Effect of "Timeline"

[kmcgrath]

Does a progressive timeline mean that the media in the timline is progressive, regardless of whether it was interlaced or progressive when it was brought into the timeline. For example, if 60i media (NOT 24p plus 2-3 or 2-3-3-2 pulldown) is brought into a 24p Vegas project, is the media converted (how??) to 24 progressive frames per second? If so, are the progressive frames created by combining two interlaced fields (full resolution), or are separate interlaced fields just converted to separate progressive frames (half resolution). Any help on this most appreciated!

[David Jimerson]

Well . . .

Sort of. A lot of it depends on your settings -- resample method, deinterlace method (blend fields vs. interpolate fields), etc..

But interlaced footage will *never* be "full resolution" when deinterlaced, if by that you mean the same resolution as progressive footage.

First of all, interlacted footage never reaches better than 70-75% resolution of progressive to begin with, because of the kell factor (having to do with reducing the horrible flicker you would get if you didn't blur it a little bit).

Also, the two methods of deinterlacing -- interpolation or blending -- will rob you of resolution because interpolation attempts to create a full frame out of the information contained in half of a frame, and blending fields -- putting the two interlaced frames together as you describe -- is putting two separate moments in time together and will produce the comb-looking interlace artifacts where there is any motion. How do you reconcile it? You blur it, thus losing resolution. You will lose less if there is little motion, but you still lose out.

[kmcgrath]

Thanks. You've given me a number of things to think about and try to understand a little better. For me, that's what I like best about video :) (and dvxuser.com)