"Downton Abbey" on PBS - Page 3

Not much to add to the conversation, but I loved the 'Season 2' premiere that aired tonight on PBS. I really had to use the bathroom, but I dared not move! I didn't want to miss a thing (I don't have a DVR).

NBCU is staffed with idiots that have ties too tight around their necks. They can quote me.

I too would have preferred a correct release in the U.K., so that I could have purchased it. Doctor Who is done correctly, but not so this NBCU property.

I prefer releases from the original source. I purchase Doctor Who DVDs in order to get the 576i version, instead of the inferior 480i version.

Without credits, it runs 1:50:07, Therefore, about 8 minutes are missing.

The PBS version appears to be a 25i to 29.97i conversion, as a 25i to straight 24p submaster (with speed change), would have 2:3 pulldown when converted to 29.97.

It doesn't.

Yep - would expect a 50i to 59.94i conversion for the broadcast version for all sorts of reasons. Presumably this wasn't a 25p to 29.97p conversion so the motion loses a bit of the 'film look'? (I've a R1 480i DVD of Daniel Deronda - 25p film converted from a 50i master to 59.94i and the motion interpolation definitely alters the 'film look' on movement)

(NB for 50i read i25 or 59.94i read i29.97 if you prefer that nomenclature)

this show is so good!

happy to have it back

Just learned about this marvelous series yesterday and watched the Season 1 episode that PBS aired last night. I was blown away and am looking forward to Season 2. I was pleased to find the region free BDs of the Season 1 complete ITV series on the Amazon UK website and ordered it for what I regarded to be a reasonable price. I am a happy camper. I now plan to order Season 2 from Amazon US before it is released on February 7.

Question here. First of all, we've been hooked since Episode 1 last year. A fine way for us to end our Sunday evening (comes on a 9pm PST on our local PBS).

What I've noticed though is that there seems to be slight juddering at times (OTA). However, we streamed (from Netflix) the last 3 episodes of Season 1 New Year's Day just to get us back up to speed and they were perfect. No juddering at all. We don't see juddering on any other OTA broadcasts so I'm wondering if that has something to do with the conversion changes that you are referring to (of which I marginally understand).

@Otto:

Before going any farther, I need to know if your PBS affiliate is 1080i or 720p.

First guess, the Netflix version is sourced from a 24p master - which will be 1:1 frame mapped to the 25p original, with a slow-down rather than frame interpolation. (No motion mangling)

The broadcast version is likely to be a 25p to 59.94i conversion (via a 50i master - standard for UK programme delivery) which will have no speed conversion but will have some motion artefacts from frame interpolation.

@sneals2000

While there is what you mention, I asked about 720p because many PBS stations downconvert the 1080i feed to 720p. It is very possible that their downconverter was having issues trying to create progressive frames out of the screwed up rate converted 1080i frames, resulting in "jutter."

It's 1080i tonight so I'm guessin' it was 1080i for Downton Abbey. All of the other PBS shows we watch don't exhibit the juddering. Nature is fine, it's just Downton Abbey (unless we stream an old episode).

Nature isn't a foreign production with NBCU's paws all over it.

My single test viewing of the episode is via VLC on my computer monitor, which is also an HDTV display. VLC does what it can to remove interlacing and also match it to the computer frame rate. Not the best method to judge the video. But, that said, I can still see basically what you are talking about. Unfortunately it is something you are going to have to live with.

The first series should have had this same problem.

I wonder if there is an AVISynth filter, or combination of filters, that can get this back to 25p?

The 24p slow-downs yes, the 50i to 59.94i conversions no.

The 50i to 59.94i conversions will be using high-end frame vector-tracked motion-compensating interpolation process (likely to be Snell's Alchemist Phase Correlation technology) which would be pretty close to impossible to unpick.

The BBC have developed "Reverse Standards Conversion" for 1970s Doctor Who episodes where the original PAL 50i master tapes were wiped, but crude 1970s 50i to 60i NTSC conversions still exist (effectively unpicking the conversion and delivering a 50i master again) However the techniques used in 1970s conversions and Alchemist are massively different - so it's unlikely a reverse process is going to be possible for a modern conversion.

Haven't heard of 1080i to 720p cross-conversions introducing this - they're usually quite crude (Though some European broadcasters who run 1080i for production and 720p for broadcast - like NRK in Norway - use Alchemists to cross-convert to maximise their conversion quality)

That sucks. There are some pretty smart cookies over on the Doom9 AVISynth forum that do things with AVI filters that amazes me. Who knows, someone just might have something worth trying.

With PBS station budgets not so good, it is had to say how good of a converter it is and how well it handles the 1080i25 to 1080i29.97 video.

But, since the OP's station is not one of them that down converts, that certainly wasn't a factor.

Interested in seeing a piece of the video, with as much motion as I can find?

Just got word from Amazon UK that my BDs of Downton Abbey Season 1 have shipped. Fingers crossed that they will work with my gear. I have a PS3, which is routed via HDMI through a Yamaha RX-v3900 receiver to a Pioneer Kuro 6020 display. I'll report how everything turns out.

Thanks. It's interesting that the original broadcasts are juddery but previous broadcasts streamed from Netflix are fine. BTW, I'm going to show my ignorance here and ask, but what is NBCU and how do they, or it, play into this? It's a shame that Downton Abbey is like this because Inspector Lewis et al don't seem to exhibit juddering like this.

NBCU = NBC Universal . An enormous media conglomerate now controlled by Comcast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nbc_universal

Downtown Abbey is produced by Carnival Films who was bought by NBCU in 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Films

Thank you. And I was hoping by having OTA only and not subscribing to Comcrap, I could get away from their screwing up broadcast shows but I guess not

Technical problems aside, this is marvelous television. The broadcast nets could take a lesson on how to do quality TV from this series.

+1

Which came from a broadcast net in the UK.

ITV1 is the main commercial network in the UK and is the commissioning network for Downton Abbey.

BBC One - the main non-commercial broadcast channel here and ITV1 are quite closely matched in ratings terms (the BBC are often slightly ahead on average - though ITV1 has a few ratings juggernauts)

The Doom9 thread that I started is: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=163769

It seems that the 25 fps was slowed down to 24.975 fps and them converted using the 2:3:2:2:3 conversion pulldown. There is a response noting the pulldown if 25 -> 29.97 was used,.

Why do I think that slowdown was done first? I took a 10 minute sample of the program and did "tdecimate(cycle=30, cycleR=5)" in the AVS script and the whole 10 minutes was converted without issue.

I'm not going to attempt to speed it back up to 25 fps, as I don't really want to tear apart the AC32.0 audio and speed it up as well. As long as the program is, there is a good chance that it will be out-of-sync at the end.

I think my Blu-ray player will play it from a MKV file. Don't know what would happen if I try and author it at 24.975p, since that is an illegal frame rate.

The program looks so much nicer watching it at 24.975p, vs the 2:3:2:2:3 pulldown conversion. The judder is kind-of annoying. VLC even has issues trying to match it to the 60 Hz display rate of the monitor connection, where split screen issues can be seen. At 24.975, the motion is smooth and there are no display issues.

Just noticed this thread. Wife and I love the series. Earlier posts mentioned looking for Season 1 on DVD. For general information, Season 1 is available for streaming from Netflix.

It does. The "fix" is in.

Hmm - I wonder if PBS did the conversion from 25p to 59.94i in the process of adding their own content (rather than taking a pre-converted 59.94i source)

It's unusual for real-time broadcast standards conversion (still routine for long-form programming) to use cadence techniques and for VTRs to do any slow-down other than for "Slow PAL"/"Fast PAL" (i.e. 25/23.976 conversions on replay) - so it suggests Downton's conversion may have been done in a Non Linear Editor (Avid, FCP etc.) where mixed frame rate stuff can be handled more flexibly.

Got to say that the 15 January episode was weak relative to most of the others. Still, the actors/characters are simply fun to watch.

Interesting thought.