Interlaced VC-1

[ematthys]

I was able to rip what I believe is an interlaced vc-1 blu-ray with MakeMKV, but now I can't play the mkv with VLC or Plex (the audio plays but the video does not) and I can't encode it with Handbrake.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how to handle these kinds of blu-rays? I am on a Mac but could go into Windows to encode something if necessary.

| + A track
| + Track number: 1
| + Track UID: 1
| + Track type: video
| + Enabled: 1
| + Default flag: 1
| + Forced flag: 0
| + Lacing flag: 0
| + MinCache: 0
| + Timecode scale: 1
| + Max BlockAddition ID: 0
| + Codec ID: V_MS/VFW/FOURCC
| + Codec decode all: 1
| + CodecPrivate, length 74 (FourCC: WVC1, 0x31435657)
| + Default duration: 33.367ms (29.970 fps for a video track)
| + Video track
| + Pixel width: 1920
| + Pixel height: 1080
| + Interlaced: 0
| + Display height: 1080
| + Display width: 1920
| + Display unit: 0 (pixels)

[setarip_old]

Hi!

I am on a Mac but could go into Windows to encode something if necessary.

Try the following:

In Windows, if not already installed, install the latest version of "FFDShow" - and in the "Video decoder configuration" section, set VC-1 to "WMV9" (or "libavcodec" if that doesn't do the trick). Try playing the already-created MKV in Windows Media Player.

If you still have the same non-video playback, now that you've installed and set "FFDShow", start from scratch and in Windows use MakeMKV to convert the BluRay movie to an .MKV file.

What is the title and region of your original BluRay disc?

[Marc_G]

Hi folks,

I have some experience with interlaced VC-1 (admittedly, all on the Windows platform). The experience is: it's the devil; run far, run fast.

Actually there's nothing wrong with the format or encoding scheme but because it is rare, few players can deal with it.

In my case, I wound up using Cyberlink to play the disc rather than fuss with it excessively. It was Torchwood Season 3: Children of the Earth. Encoded VC1 1080i. Couldn't get anything to play it in MPC-HC (FFDSHOW or any of the other things at the time, last fall I think). It would play for a second or two then bomb horribly with terrible video artifacts, stuttering, etc..

If you do some searches on The Green Button and AVSForum using keywords like interlaced 1080i and maybe my username there Marc_G you will find some potentially helpful replies, but they all involved a lot more trouble than mounting the disc and watching the content.

Good luck, and I welcome any news you find on this, whatever platform you use.

Marc

[NomadCF]

no need to run from it, But you will need to send it though a decent decoder & re-encoder, and deinterlacer for good measure. I find that using xvid4psp along with these movies cleans them up real nice. I had the same issues with the 1st or was it the second release of 5th Element (on of them was just a Huge HD mpeg and the other was VC-1). Yes I shamefully own them both... But anyways back to my point. If you run the movie though something like xvid4psp you can clean it up and reencode it as h264 progressive.

My Steps,
1. Rip the movie with MakeMKV
2. Run it though XVID4PSP (make sure to just have it copy the audio, unless you want to re-encode it).
3, Watch and enjoy the movie

[Marc_G]

Great info NomadCF... I'll give it a whirl on some testbed files I've got.

[seantnichols]

I am trying to re-encode Plants from the BBC Life series and i'm hitting walls at every turn. I installed xvid4psp, loaded it all up and when I hit the encode button it fails telling me that "Interlaced VC-1 decoding is not implemented." WHAAA? Do I need to use an older version? The file is in mkv and even plays beautiful in Windows Media Player with no extra codecs. Not sure what else to do...

[crowfax]

"Interlaced VC-1 decoding is not implemented

VC-1 is a Microsoft codec.

plays beautiful in Windows Media Player

Because VC-1 is a Microsoft codec.

xvid4psp, loaded it all up and when I hit the encode button it fails

xvid4psp is not Microsoft software.

You're witnessing first-hand the problem with propitiatory formats.

[rachel]

In fact the open source decoders (most importantly for xbmc/handbrake users, ffmpeg) can read *progressive* VC1 just fine. It is only interlaced that seems to be beyond them at the moment.

I'm also a Mac/Linux user, and use Handbrake there, but for those disks, and they're mostly BBC disks, I use RipBot264 on Windows in a Virtualbox virtual machine. It's the only thing I have to start up Windows for these days. There seems to be no real way around this I'm afraid. RipBot264 is largely a front-end to AVISynth and x264, and can use DirectShow (ie: Windows Media Player codec support) to decode the input file.

So my recommendation is RipBot264.

[Marc_G]

So far I have tried all the tools tried in this thread on Win7x64 and none have successfully converted a 1080i VC-1 file to something playable on MPC-HC or anything else I've tried.

Windows media player on my systems (Win 7 x86 and x64) don't play 1080i VC1 mkvs.

Marc