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Interesting issue here, and it keeps coming up. most recently during the discussion of THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN dvd release by Kino.

During the discussion with Gary about Kino as a company, and the general process of reviewing silent films, I pointed out that home video companies have seemed to settle on a standard of releasing silent films interlaced. There was a little bit of clarification regarding what I meant by "standard"-- which was my sense that regardless whether or not the decision to go interlaced was based on technical requirements, or some other requirement(s), discs for home video presenting silent features seem to have settled on a standard route of authoring preparation, which is that of going Interlaced.

Nick Wrigley of Masters of Cinema, during the discussion about "standards", stated something which I sort of knew, but didn't, I admit, factor in as an overriding issue: the issue of frame rates. Of course, as most of us know, we have settled into a set of global standards for film projection, which differ slightly depending on where you live (and causing a notorious set of headaches for importers of foreign masters of films of excellence that offer small profit margin on the distribution end): NTSC standard which dictates a film be shown at 24 frames per second, and PAL, which runs a film at 25fps.

I confess that I didn't always take it as ironclad that if a film was not filmed (and therefore meant to be projected) at 24 or 25 fps, it was fated to be interlaced. I just used to think it was cheaper to run an interlaced transfer since it took up less disc space/filesize (owing to the reduced number of individually encoded frames), presenting a less expensive authoring process, ending in the obviously reduced need to use a dual layer disc when a single layer disc will easily hold a full interlaced film at reasonable midline bitrates. I just figured silents were such a low margin zone of enterprise, that every single penny, when multiplied by the quantity of discs produced for a given title, multiplied by the given number of titles per year (for a company specializing in them the way Kino or Milestone or MoC to a solid degree comparitive to it's sound catalog, do) added up, and increased the ability to carry on with additional projects and kept them all out of the red. It wasn't an ideal set of circumstances for those of us weaned on WB and CC, but it worked, and it kept the titles coming, so c'est la vie.

I always thought the frame rate issue was not a dealbreaker for progressive transfers. The same way the number of vid fields per second can be divided, in the case, say, of NTSC, by 24 (frames per second), and the individual film frames spread across the resulting/corresponding number of video fields per second... (real simple and totally bogus example for simplicity: let's say the number of vidfields pers second was 48--it's not, its between 59 and 60-- then you would spread each 24fps film frame across two vid fields, allowing the film to be encoded with each frame independant of the other upon playback, one frame displaying as every two vidfields go by; the reality is far more complicated, from telecine to encoding and playback, but the crux of the biscuit I believe is there.. mathematically in principle. Thus the idea to avoid interlacing is to avoid uneven spacing of film frames across video fields, to avoid the need of knitting frames together whereby it will all mathematically work out right.), anyhow, the way 24 or 25 can be divided and mathematically spread evenly among the corresponding number of vidfields, so too I thought could 16fps or 18fps or any of the silent frame rates of nonsound speed, unless if it meant dividing into unwhole numbers of vidfields.

That's what I thought. Thus when Denti got the response back from Schiller at CC saying that in the case of PANDORA the encoder wasn't ready for anything but the recognized frame rate of sound films to create a progressive transfer, I thought HOOEY, the guy knows how to divide, right? If they can divide 24fps into the NTSC vidfields, why can't they divide another number of fps into the vidfields per second. Surely 24 is not the only number divisible by the bumber of vidframes persec, no? So I thought JoAnna was just covering up for costcutting measures (I'd also heard of a progressive PANDORA somewhere in Europe.)

I've also seen, on Kino's EDISON discs for ex, some wacky frame rates spooled out progressively.

But Nick at MoC mentioned during the conversation/thread w Gary that there was a phenomena which occurs as you progressively encode at nonsound speeds, a deterioration in PQ. I can't speak to it right now because I have to go back and double check which silents have been released genuinely progressive, which is the thrust of this thread:

Someone had mentioned at the close of the Kino-Beev thread that we had "demolished" idea that the industry has seemed to settle into a standard of producing the vast majority of discs of silent material interlaced. I'm curious how many there actually are.

So on this note, and out of consumer interest myself and genuine technological curiosity (since I always believed it could be done, now I'm not as sure as I once was based on Nicks input, though as mentioned I'm sure I'd seen it), I'm curious to know, among the international readership of this board, who owns progressive silents, what they are, and what the quality is. I've heard that MoC's FAUST was (no, shame on me, I havent grabbed it yet), and am curious what the frame rate was there... and if this-- if it wasnt sound film rate-- was responsible for the jags that were discussed on it. Of course all of the later silents, especially those with synchsound (MAN WHO LAUGHS, SUNRISE, TABU, STREET ANGEL, etc) will run at sound speed and will therefore be progressive. But I'm mostly interested in non-soundspeed films that have been produced and encoded progressively.

Who has em, and which are they??

For those not sure how to confirm this, it's simple, and almost foolproof: pause your disc midway in freezeframe, then step along frame by frame. If you see no interlacing, ghosting, or repeated frames, then you have a progressive disc, which should advance along frame by frame completely cleanly without interruption by any combing, ghosting, or repeated frames from the start to the finish. Each time you step a new frame should appear, clean and clear as a frameable photographs (although you do occasionally get what the Beev calls the "Alchemy" method of encoding, which CC often exhibits, whereby out of the clear clue sky on a disc that seems completely progressive, you suddenly get an interlaced frame without explanation.)

For me it hardly matters. if you have a machine that de-interlaces nicely, the difference is not noticeable.

HOWEVER, the MoC Spione is a jaggy mess on my display, apparently because it is interlaced, though I've not seen this phenomenon on any other interlaced DVDs. Also, the MoC Faust is a jaggy mess, but that because it's not interlaced (see that thread for why this is the case). Go figure.

Anyone have the interlaced Divisa Red version of Faust they wanna give up, please contact me.

SOunds from your examples that it matters at least a little bit DENTI. DENTI.

You people need to meet this guy to discover what a gigantic (he's almost seven and a half FEET!), deceptively boyish (he wore a newsboy cap and buckle shoes and carried a big orange balloon tied to his NFL lunchbox... yet within the lunchbox one could clearly hear a snub nose and hollowpoints clanking around: "O uh those are my uh housekeys" blinking innocently above his stubble) criminal Denti is.

I asked him "So where did the Denti Alligator mutation of Dante come from?"

"Fuck you," he said and began vomiting right there in the MoMa in huge heroin withdrawal.

"You okay, Dent?" I asked, twisting a 180 to peer behind the seat he was just in to get a look at him on the floor crawling rearwards. The people behind me had their knees up in the air (I got a look up the dress of some bifocaled old librarian-looking crone, for which I'll never forgive him) as he slithered back up the slope of the theater floor.

Somehow in the blink of an eye he was back standing right in front of me stonefaced with a very thin streamer of vomit dangling, glaring down at me (he's tall). A long time went by. He didnt blink.

"What?" I asked, laughing nervously. He just hung there stone quiet, accusing me of something hideous with his eyes. The another Long Time went by.

Then Denti Alligator (blank as new bond paper) says "You. Watch. This.", snaps his fingers, releases the balloon, picks up his lunchbox, draws and cocks his pistol, pops the balloon with a gunshot. The orange rubber splatted like a yarmulke on some Parajanov-looking heavy cineaste dude, who'd already been shitting in terror.

Denti turned on the audience, sweeping his gunsights over them in a slow arc of the arm.

"Anybody not liking This Here right now?" the people pissing and shrieking and shrinking down in terror, "ANyone not havinna Excellent Time?" He turned on the lady behind me. "Howzabout you ma'am-- you havinna Excellent Time or no?"

"No--" seeing Dent rise up on the balls of his feet eyes bulging-- "I mean YES YES I am havna EX-uh, Ex-uh," tears come, "nice.. nice.. time."

Whereby Denti, moved by the sight of the woman's tears, pops a trembling bubble-lip and begins to cry too. He took off a shiny buckled shoe and began beating me over the head with it.

"Fucking Schreck YOU caused this," beating my brains in, I'm hunched over in crash position my hair up in right angles like I just woke up. "You fucking BASTARD!" Whomp. "Bas-" Womp. "STARD" Womp like I'm a roach on the floor.

"For chrissakes Denti," I mumphed. "STOPPPP!"

All of a sudden it was quiet. I heard the phfffft of a leather shoe slipping on a stocking'd foot. I flick an eyeball to the side and peeked up, and there was Denti, happy and pink and carbonated, and boyish all over again like nothing had happened, laughing and pointing up at the screen, smashing handfulls of popcorn into his mouth.

"Huh huh huh, lookit'um. He got hit witta cannonball." He bashed me in the shoulder with his knuckles trying to make me look. "'Dat's funny huh huh.." the streamer of vomit still swinging around loose and free and full of joy.

And that was just the first couple of minutes of the movie. Some say a lifetime of therapy will undo my scars-- both physical and most important psychological. But I have my doubts. Since that incredible beating not only do I not remember what the hell "psychological" even means (for starters), I can barely find my way around this city of mine-- I usedta know it so well-- let alone find an address to go to therapy. I'll never bet again.

That's funny, I don't remember Denti looking like a heroin-addled Shrek. (Or Schreck, for that matter.)

Schreck's version of our MoMA "date" is a little hyperbolic and should be shelved with other apocryphal tales of his. I don't deny the pistol slinging, nor the orange balloon, nor having left poor Schreck a frightened, psychologically scarred, and shivering lump of is former self ... the whole heroin-withdrawal bit, though, is merely a "misinterpretation"--

Davebert will set matters straight. He's seen me in the light of day.

Isn't the Criterion of Pandora's Box progressive? What about the MoC of Diary of a Lost Girl?
Criterion's, King of Kings? The 1925 Ben Hur from Warner?
MoC's editon of Metropolis ?

Person wrote:Isn't the Criterion of Pandora's Box progressive?

No.

What about the MoC of Diary of a Lost Girl?

Yes.

Criterion's, King of Kings? The 1925 Ben Hur from Warner?

Not sure.

MoC's editon of Metropolis ?

No.

Haven't checked it myself, but I remember reading a review of the R4 Ben-Hur which definitely said the silent version was interlaced.

Meanwhile; perhaps not the place to discuss it, but since it's been raised; now that I'm on HTPC, is there any setting on PowerDVD Ultra that will remove those jaggies from Faust and/or Spione?

Darth Lavender wrote:Haven't checked it myself, but I remember reading a review of the R4 Ben-Hur which definitely said the silent version was interlaced.

Meanwhile; perhaps not the place to discuss it, but since it's been raised; now that I'm on HTPC, is there any setting on PowerDVD Ultra that will remove those jaggies from Faust and/or Spione?

I've tried everything. No. I think if your player softens edges they won't be that visible. I personally prefer sharp edges, so these are very visible. It's a shame, really. I wish someone would share a copy of their interlacd Divisa Red Faust with me (how many hints does this take?).

Criterion's STORY OF FLOATING WEEDS and the Harold Lloyd box set from New Line are reading as progressive on my player's display.

I need to check my DVD again, but I seem to remember the Paramount 1923 The Ten Commandments being progressive. I think that along with the two progressive MoCs those are the only progressive transfers on the silent movies that I own.

The Image DVD of Epstein's Fall of the House of Usher has amazingly well done interlaced transfer though. I see a little bit of combing when I fast forward the image, but by proceeding frame by frame I see none. Or maybe this transfer is made with the so-called alchemist method?

The 1925 Ben Hur is not progressive.

EDIT: Criterion's Passion of Joan of Arc is progressive as well, but it's in sound speed (somewhat controversially, i believe).

Diary of a Lost Girl is 24fps, so there's no reason why it shouldn't be progressive.

Schreck -- NTSC is 29.97 fps, not 24. It uses something called 3:2 pulldown to render 24fps at 29.97.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3:2_pulldown#3:2_pulldown

Whenever a telecine is done in NTSC or PAL it can cause huge problems for DVD encoding dependent on the original framerate of the film, and whether you want to then make a DVD in another format. Making an interlaced DVD in either format is the easy route every time.

An HD telecine of a 24fps film done 'properly' (progressively) in 24fps makes everything marvellous for future DVD encoding in any format. The real problem, when it comes to 'video' formats, are films that run at less than 24fps.

---

Denti -- the METROPOLIS film restoration was done at 25fps (like BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ). The MoC METROPOLIS DVD is rendered to 25fps PAL from 25fps film.

peerpee wrote:An HD telecine of a 24fps film done 'properly' (progressively) in 24fps makes everything marvellous for future DVD encoding in any format. The real problem, when it comes to 'video' formats, are films that run at less than 24fps.

...unless, presumably, they're at a rate that's an exact fraction of 24fps. So Derek Jarman's Super 8 films, shot at 3fps (which was as much a money-saving measure as an aesthetic one) should transfer progressively with no problem.

Unfortunately, most silents are somewhere between 16 and 24fps, which doesn't help!

This section, headed "DVDs", is also key:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3:2_pulldown#DVDs

The more I learn about all this, the more I loathe "video"; its multiple formats; and its 25/29.97fps straitjackets.

The sad thing (for non-24fps silent film enthusiasts) is that BluRay/HD-DVD are also "video" based technologies, like DVD.

It seems that once we get away from "video" and can utilise pure progressive imagery natively in ANY speed, we'll have a fantastic system. But this system already exists via specially-encoded full res HD Quicktime on computers!

The new format is sat there waiting for us, and it doesn't involve 'video standards' (DVD, Bluray, or HD-DVD) -- just a decent HTPC (or my preferred "HTMac").

peerpee wrote:It seems that once we get away from "video" and can utilise pure progressive imagery natively in ANY speed, we'll have a fantastic system. But this system already exists via specially-encoded full res HD Quicktime on computers!

Indeed, though presumably the problem is that the files would be tens of gigabytes - though a 50 gigabyte Blu-Ray disc should be able to hold a feature. But quite what the market would be for a Quicktime file that needs to be played off a Blu-Ray disc onto a PC/Mac, I'm not sure!

Yes Denti is a wild-- daft-- beast of a man behind that quiet demeanor. He actually looks a LOT like the dude in the Simpsons toon in his avatar-- which is why he probably uses it I wager.

No actually in all seriously Dent and I had a nice time, a couple weeks ago we went to see HANDS UP at MoMa, the great old silent comedy with the OTHER great Griffith from the silent era, and it was genuinely funny as hell. My only complaint was when he went walking up and down the aisles right inna middle of the flick hustling tourists for stand-up sex. It was a bit embarassing, not because I found out that he was a prostitute by trade, but that everyone kept turning him down. And of COURSE I was joking Dent is not a heroin addict-- (he was on huge amounts of acid though).

Thanks for the clarification Nick, I know my explanations were probably a bit off technically. I've a strange fascination with telecine & transfers in general, but have never performed one, and understand it more in concept rather than practice.

As a maker of 18fps 16mm films this is an issue which has been bothering me for the last year during my project to transfer my films to video. I tried many different encoding methods, both pal and ntsc, in an attempt to represent the 18fps as best I could in mpeg2. The best I could come up with was to slow the film to 15fps and then encode to NTSC at 30fps resulting in the film running slower but with each 1 frame of film represented exactly by 2 frames of video. At least the rhythms and frame structure were correct even if it was rather too slow.

Recently however I had a breakthrough. I always had an idea that if it was possible to use pulldown to encode 24fps progressive film using 29.97fps NTSC video then surely it should be possible to apply the same principle to other frame rates. It seemed that this had to be possible but I couldn't find a way of actually encoding the MPEG 2 with the necessary pulldown pattern. Then I discovered a useful application called DGPulldown, a piece of software for applying pulldown to MPEG2 files. The useful thing is that it has an option for applying custom pulldown patterns.

Using this software I was able to encode an 18fps test file progressively using PAL MPEG2. In order to do this I took my original file which was a true progressive 18fps avi file, I increased the speed so it ran at 25fps using VirtualDub, then I encoded it as an MPEG2 file running at 25fps. This resulted in a true progressive MPEG2 version of my original file, only running far too fast. Then I loaded this MPEG2 file into DGPulldown. I selected the custom option and entered 18 --> 25 in the boxes. To my amazement this resulted in an 18fps progressive MPEG2 file. The file was exactly the same size as the original 25fps MPEG2 file except that it is now displayed at 18fps - originally it played for 10 seconds but the new file with pulldown plays for 14. I think it actually is the exact same file in terms of frame content, but when it is played with a DVD player (I am using PowerDVD) the pulldown pattern causes it to be displayed at 18fps.

To make sure that I could evaluate the rhythmic integrity of the encoded file I used a simple strobe as my test file - simply 1 frame white, 1 frame black, 1 frame white, 1 frame black etc. The final 18fps pulldown MPEG2 file displays this pattern very evenly without any noticeable stuttering in the rhythm. Also if I step through the frames I see white - black - white - black - white - black etc. Power DVD indicates that the file is progressive and it all seems to play rather nicely. I need to do a lot more tests however, to ensure that the file is fully compliant with DVD standard.

This was all made easier by the fact that my films are silent. With sound films there would be additional difficulties although I think I know a way to resolve these problems but I'm not going to go into it now.

One other issue that I ran up against is that the maximum pulldown that can be applied to an MPEG2 file is to 2 thirds of the original speed. This means with PAL the slowest you can go with pulldown is 16.667fps and with NTSC the slowest is 19.98fps. In order to encode an 18fps (or slower) film in NTSC MPEG2 you would need to either add a few duplicate frames to make the framerate up to 19.98fps, or run the film slightly too fast at 20fps resulting in better rendering of motion but with NTSC speedup (!).

The whole thing is very confusing and I still haven't got my head around it all yet. I may have made a few errors in describing all this but I think the gist is correct. So far I have only experimented using test files and I have not actually encoded any of my films, but it does seem to be possible to encode 18fps material progressively with PAL MPEG2. Has anyone else experimented with DGPulldown?

Let me preface my remarks by saying I have poor technical abilities and most of what you are all saying is WAY above my head. I'm simply a film fan and not an industry insider but here are my two cents.

When shopping for a TV last spring I bought into the mindset that I had to go plasma or LCD flat screen because conventional wisdom says these are state of the art. Well, as we all know, sometimes conventional wisdom blows. In visiting stores and watching countless models they all seemed lacking in displaying motion. Blurring, ghosting, jaggies, etc. The answers I got from the store people ranged from the inept ("This is a brand new floor model so it hasn't been broken in yet") to the technically confounding ("The bi-capacitor in certain aspect ratio's infringes upon the flux pulldown so it'll appear blurry about .00001% of the time blah blah blah"). So eventually I came to the conclusion that all plasma and LCD TV's suck. Call me overly simplistic but I trust my eyes because I can't use anybody elses.

Then I watched a DLP projector and I was sold. I am convinced that projectors lead the way because of their internal de-interlacing hardware, with the industry leader being the Faruoja (sic?) chips. I set my old DVD player to non-progressive and the projector handles everything I throw at it perfectly. R2 silent movies that are interlaced - Looks great. R1 silent movies that are interlaced - Looks great. R2 progressive silent - looks great. The ghosting shown by DVD Beaver in certain KINO screen caps? Never seen it in my life, and I've watched Battleship Potemkin and Dr. Mabuse this week. MOC's Faust too, and I must say that was the best transfer of a silent I've yet experienced. No jaggies from my projectors de-interlacer. But if I was watching these on a plasma, I too might very well have visual problems with flicker and ghosting because (and correct me if I'm wrong) these are display devices which do not have any de-interlacing hardware in them. They are completely reliant upon the DVD players de-interlacer (which might very well suck no matter how much you paid for the player!). The very best de-interlacing comes from in-display hardware (i.e. projectors!). So beware of reviews beating the interlaced/progressive and pal-to-ntsc horses to death and simply buy a piece of equipment that has a top notch de-interlacer and is pleasing to your eyes.

Petty Bourgeoisie wrote:I set my old DVD player to non-progressive and the projector handles everything I throw at it perfectly. R2 silent movies that are interlaced - Looks great. R1 silent movies that are interlaced - Looks great. R2 progressive silent - looks great. The ghosting shown by DVD Beaver in certain KINO screen caps? Never seen it in my life, and I've watched Battleship Potemkin and Dr. Mabuse this week.

My experience of this is largely the same as yours. I use my computer to watch DVDs with PowerDVD. I find my computer monitor to produce better images than any TV I've ever seen. The de-interlacing filters on PowerDVD 6.0 and higher versions are absolutely superb (as long as you have the right settings). I never experience the combing that can be seen in DVD Beaver screen captures. In fact this seems to be largely a compatibility problem rather than a problem with interlaced DVDs. If you are playing interlaced discs on a system that is not set up to deinterlace them then the problem is really with the system. However with more people moving to progessive systems there needs to be a move towards progressive DVDs. If you author interlaced DVDs these days then a lot of people are going to experience problems with combing etc. Progressive encoding gives a far better digital representation of the way film really is, with successive full clear frames that cut sharply from one to the next. There's no doubt that progressive is the future and I certainly think that is a good thing but it's a shame that many players and displays don't seem to be set up to handle interlaced material properly.

There are also instances where the ghosting is actually nothing to do with the deinterlacing of the dvd. The ghost images are actually encoded into the dvd due to bad conversion practices. It's not simply that the fields are being displayed incorrectly due to a lack of deinterlacing. I think this is the case with many of the Kino DVDs that have this problem (although I rarely notice it in motion and Kino are getting much better lately as well). I believe combing is a very different problem, caused by viewing interlaced DVDs on a system with inadequate de-interlacing capabilities.

Petty Bourgeoisie wrote:So eventually I came to the conclusion that all plasma and LCD TV's suck. Call me overly simplistic but I trust my eyes because I can't use anybody elses.

This was precisely my impression when I wet out to buy a new TV two years ago. Not a single Plasma/LCD set out there that was at all affordable I found watchable. A projector was out of the question due to lack of projecting space, so I settled down to a 16:9 TUBE set, which cost about a third of (image- and sizewise) comparable Plasma/LCD sets and which of course didn't display the phenomena you describe, and I'm still rather happy with it. The only problem is that it weighs over 60 kg....

I guess the situation has changed over these last two years. Last time I was in a store I had a brief look at more modern Plasmas/LCDs, and the image was far, far better, so I guess you'd be able to find an acceptable set nowadays (and tube TVs seem to have disappeared completely, anyway).