Why hasn't Frame Interpolation been integrated to VLC?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

HOWEVER, video sources with jittery motion can use this feature to restore the smooth look they're supposed to have.

I guess that's true.

A free alternative it Potplayer.

Potplayer is not open source.

[thed0ct0r]

I'm not sure why you pointed out that Potplayer isn't open source. I know people are frustrated that VLC is and want this feature. I just wanted to point out a free alternative. Personally I've given up on VLC for quite some time now. The only feature I miss is being able to read video from .iso files. Funny that the the Potplayer loyalists are waiting for that feature. Solution: Use both.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I'm not sure why you pointed out that Potplayer isn't open source. I know people are frustrated that VLC is and want this feature. I just wanted to point out a free alternative.

Because PotPlayer is not free software.

[thed0ct0r]

Yes it is. I've been using it for years. It's the very first thing mentioned in the description.

http://www.videohelp.com/software/potplayer

http://www.dvbsupport.net/

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

No it's not free software.

[thed0ct0r]

What else can I say?

This is the first line in the description on videohelp.com's website: "PotPlayer is a free advanced multimedia player."
This is from videohelp.com. It's one of the best sites you can get for these kinds of questions and answers.

From dvbsupport.net's website:
Daum PotPlayer 1.6.52515 04.02.2015 - Freeware

From DAUM's official website https://potplayer.daum.net/publicRelation
"Article 2 (Obligations of Daum)
(1) Daum grants Users with the right to install and use the Software for free."

As I stated I've been using it for years. I've never been prompted to pay for anything. It has full functionality. I don't understand why you're being so difficult. Either you didn't actually check the webpages, ignored the information given, didn't try the software yourself or you just don't want people to switch to a free multimedia player that does what you want VLC to do. Either way I've offered a very good and free alternative to VLC. Anyone else who's interested can take a look and judge for themselves.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

[thed0ct0r]

Oh good lord. You knew I meant pricing. That was so clever. Do you think this actually impresses anyone? Does doing things like this make you feel superior?

Holy... freaking... wow.

[TheBigTime001]

@thed0ct0r: Just... ...wow. You have the gall to insult a total guru of free software, and he presented facts, and you ignored them. Not only that, but you presented pretty much nothing helpful to this discussion. Please stop trolling. You have been warned.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Oh good lord. You knew I meant pricing. That was so clever. Do you think this actually impresses anyone? Does doing things like this make you feel superior?

Holy... freaking... wow.

You ask why I mention "not open source", I tell you because it's not "free software". I do it in my first answer to you on the topic.

All topics and sticky post speak about it. All the VideoLAN website speak about it.
I am very precise when I speak about free, open source and free software, because they do not mean the same thing. If you don't know the difference, fine, but don't jump on my throat.

So, yes, Potplayer is not an alternative to VLC, as it's not free software. Not to mention that Potplayer is known to violate numerous open source licenses, as it has been said on those forums over and over.
That you like using it, fine, but don't advertise such things here.

Sorry, but you are the aggressive attacking person here.

[thed0ct0r]

I created an account just so that i could suggest a "free" multimedia player for those who really wanted the F.I. feature. When I used the word free it was clear that I was talking about the price. I made the point three times before you decided to direct me to Wikipedia. A simple response like, "What I mean by 'PotPlayer is not free software' is..." a few posts earlier could have avoided all of this. It was obvious that I didn't understand what you meant by free but, instead of educating me, you just kept repeating that it wasn't free software. I was baited and then you were given the opportunity to warn me to stop trolling. That kind of behaviour is very unbecoming.

I don't care whether or not something is free or free/open source or if I have to pay for it so long as it does the job. An alternative is an alternative. Whether or not it's an acceptable one is up to the user.

Peace.

[Douby]

Hi,

I would like to see Motion interpolation feature in VLC. It is awesome for one thing and this is sport matches. Everytime when I downloaded sport match it is captured from TV in 24FPS. Eventhough they are aired mostly in higher FPS. Now this is reason why I have installed two MediaPlayers (and two OS, I have to switch to Windows everytime). It is feature that Iam missing really much.

Thanks

[PredatorianBR]

Just for the record, I bought Splash Pro because of Motion Interpolation. If VLC has the feature it could become my first player.

[zjohn4]

I know this is an older post from a year ago, and I certainly dont want to bring up any hassles that were flaring earlier, but Id like to bring something forward:

Not everyone who uses VLC does so for movies, nor the specific subset who want this feature. If using this feature for a video game video at 30fps, perhaps it could make it look nicer or more like it were truly running on the viewers system. The one video that caused me to search for it was actually a live music performance, professionally filmed in a studio (with audience) and edited, but certainly framage was not a 'design choice', but merely the equipment used likely only recorded in 24 or so. Seeing this in higher frames would make it appear more lifelike or live viewed, which is certainly better in this instance since it was never meant to have a 'filmic' look to it.

But regardless, I understand the open source concept and that a contributor must actually implement this for it to arrive, and so my input is rather useless in getting it done.

[orlleite]

So, I didn't like frame interpolation at first.
I bought a TV with this feature and I saw the soap effect. But I tried to put my feelings of facing the different (higher fps) and I notice this problem was more visible in some movies than others.
So I remember watching Fury 2014, a 68kk movie and I saw camera movements mistakes some pan and he flicks (the hand I don't know) and you cannot see this at the original framerate. 60fps doesn't forgive. Avenger, the first one I think, the actions scenes (they are blurred) and was good.

So I started to think if I'm blaming the framerate when the truth some movies had a bad pos production hinding some mistakes. Sure it is not the case of old movies because they didn't have those technologies.

Anyway, after sometime watching you just can't accept the flickering of a 24~30fps plus that feeling of been cheated by the film-maker budget and there are TV shows that I'm almost sure they don't care about it (that one with some laughs in background). Sport videos look very good too.

But I know this feature is not easy to be applied, these tvs use separeted module accelerated by hardware and just by software it'll consume a lot of resource. And, many people don't even like it.

All this is my rumble opinion. I like VLC and I use it since ... I can't remember.

Thanks for the hard work.

[JustSaying]

@thed0ct0r: Just... ...wow. You have the gall to insult a total guru of free software, and he presented facts, and you ignored them. Not only that, but you presented pretty much nothing helpful to this discussion. Please stop trolling. You have been warned.

I've just registered to post about how much of a bootlicker you are. I love VLC, it is great but get real and behave up to VideoLAN's name if you want to be a big name here. You'll be doing yourself and everyone else a favor in the long run. Even if the president is no better, I'm holding hopes that you still can change. You have been counseled.

[James D]

JB, I can test this patch and would be interested in testing it... it would allow me to have slightly better responses to this, having seen the effects for myself. I am willing to test any feature patches that can be sent my way, because I am in favour of making VLC customisable.

I just registered to ask exactly for some attention of VLC devs because that's all what's needed to enhance video playback of many VLC users. SVP which brings interpolation and smooth video playback managed to invent its features to VLC despite some pushback which lies in VLC code. As I understand it takes nothing but dev's will to let this go and here is explicit detail: as of now you hardcoded 2 video filters by name which are allowed to change the frame rate ("deinterlace" and "postproc").
Are you willing to test this feature as how already hundreds if not thousands users already use VLC with SVP? I am not an SVP developer BTW, I just used to test beta SVP builds but I am a user who likes when everything what we use gets better with time. And I am willing to ask SVP devs for a license key for you (free version doesn't have beta-support of VLC).
As to why this feature is useful, there is no second doubt in it using with anime movies for example. Also I believe tenth of thousands people can't watch regular movies without it, especially action video (racing, sport).

Okay, your comment extrapolates waaay too far. Never was it even implied that JB is against filter. Maybe for some artificially increasing the framerate makes for a nicer movie experience, but there are actual technical reasons why this filter isn't a top candidate for recent development. Pretty much all the other video filters either add or remove data to or from a single frame at a time.
So in this case, whole frames are being invented, based on the difference between two or more frames. As these frames are combinants of multiple data sets (necessary to artificially ease the transition between the frames), they will never be as good as real frames that could exist if the film was shot at a 60 FPS rate. Also, it significantly alters the film from its intended rate.

That is funny but as soon as SVP devs found a way to bypass that hardcoded limitation I mentioned above JB created a commit which closed this opportunity so probably it wasn't exaggeration afterall As about expediency of adding data, people clean and denoise old photos, videos and all that is interpolated based on old information which is considered bad while the result is considered good and satisfying. It just brings both detailed info (like small objects which appear on ~20 frames only) which otherwise you would miss due to big general movement on the screen and removes jerkiness.
P.S. I understand that more proper topic would be VLC player with SVP but these quotes I took from here.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

I just registered to ask exactly for some attention of VLC devs because that's all what's needed to enhance video playback of many VLC users. SVP which brings interpolation and smooth video playback managed to invent its features to VLC despite some pushback which lies in VLC code. As I understand it takes nothing but dev's will to let this go and here is explicit detail: as of now you hardcoded 2 video filters by name which are allowed to change the frame rate ("deinterlace" and "postproc").

A video filter either can change the pictures timeline (delay, reoder, add or remove pictures), or have interactive (i.e. low) latency, but not both. For historical reasons, VLC assumes that filters need the later, or need neither. Special cases were added for deinterlace and postproc as those are the only exception within the VLC code base.

That is simply a quick-and-dirty hack to make VLC work. It predates SVP and is left because nobody volunteered to fix this architectural wart in the VLC code base (I hope that I don't need to remind anybody that VLC is run by volunteers...).

That is funny but as soon as SVP devs found a way to bypass that hardcoded limitation I mentioned above JB created a commit which closed this opportunity so probably it wasn't exaggeration afterall

There are no secrets here: the hard-coded filter list has been in the open for 6 years. I don't know when SVP found the way to work around it, but it was not hidden.

[James D]

I am not here to judge or give opinion about methods which were used in the past, I am standing on the constructive side and suggested you guys to try SVP so that you would agree that such filter deserves to be used by VLC userbase. Be that a new third name of filter to be whitelisted if that is an easiest way or else (i'm not a programmer), afterall wouldn't this be by a spirit of opened software?

P.S. SVP "found" that bypass as soon as devs began looking into it after mass requests from users to make it VLC-capable, obviously.

[Aaronofthe]

If future readers would like a more explicit example of authorial intent and why film and games aren't the same:

https://cinemashock.org/2012/07/30/45-d ... vate-ryan/

Presumably watching saving private ryan with extra frames would make the explosions smoother (because you'd be filling in the spaces between that staccatto effect the author of the article mentioned) and the rest of the film sharper. The impact of the shift between shutter speeds would be less pronounced and the violence less visceral - which negates the creative decision to shoot at different shutter speeds in the first place. And would likely make the film less impactful.

The dp of a movie shot at 60fps can take those extra frames into account - in which case great. But older movie dps didn't even have the opportunity to consider it.

I'd also point out that depth of field and motion blur are both photography artifacts synthesised in games specifically because they are useful (filmic) story telling tools.. tools born out of the limitations of their medium.

EDIT: this post is obviously a little tangential to the topic but I thought I might be able to add a little clarity to the previous discussion.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

As usual, patches are very welcome.

Also, ffmpeg has a new filter called vf_minterpolate, that could fit this.

[Legion]

VLC is my default Player. Yet those videos that have panning stutter I play on MPC because it incorporates Smooth Motion via madVR. Problem solved. For instance, I have over 150GB blu-ray rips of classic Star Trek episodes - all have slight panning stutter (noticeable when Kirk's starship moves across the screen) which is extremely annoying. This stuttering disappears completely with MPC playback without any loss of quality.

From madVR: "What Smooth Motion is not, is a frame interpolation system—it will not introduce the “soap opera effect” like you see on 120Hz+ TVs, or reduce 24p judder"

I'm mystified why VLC devs don't at least have this as an option.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Smooth Motion is different from Frame Interpolation.

It's not in VLC because noone did the work, that's all.

[lonecanislupus]

New user with an open question: I understand the reasoning behind the 180 degree shutter, but I have always thought that we're just not used to the soap opera effect and that it's actually normal. I reasoned that 3:2 pulldown is just what we're used to and being exposed to smooth motion is unsettling. Why isn't 3:2 pulldown the reason for 24 fps feeling comfortable?

[Kai_M]

I completely agree with Bugattikid2012 and his valid points! I too would appreciate this feature existing in VLC. Are there any plans to implement it?

I also want to chime in to say that frame interpolation does not destroy the look of a movie. That is completely subjective. It is a choice for the viewer, and like others have pointed out it is no different than any other video effect or feature. Whether something is "modified" as opposed to being "added" is irrelevant. It is true that the feature doesn't exist within VLC because no one has contributed it yet, but whether it destroys the look of a movie or not is not related in any way. Very few of the points raised against Bugattikid2012 were valid arguments. There is also no question that higher framerates do in fact provide superior motion and often can help with overall picture quality. I will not insist it is fact, but I believe that the reason that most of the people who dislike frame interpolation feel that way is simply that it's different than what they're used to.