1920x1080 24/25/30fps Test Patterns - detect pulldown issues

The following are updated Test Patterns to help discern any video judder issues in mismatches between frame rates and refresh rate.

Test Files: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JEH1719D These Frame Rate Test files are a high bit rate 1920 x 1080 MPEG2 (with a blank AC3 sound track so it works with Reclock) in a M2T container taking up about 1GB each (but all three are in the 45MB Zip File) and include files encoded to refresh rates used in:
* Blu-ray (24 unique frames encoded at 23.976fps)
* PAL (25fps)
* NTSC (30 unique frames encoded at 29.97fps)

How To Use: Each file has a set of unique images that repeat every second for five minutes so you have plenty of time to observer how smooth the video is rendered. Change your monitor refresh rate to match that of the file you are going to play, then play it and keep your Eye on how smoothly the Red Dot moves across the screen. It should be nice and smooth but you may see issues such as pauses (repeating frames) or jumping forward a bit (dropping frames).

For "fun" or for those that don't think telecline judder as used by NTSC transfers looks bad, just play the 23.976 file back on your monitor/TV set at 60hz!

EDIT: I've noticed that these test files also highlight more than just the fluidity of video playback:
Pulldown / Frame Interpolation: One thing I've noticed that is interesting with the test files, it shows you what pull down and frame interpolation is being applied by the PC and/or TV. Each of the test files is only encoded with only 1 red square per frame. So when playing say the NTSC test file (29.97) you see two red squares when played at 60hz...in this case (I guess) the video renderer or TV displays each frame twice but overlaps them with the following frame. Now the interesting thing is when I play the Blu-ray test file (23.976) at 24hz I see 3 red boxs on my setup. As this is not being done in the PC, it looks like it must be the TV doing a 3:3 frame interpolation (though the documentation on the PIO LX608 is pretty vague on it's settings and options here).
Pixel Refresh: I also notice a very faint red trail (an erratic scattering of pixels) trailing the red box for a couple of mm at most


For these that are interested and if there are any odd visual artifacts, these test files were made form individual PNG slides, authored in Vegas and rendered using the MainConcept encoder.

Enjoy,
Nathan

You will also get this any time there is a difference between the fps of the source material and the frequency of the monitor. For instance if you play 25fps material on a 60hz monitor, most frames will be repeated twice but some will need to be repeated 3 times...or, on a 50hz monitor when playing 30fps material 10 frames per second will need to be dropped. Depending how your HW handles this and your sensitivity to it you may be annoyed at the effect.

Some of the Pulldown patterns are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine

Done (updated download link in Post 1) now also includes a:
- 23.976 version of the 24 segment and a
- 29.97 version of the 30 segment test pattern

To make a 60 sec version you could just binary copy 3 of the 20sec clips together (else the download size will blow out)

Ok - I'll make some longer patterns and change the marking to show both the frames they contain and the frequency encoded at, eg:
- 24fps @ 23.976
etc....

Updated the first post with longer (now 60sec) and more test files. Also please read the note regarding the stuff encoded at 23.976 or 29.97.

It "should" be smoothest when you TV is at the same refresh rate (or a multiple off) the fps of the test file you are playing. Eg if your TV is doing 50hz (which I presume if you are in Europe) then the 25fps should be the best as each segment of the test patter is just displayed twice. The 30fps when played on a 50hz TV would have some segments played twice and some only once giving a not so smooth result (unless it is changing to 60hz). etc etc

If the 30fps stuff is smoother than the others it may be that your TV is playing them back at 60hz OR that you simply just prefer a higher fps over pull down judder from mismtatched frame rates and frequences!

Updated the First Post with new (and "better") test pattern files based on Blu-ray, NTSC, and PAL refresh rate encodes.

Thanks - fixed and updated some content on the first post again

Here they are again (45MB in one Zip) - this time at DropBox if that helps!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59011278/FrameRateTestFiles.zip

FYI - I tried taking a photo of how my Kuro displays the 24fps test pattern but that just does not work so I mocked up what I see in paint (sort off). It looks like this in with Drive Mode 2 and with PureCinema set to "Advance" and the group of three red squares then travels diagonally. With it OFF it is five squares, if it is the other two settings it seems to alternate between two and three. As mentioned, in the test file each individual frames moves the red square completely so they touch but don't overlap - it seems the Kuro interpolates.


I should say I only see this on the Kuro - if I run the same test patterns on my PC's LCD screen there are no separate images as the red box moves (but other issues like blur and very evident strobing on the black white boarder area).