interlace vs progressive

[egendron]

is there any good reason/advantage to de-interlace my footage upon output from FCP?
(in other words, just before compressing for DVD) footage was shot interlace BTW.


also, is there a good reason NOT to do this?

-ed

[Anhar Miah]

I'm fairly sure this has been discussed before, at any rate the quick answer:

what is your target display? I'm assuming TV, in which case its more than likely it is interlaced, unless of course you have a HDTV LCD (which is usually progressive, bar 1080i)

Despite the fact that
(1) Source is interlaced
(2) Target display most likey interlaced,

Two reasons why progressive is a good idea:

(1) MPEG compresses progressive better than interlace
(2) If your DVD is played on a progressive display, it would br preffered that the DVD is progressive to start off with.

Also if you mess up the field order, (can happen by mistake), its safer to go with progressive, I've burnt alot of DVD where I have put the wrong field order :P
I'm sure there are other benifits.

I always de-interlace video for my DVD, even though my TV is interlace. looks good to me.

[egendron]

that's EXACTLY what I was wondering. (thank you)
In your experience, have you experienced any drawbacks with this method?
-edg

[Anhar Miah]

probably, a slight hit on render times. And sometimes the de-interlacer is not perfect on high motions, but then again you could use DVfilm (probably 2nd best deinterlacer after Magic Bullet)

[egendron]

Hmm, I've only got FCP and an old version of After Effects.
what exactly do you mean by high motion? like fast?
I suppose nothing is gonna be absolutely perfect though.
-edg

[Anhar Miah]

Yes during fast motion, the resultant deinterlace leaves unwanted artifacts, but this is down to the de-interlacer,

let me get you a link on sec

EDIT:

Here you go:

http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/60i/

[egendron]

thank you. that explains a lot.
-edg

[milvid]

My two cents,
If you know that your footage is only going to be on the internet, shoot progressive and make sure the output is progressive.
The footage will look much better then deinterlacing upon output.