Dragon Ball TV series DVDs: blue bricks vs singles

[eledoremassis02]

Watching the episode where Goku starts the final battle with King Piccolo.

Does the blue bricks have this problem? I know Dead Zone (Pioneer and Tripple Strike) dvd has this issue

[Metalwario64]

That seems to be an issue with deinterlacing. The Blue Bricks are progressive scan, so there are no artifacts like that.

[Danfun64]

How were the singles interlaced? Is a simple IVTC not good enough to prevent issues like these? What would the best way to deinterlace the singles be?

What about the GT singles vs the Green Bricks? Seeing as they're both interlaced, is one worse at being deinterlaced than the other (putting aside the dub OP/ED of the singles for now)?

[Robo4900]

I know Dead Zone (Pioneer and Tripple Strike) dvd has this issue

Triple Strike is the Ultimate Uncut DVD, right?

Assuming that's the case, you are wrong. The DVD itself IVTCs fine. Any issues like this would be 100% from your deinterlacer/media player/video encoder on that particular DVD.

That seems to be an issue with deinterlacing.

Most likely, yes. I would guess either OP is deinterlacing instead of IVTCing, or this particular DVD, at this particular moment, has a weird glitch (which can happen).

That, or OP is watching the Australian PAL DVDs instead of the American NTSC DVDs.

The Blue Bricks are progressive scan, so there are no artifacts like that.

Incorrect. The bricks, just like literally every NTSC DVD ever, are interlaced. Literally the only way to get a progressive image on a DVD is if you have native 30fps material on an NTSC DVD (which never happens. I am not aware of a single NTSC DVD that does this, and I'd be surprised if there is even a single one that exists), or native 25fps material on a PAL DVD (which is fairly standard for material sourced from 24fps masters).

The Blue Bricks are sourced from the same masters as the singles, which are interlaced at 29.97 frames per second, which in real terms, is 59.94 fields per second. (Both rounded to two decimal places)
But, these masters were sourced from film reels that ran at 23.976 fps (three decimal places. From here on out, I'll be using the shorthand of 30fps, 60fps, and 24fps, as I did in the above paragraph, but remember that they're all slightly less than that).
The way they transfer 24fps film material to 30/60 tape is by 3:2 pulldown; essentially, 24 progressive frames are created, then you break those up into odd and even fields, 48 in total, then you double half of those fields up, making 60 fields per second.
This process can be reversed by an IVTC filter.

Most likely the singles were pressed directly from the interlaced master tapes, while the blue bricks had an IVTC'd intermediary to allow them to apply their hyper-aggressive DVNR process. But since DVD is mandatorily 30/60 fps tape frames/fields, (or 25/50 fps in PAL; not rounded. PAL actually uses neat whole numbers), they have to 3:2 pulldown it still. So the bricks are still interlaced.

Alternately, there's the possibility that OP is watching a PAL DVD from the Australian singles, in which case, the IVTC'd 30/60 fps single had 10 frames/20 fields in every 30/60 blended together to halve that number to 5/10, bringing it down to 25/50 fps, which fits on a PAL DVD.

How were the singles interlaced? Is a simple IVTC not good enough to prevent issues like these? What would the best way to deinterlace the singles be?

Indeed.
I believe the problem here is OP is likely watching using a deinterlacer rather than an IVTC. Though it may go deeper than that; some DVDs have weird issues that make certain specific episodes/shots have issues like this pop up even with a proper IVTC. Two or three episodes of DB from the Dragon Boxes have this issue in one or two shots. And I've seen this issue pop up in my personal copy of the NTSC Broly 1 DVD single (though admittedly, I am not 100% sure this wasn't just my media player screwing up).

Another possibility is OP is watching a PAL DVD single that's been blended.

What about the GT singles vs the Green Bricks? Seeing as they're both interlaced, is one worse at being deinterlaced than the other (putting aside the dub OP/ED of the singles for now)?

Both the GT singles and bricks should IVTC fine. The singles are just the GT Dragon Boxes with less-good encoding and without the slight DNR that Toei/Pony Canyon applied for their DVD release. The Green Bricks are just that with Funi's own super-heavy DNR, though with decent encoding.

[LostTimeLord]

The bricks, just like literally every NTSC DVD ever, are interlaced. Literally the only way to get a progressive image on a DVD is if you have native 30fps material on an NTSC DVD.

The "blue bricks" aren't interlaced, but the "green bricks" are. As I understand it, the actual video is encoded in 24fps and the player adds the extra fields to output a 60hz NTSC video. If you rip the files or disable player deinterlacing, only the green bricks will have interlacing artefacts (this is also why VLC plays some DVDs so jerkily, it thinks the video should be 30fps and keeps pausing as the video track gets too far ahead).

[Robo4900]

The "blue bricks" aren't interlaced, but the "green bricks" are. As I understand it, the actual video is encoded in 24fps and the player adds the extra fields to output a 60hz NTSC video. If you rip the files or disable player deinterlacing, only the green bricks will have interlacing artefacts (this is also why VLC plays some DVDs so jerkily, it thinks the video should be 30fps and keeps pausing as the video track gets too far ahead).

No. That's not how any of that works, you're only looking at the surface-level output, there's far more going on under the hood, and as a result, you're spreading total misinformation. BOTH are interlaced. Read my post again, that's how it works. 24fps video is encoded onto a DVD by splitting the odd and even lines into 48 fields (a field is half a frame displayed at double the rate), doubling up every few fields to pad it out to 60 fields, which is equivalent to 30 frames per second, because NTSC format DVDs (which is the format American DVDs, as well as Japanese DVDs, are in) ARE ALWAYS 30 frames per second/60 fields per second. ALWAYS. This is a fixture of commercial DVD format.

The reason why the files from the Green Bricks come out without any visible interlacing artefacts is because it's properly flagged in the IFO files in a way that most modern ripping software detects the pulldown pattern and IVTCs it as a matter of course (IVTC being a process of it removing all the duplicate fields to restore the original 24fps video).
I said it's a fixture of DVD format that NTSC DVDs are 30fps; it is also a fixture that they are encoded as interlaced. But if a DVD uses pulldown, and it's properly flagged, it can appear to be a progressive 24fps image in certain software that saves you the trouble of having to apply an IVTC yourself. So you get the illusion that it's a 24fps progressive DVD. But, some DVDs aren't flagged in the ways necessary for the software to autodetect it, so you do have to apply it yourself in those cases.

Both the Green Bricks, and the Blue Bricks use this interlaced format. As do the Orange Bricks, the Dragon Boxes, the singles of every kind, and every other DVD you can think of that isn't either a PAL-format movie, or something that was produced natively interlaced.
The reason VLC sometimes gets screwy is because it uses the wrong deinterlacing method. For instance, it might think the top field is first, when it should be the bottom field. Or it might use straight deinterlacing instead of an IVTC (or vice versa).

It's much like how it would be foolish to say that a widescreen DVD is higher resolution than a 4:3 DVD, because obviously since both are 480p (or 480i, or 576i, or 576p; in any case, it means 480 pixels tall or 576 pixels tall), you'd think widescreen means more pixels, means higher resolution... But in fact, all NTSC DVDs are 720x480 resolution, and all PAL DVDs are 720x576 resolution (720 width has nothing to do with 720p, for what it's worth. 480p/576p/720p/1080p/etc. refers to the frame height, not width). There's a flag in the DVD files that tells the DVD player whether to stretch that image to a 4:3 or 16:9 frame on playback.
Yes, if you rip or play the DVD, it will look to the output, on the surface, as if you're getting an 854x480 output out of a widescreen DVD, while only getting 640x480 out of a 4:3 DVD, but in actuality, both are on the DVD as a 720x480 file, just with a little flag that tells the player how to deal with it.
It's just like how an interlaced DVD copy of a progressive image (such as a Dragon Ball DVD) sometimes contains the relevant flags to force the output to restore the progressive original. It's just that with interlacing, particularly pulldown, some DVDs have it flagged weirdly, so not all players/rippers handle it right, creating the illusion that, for instance, some DVDs of Dragon Ball are progressive, some are interlaced, despite the source footage being progressive 24fps.
All NTSC DVDs are 720x480@30i, and all PAL DVDs are 720x576@25i.
Progressive material can be put on these interlaced formats (pulldown, as I described earlier, can put a progressive 24fps image onto a 30i DVD, and a progressive 24fps image can be sped up slightly to 25fps, and put on a 25i DVD, essentially making it progressive in all the ways that matter), but it's totally wrong to say that one of two different 24fps NTSC DVDs are progressive while the other is interlaced; the fact is, both are interlaced, and both are so as a proxy for a progressive image that can be recovered through a simple IVTC filter.

Sorry for the long post.
TL;DR:
DVDs are a complicated mess, and interlaced video is an even more complicated mess. Trying to understand how these interact is an easy way to madness.
But, technically ALL DVDs are interlaced, even the ones sourced from progressive masters, such as all Dragon Ball DVDs,* it's just that some are better at hiding their shame. But even those, you can coerce the original progressive image out of them with a manually-applied IVTC.

*Except for the edited dubs, which have various complications from things like sped-up footage.

[LostTimeLord]

The reason why the files from the Green Bricks come out without any visible interlacing artefacts is because it's properly flagged in the IFO files in a way that most modern ripping software detects the pulldown pattern.
[...]
Both the Green Bricks, and the Blue Bricks use this interlaced format. As do the Orange Bricks, the Dragon Boxes, the singles of every kind[...]
[...]
The reason VLC sometimes gets screwy is because it uses the wrong deinterlacing method.

To be clear, it's the "Green Bricks" (and pre-"remastered" movies/singles) which have interlacing artefacts. The Blue ones (and DBoxes/"remastered" movies) have none, even if I manually turn off de-interlacing in VLC/MPC/PowerDVD. If I open the original video stream (ripped with MakeMKV/MKV Extract without re-encoding) in Vegas Pro, DB's video is identified as progressive/23.976fps while GT is interlaced (upper field first)/29.97fps (Media Player Classic also identifies the MKV files this way, though VLC thinks they're both 30fps). So there are frames in the video (duped ones) that can't be seen, even using a video editor?

It's much like how it would be foolish to say that a widescreen DVD is higher resolution than a 4:3 DVD.

I don't see the relevance of this. I understand how anamorphic DVDs work.

But regardless of how it's done technically, the "Blue Bricks" display the original frame rate in a more reliable way than the singles or "Green bricks" do.

[Robo4900]

To be clear, it's the "Green Bricks" (and pre-"remastered" movies/singles) which have interlacing artefacts. The Blue ones (and DBoxes/"remastered" movies) have none, even if I manually turn off de-interlacing in VLC/MPC/PowerDVD. If I open the original video stream (ripped with MakeMKV/MKV Extract without re-encoding) in Vegas Pro, DB's video is identified as progressive/23.976fps while GT is interlaced (upper field first)/29.97fps (Media Player Classic also identifies the MKV files this way, though VLC thinks they're both 30fps). So there are frames in the video (duped ones) that can't be seen, even using a video editor?

There are FIELDS that you're not seeing, yes. Because your ripping software is detecting that it's just pulldown, so the duplicate fields are being ignored to restore the original 23.976fps video. But both are equally worthy of being called progressive or interlaced. Both are stored on the DVD as 29.97fps interlaced, but both are correctly rendered by a video player in the modern day by running an IVTC to restore the original 23.976fps video frames.

I don't see the relevance of this. I understand how anamorphic DVDs work.

Yes. And therefore, you understand how the way something is stored on the DVD isn't necessarily relevant to what it actually is; a 3:2 video on a DVD can either display as 4:3 or 16:9, despite it being neither 4:3 or 16:9 on the DVD.
Therefore, you can understand how this relates to pulldown video -- pulldown video is stored on the DVD as interlaced, but your PC should play it back by IVTC, creating a 23.976fps progressive video. Much like how your PC should play back a DVD by stretching it to 4:3 or 16:9. It's just that your ripping/playback software isn't completely correctly detecting the pulldown pattern on the Green Bricks (probably the Green Bricks were released first, and Funi didn't know how to properly flag pulldown patterns on their DVDs at that time, so they just kept it flagged as interlaced for CRT TVs), so it assumes it's pure interlaced. Even though it is pulldown.

But regardless of how it's done technically, the "Blue Bricks" display the original frame rate in a more reliable way than the singles or "Green bricks" do.

Irrelevant. This is equivalent to saying "This chocolate bar without a wrapper is much more easily accessible as delicious chocolate than this chocolate bar with a wrapper on it. So the one without the wrapper is much more reliably delicious chocolate"
They're both still chocolate. You just have neglected to remove the wrapping from one of them.

Run a manual IVTC on the ones that are being detected as 29.97 interlaced video, and you should get proper 24fps visuals out.

[LostTimeLord]

They're both still chocolate. You just have neglected to remove the wrapping from one of them.

But only one of them has a chance of the flavour being ruined by accidentally eating the wrapper with the chocolate. My point is that the "Blue Bricks" are recognised as 24p to the point where there's no way of even seeing the interlaced frames (by which I mean video frames containing a field from two different film frames), so deinterlacing issues shouldn't crop up.

Both are stored on the DVD as 29.97fps interlaced, but both are correctly rendered by a video player in the modern day by running an IVTC to restore the original 23.976fps video frames.

The reason I'm not convinced is that I can't see actual evidence of those 'interlaced frames' existing on the disc. DB is treated as either 24p or really jerky 30p; this is the case even if I look at the original MPEG 2 stream in Avidemux or Vegas Pro. I'm actively looking for the 'half-and-half' frames you get with 3:2 pulldown without any filtering and can't find them. DBGT, however, is always recognised as 29.97i and those interlaced frames are immediately visible unless deinterlacing is used.

[Robo4900]

But only one of them has a chance of the flavour being ruined by accidentally eating the wrapper with the chocolate. My point is that the "Blue Bricks" are recognised as 24p to the point where there's no way of even seeing the interlaced frames (by which I mean video frames containing a field from two different film frames), so deinterlacing issues shouldn't crop up.

Yes.

But again, the flavour would be ruined only because of the person holding the chocolate being an utter goober. And the one without the wrapper is only missing its wrapper because it was removed before you saw it. It was still delivered with the wrapper on it, you just didn't see it.

The reason I'm not convinced is that I can't see actual evidence of those 'interlaced frames' existing on the disc. DB is treated as either 24p or really jerky 30p; this is the case even if I look at the original MPEG 2 stream in Avidemux or Vegas Pro. I'm actively looking for the 'half-and-half' frames you get with 3:2 pulldown without any filtering and can't find them. DBGT, however, is always recognised as 29.97i and those interlaced frames are immediately visible unless deinterlacing is used.

Avidemux and Vegas Pro are very heavily aimed at people who aren't experts at this stuff, and thus are very helpful in that they will also recognise the pulldown and remove the duplicate frames. Because there's basically no situation in which you would need to see the still-interlaced video. So, if they see something that's properly flagged such that they know how it's pulled down, and fix it as a matter of course.

Again, it's the chocolate wrapper. You don't need to see it, so most programs don't show it to you. That doesn't mean the wrapper doesn't exist.
Commercial DVD format literally does not allow 24p to be a thing. You can literally ONLY have 29.97i on NTSC, and ONLY 25i on PAL. That's it. No exceptions.

Try VirtualDub, if you still don't believe me.

[kei17]

Looks like a chroma blending error caused by inappropriately treating 4:2:0 chroma subsampling.

[LostTimeLord]

Try VirtualDub, if you still don't believe me.

Well, bugger me.

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