The plug-in reverses the telecine process used to create NTSC video from film frames, by reconstructing complete film frames from footage containing 3:2 pulldown.

The plug-in can be keyframed, where the 3:2 pulldown order changes between shots. This occurs when telecined footage has been edited, resulting in shots containing different pulldown orders.

PULLDOWN DETECTION!

The plug-in includes pulldown detection, allowing the footage to automatically keyframed when the pulldown order changes.

The detection process analyzes the source footage for pulldown order changes, and inserts keyframes into the "Pulldown Method" setting.

The pulldown settings can then be manually adjusted, to correct any errors in the detection process.

INSTALLATION INFORMATION (Mac)

There are two versions of the plug-in on the disk image.

For After Effects CS5 and later: To install, mount the disk image and open the "InverseTelecine for AfterEffects CS5 and later" folder. Drop the "ObviousFX InverseTelecine.plugin" from the disk image into your After Effects Plug-ins folder.

For After Effects CS3 and CS4: To install, mount the disk image and open the "InverseTelecine for AfterEffects CS3 and CS4" folder. Drop the "ObviousFX InverseTelecine.plugin" from the disk image into your After Effects Plug-ins folder.

The plug-in is not supported on After Effects v5.5 to v7 for Mac.

To uninstall, simply delete the "ObviousFX InverseTelecine.plugin" from your Plug-ins folder.

INSTALLATION INFORMATION (PC)

The plug-in installer creates an ObviousFX\Effects path in the After Effects Plug-ins directory, and then copies the following files into Plug-ins\ObviousFX\Effects:

To uninstall, simply delete the above files from the Plug-ins\ObviousFX\Effects directory.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Import your 29.97fps footage, and ensure the "Separate Fields" in "Interpret Footage" is "Off".

2. Create a 23.976fps composition, and drop your 29.97fps footage into this Comp. (The footage will contain 20% fewer frames in the 23.976fps Comp - the Comp length can be reduced to match the shorter footage length)

3. Apply the Inverse Telecine effect from the ObviousFX Effect menu.

4. Set the "Field Order" to "Lower Field First" or "Upper Field First", depending on the device used to capture the video.

5. Set the "Pulldown Method" to "Auto Detect". The plug-in will perform detection on the current frame, causing the "Pulldown Method" to immediately change to the detected pulldown.

6. Preview the composition to perform detection on all frames in the video. Keyframes will be added at each detected change in pulldown phase.

7. Check the results, the detection probably isn't perfect!!! Some pulldown changes may be incorrect by one or two frames, and scenes with very little motion may have unnecessary keyframes added.

8. (Optional) Fine tune the pulldown changes using the "Ambiguous Phase Change" setting. "Deinterlace Both" is the safest option, but will result in one frame at some pulldown changes being deinterlaced.

PLUG-IN PARAMETERS

FIELD ORDER

This setting is determined by the field dominance of the footage. Field order is normally set to a constant value, and depends on the device used to capture the footage to digital video.

PULLDOWN METHOD

The plug-in uses the same pulldown terminology and cadences as used in After Effects's Interpret Footage dialog. Additionally, the plug-in provides four extra settings, for use in optimizing difficult shots. Pulldown detection only searches for the five standard pulldown settings, plus Frame.

Given five input frames at 29.97fps (Lower Field First),
              0L\0U 1L\1U 2L\2U 3L\3U 4L\4U
The output for each method at 23.976fps is as follows:
   WSSWW      0L\0U 2L\1U 3L\3U 4L\4U
   SSWWW      1L\0U 2L\2U 3L\3U 4L\4U
   SWWWS      1L\1U 2L\2U 3L\3U 0L\4U  *1
   WWWSS      0L\0U 1L\1U 2L\2U 4L\3U
   WWSSW      0L\0U 1L\1U 3L\2U 4L\4U
   SWWWS v2   0L\4U 1L\1U 2L\2U 3L\3U  *2
   Frame      0L\0U 1L\1U 2L\2U 3L\3U
   Lower      0L\0L 1L\1L 2L\2L 3L\3L
   Upper      0U\0U 1U\1U 2U\2U 3U\3U
*1 Where 0L is the lower field of the first frame of the next group of five frames.
*2 Where 4U is the upper field of the last frame of the previous group of five frames.

"SWWWS v2" is only necessary when "SWWWS" produces a double frame at the end of a shot. This will occur occasionally if the pulldown method of the next shot is "WWWSS". Try both SWWWS settings, checking the shot changes at the in and out points of the SWWWS shot.

AMBIGUOUS PHASE CHANGE

The plug-in includes a setting for "Ambiguous Phase Change". This setting determines the plug-in's deinterlacing at certain shot changes, where there is not enough information to reconstruct a full frame, and a single field must be used.

At an ambiguous pulldown change, the plug-in can deinterlace the out point of the previous shot, the in point of the new shot, or both. The simplest setting is "Deinterlace Both", however this will result in either the in point or out point being deinterlaced unnecessarily.

To obtain the best possible results, keyframe the "Ambiguous Phase Change" setting to "Deinterlace Out Point" or "Deinterlace In Point", checking the results at each change in pulldown value.

REGISTRATION

The plug-in requires a registration email address and serial number. Registration information can be entered when the plug-in is first run, or by clicking the "Registration" button in the plug-in's "About" dialog.

If the plug-in is unregistered, or the trial period has expired, a watermark (large red X) is added to the plug-in output, and automatic pulldown detection is disabled.

ADDITIONAL FILES (Mac)

The plug-in saves registration information in the user's Preferences data area, usually "~/Library/Preferences/com.obviousfx.Plug-ins.InverseTelecine.plist"

ADDITIONAL FILES (Win)

The plug-in saves registration information in the user's application data area. On WindowsXP, this is usually "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\ObviousFX\Plug-ins\InverseTelecine.ini"

Additionally, if the user has Administrator privileges, registration is also stored in the "All Users" application data area, allowing all users of the PC to use the registered plug-in.

NOTES, BUGS, KNOWN ISSUES

1. Watermarked images are not cleared when an unregistered plug-in is registered. To fix, clear the image cache. (Edit->Purge->Image Cache)

2. 24P Advance pulldown modes are not supported in this version.

3. 32bit per channel projects (After Effects 7.0 and later) can use this plug-in, but with reduced color precision.

4. This plug-in has not been tested with other applications that support After Effects plug-ins.


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