DV to DVD - consensus regarding deinterlacing

[FlimsyFeet]

So the time has come to archive some of my DV home video footage to DVD.

Obviously I don't have to deinterlace, as MPEG-2 on DVD can be stored interlaced. But, in these days when interlaced CRT displays are becoming rarer and progressive LCDs are gaining in popularity, would it be wise to look to the future and deinterlace the footage before encoding to DVD? Or do people generally just do a straight transfer and rely on the display to do the deinterlacing?

And if the consensus is that deinterlacing before encoding is preferable, what filters do people generally use for high quality results?

[GrofLuigi]

Seems your mind is set on deinterlacing. :)

If you would like to hear my opinion, I'm strongly against it. Interlaced is the original form in which the material came from. Suppose you choose one deinterlacer, and in few months another super duper deinterlacer comes around, then what?

As for the display, can you set a date in the future when all the material will be progressive? I think that's a long way ahead...

GL

[FredThompson]

I archive NTSC as MPEG2 4:2:2 with TMPGEnc at 8000 CBR. The result is about 1/4 the space of DV with no appreciable quality loss.) PAL is saved as MPEG2 4:2:0. This will let you save 90 minutes of DV on a DVDR.

Deinterlacing will screw up your source most of the time unless you reduce the size of the frames dramatically. Even then, the corruption remains, it's just harder to see.

[davidhorman]

From an aesthetic point of view, I think deinterlacing this kind of footage is wrong, too. You'll get the "filmic" look, not the "live video" look - you may like this, but as others have said, if you're archiving you should probably stick as close to the original format as possible.

When I have to deinterlace, I use mcbob - unfortunately it's very slow on a single machine (I run it on up to 30 simultaneously).

David

[WorBry]

My advice would be hang onto your original DV material, whether on tape or stored on disc or (external) drive. If you come to find that you do prefer (pre)deinterlaced video or different formats for different situations, MPEG-2 is a less than ideal source. I committed alot of my early footage to DVD and now regret it :mad:

Like davidhorman infers, of the available open source deinterlace filters, MCBob is generally accepted to produce the highest quality results, if you are prepared to wait.

[basketkase543]

My advice would be hang onto your original DV material, whether on tape or stored on disc or (external) drive. If you come to find that you do prefer (pre)deinterlaced video or different formats for different situations, MPEG-2 is a less than ideal source. I committed alot of my early footage to DVD and now regret it :mad:

What format would do you choose to archive then? I'm in a similar dilemma where I need to start archiving my tapes but lossless avis are too big to hold onto (when I have as many as I do) so it seems the only option is to compress it to DVD.

[WorBry]

Personally, I 'archive' my edited DV footage on external hard-drive (Maxtor 300GB) and converted MPEG-2/AC3 streams on disc as data files. I also now keep (i.e. dont re-use) the original DV tapes, just in case.

Clearly, if storage capacity is an issue for you, then compression is the only option. In that case, I would go with Fred Thompson's recommendation above i.e. high quality DVD-compliant MPEG-2; interlaced. If you have any intent to archive as a 'master' for conversion to other formats, I would avoid B-frames; 8000 kbps will easily allow for that. Here's a good guide for TMPGenc, although the same principles can be applied to other configurable MPEG-2 encoders:

http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html

Bitrate/GOP calculator:

http://dvd-hq.info/Calculator.html

Quality can also be somewhat influenced by the DV decoder; personally (for open source) I would recommend Cedocida.

[FredThompson]

Perhaps you misunderstood what I was suggesting.

For NTSC DV, I make CBR 8000 4:2:2 using TMPGEnc's 4:2:2 profile and 4:2:2 for the YUV setting.

For PAL DV, I make CBR 8000 4:2:0 using TMPGEnc's main profile and main level.

Converting NTSC DV to DVD compliance would be throwing away half the chroma because DVD is 4:2:0, a 2x2 block of pixels per chroma value whereas NTSC DV is 4:1:1, a 1x4 "strip" of pixels per chroma value. 4:2:2 is a 1x2 "strip" of pixels per chroma value to there is no loss when converting NTSC DV.

The PAL MPEG2 is DVD-compliant, not the NTSC MPEG2.

It gets a little confusing in some of the discussions here because we all have a tendency to forget that PAL and NTSC DV aren't the same chroma format...

[WorBry]

Yes, I missed that point entirely; I'm just a clueless 'PAL-lander'. Presumably therefore if basketkase543 (lol) is in NTSC land, you would also recommend using a DV decoder that outputs YUY2 (e.g. Cedocida set to forced YUY2 output)?

[basketkase543]

Yes, I missed that point entirely; I'm just a clueless 'PAL-lander'. Presumably therefore if basketkase543 (lol) is in NTSC land, you would also recommend using a DV decoder that outputs YUY2 (e.g. Cedocida set to forced YUY2 output)?

Yeah, I'm here in NTSC land (BTW, why the lol @ my name? :D)

Overall, does it look like archiving to MPEG-2 will be the best bet if I don't have the space for DV video?

[WorBry]

(BTW, why the lol @ my name? :D)

It was the 543 that tickled me ;), makes me wonder about the other 542

Overall, does it look like archiving to MPEG-2 will be the best bet if I don't have the space for DV video?

I think that would be the consensus; happy archiving.