the source. We just got a 25 fps rate.

[mirkosp]

Even when progressive, PAL is not optimal. 3 are the cases of progressive PAL:
1) It was blended to 25: worst case, you can save less than what you could attempt to save when you have a field blended source. Admittedly, this case is luckily rare to nonexistant in my experience (I think I read about it but never found it myself).
2) A frame was added every 24: in this case, the frame could either be a duplicate or a blend of the two frames close to it. I have found this case a few times, it is the most common for progressive PAL in my experience. All you have to do is tdecimate(cycle=25) and hope tdecimate is smart enough to remove the duplicate/blended one. Alternatively you can use an ovr file in tdecimate or try a selectevery to decide which frame is the duplicate/blended one that you should be getting rid of. After you restore the 24.00fps stream like this, you can assumefps to ntcs_film.
3) There was a direct speedup to 25fps: in this case you just assumefps back to ntcs_film. You could still edit at 25fps if you wish, but in some places you might notice that the motion is funnily faster than it should be: a common case is when there's someone walking in a somewhat robotic way due to being accelerated like that. Generally however speedups aren't common in progressive PAL because when the source did go through a speedup, it generally is a source dealt with in the 70s/80s, and at the time they generally did full field interlacing with the TV airing in mind, so they just picked the source, dropped the audio, did the speedup, and interlaced, with the dub done at the new speed. The only progressive PAL DVD that went through a speedup that I have in mind is the Italian release of The Sky Crawlers by Dall'Angelo Pictures (not that it matters, they also did the BD at 23.976, so I got that ).

[Mister Hatt]

The best PAL fixing filter I have seen, rather than mrestore and srestore, is actually restore24. Sadly it still isn't ideal. No filter will be. Think about what they are doing: recreating frames which no longer exist and then IVTC'ing them. Obviously there is no good way to do that.

One other thing: mirko has said that you should only be ok with PAL under certain conditions but left out the most important and obvious one: WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY ANIMATED AT 25FPS IT IS OK TO USE PAL.

[mirkosp]

One other thing: mirko has said that you should only be ok with PAL under certain conditions but left out the most important and obvious one: WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY ANIMATED AT 25FPS IT IS OK TO USE PAL.

Right, I keep forgetting because japanese animation at 25fps is rare... I guess the only one I can think of is First Squad, but that was 24.00 maybe, I can't recall as all I have is second hand info.

[Mister Hatt]

It's one of my hobbies to find weird and interesting footage!

[Snowcrash]

Yep I agree with that. Unfortunetaly there is not a lot of animes with an original rate at 25 fps.

And even if an animated movie was created in Europe, for example Les triplettes de Belleville or Persépolis, I suppose the animators do their work at 24 fps ?
And they convert it at 25 fps ?

If resume for converting :
- in NTSC countries (with japanese or american anime) :24fps --> -0.1% --> 23.97 fps --> 29.97 fps (telecine) so the converting operation is not too difficult.
- in PAL countries (with japanese or american anime) : 24 fps --> -0.1% --> 23.97 fps --> 29.97 fps (telecine) --> 25 fps so the converting operation is quiet messy
- in PAL countries (with european anime) : 24 fps --> 25 fps so conversion is just restore24 ?

Do I am right ? I suppose there are other cases but those are the main ones, aren't they ?

[Mister Hatt]

If your source is PAL, you need a new source. Your definitions are also a bit wrong. NTSC can be done several ways but it is at 23.976~ to start with, it is not slowed down from 24. PAL countries either process in some way to get from 23.976~ to 25 OR they decimate it down from 29.970 OR it is blended into a 25fps mess with one of several algorithms.

Restore24 does NOT do what you think it does. It is for attempting to reconstruct blend-converted data back to NTSC and then IVTC to 23.976.

[Snowcrash]

NTSC can be done several ways but it is at 23.976~ to start with, it is not slowed down from 24.

I disagree with that : a film is shot at 24 fps not at 23.976 fps. Same for animation, an animator can't create 23.97 image >.>
You can read this page if you want to check : http://www.paradiso-design.net/videosta ... l#transfer

PAL countries either process in some way to get from 23.976~ to 25

PAL countries don't start at 23.976 fps but 24 fps : they sped up the film at 25 fps to get the PAL standard. Of course if they get a NTSC video, it's a complete mess to do the transfer.

And a nice and very complicated figure to explain that :p

Spoiler :

[Mister Hatt]

That is so fucking kawaii you have no idea. Unfortunately, I work in film production and I can assure you that 24fps is not the capture rate in most studios. I also work in importing overseas films and converting them to PAL (in fact it's my specialty) and you're wrong about that one as well. We speed up to 24fps from 23.976 and then apply a soft pulldown or a blend matrix to it. There are ways of getting NTSC->PAL without ruining it TOO badly, so I wouldn't call it a mess, but it is still far from ideal. Just because some junky website says it's done one way doesn't make it true. I'm speaking from industry experience here.

[post-it]

why not just convert it to 120 fps and then divide it as needed ....