Automatic Deinterlacing?

[alexh110]

Just a quick question about DVD ripping, and viewing DVD's on my PC.

I wonder whether any automatic deinterlacing is ever applied; or does this always need to be specifically done by filtering?

Also do the various DVD viewing app.'s have the option to switch between frame and field freeze mode?

I generally use Media Player Classic, VideoLAN, WinAmp and WMP 9.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I wonder whether any automatic deinterlacing is ever applied; or does this always need to be specifically done by filtering?

In general there is no "automated" way to decide whether a stream is interlaced or not.

It's safe to encode progressive video as interlaced, but encoding interlaced as progressive destroys everything!
Therefore you often see interlaced streams actually containing progressive frames.
For example most TV cards will simply capture in interlaced mode, no matter what the source is (film or TV material).
Hence just reading the "interlaced" flag from the stream doesn't give any reliable information!

Some video renderers will deinterlace the video "on-the-fly" in case the stream is marked as "interlaced".
Often this behavior is referred as "Hardware Deinterlacing" or "Auto" mode, but it fact it's "blind" deinterlacing!
And it only works if interlaced streams really are marked as "interlaced" by the decoder, which isn't reliable.

So to sum up: You need to see the video with your own eyes and look for interlacing/combing artifacts carefully.
When you do this, take care that no deinterlacing takes place in your rendering chain, you need to see the "raw" output!
If you see combing artifacts, then deinterlacing (or maybe IVTC) is required, otherwise it is not!

Last but not least take care about "mixed" material containing interlaced and progressive parts...

Also do the various DVD viewing app.'s have the option to switch between frame and field freeze mode?

There are dozens of Deinterlacing methods, since the perfect method doesn't exist!
For example there are methods that keep the framerate and methods that double the framerate (bobbing).
Also there are very simple methods and advanced methods with motion compensation and stuff...

You really need to test a few deinterlacers to find out which one makes you happy.
IMHO TDeint and Yadif are great, KernelDeint/KernelBob are good too. VLC's built in ones are not very satisfactory.

[setarip_old]

@alexh110

Hi!I wonder whether any automatic deinterlacing is ever appliedYes. Automatic deinterlacing (automatically determines whether or not it needs to be applied and then does what's required automatically) one of the options available in the wonderful, underutilized, MPEGMediator...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

@alexh110

Hi!Yes. Automatic deinterlacing (automatically determines whether or not it needs to be applied and then does what's required automatically) one of the options available in the wonderful, underutilized, MPEGMediator...

1. Does this tool simply read "flags" from the video file or does it actually analyze the video visually?
2. In the latter case, how reliable is it in real use? I remember DScaler to not be very reliable with interlaced/film detection...
3. Does it work with "mixed" material and with "Telecined" stuff?

[setarip_old]

@LoRd_MuldeR

I've found it to yield satisfactory results.

Of course, the simplest thing to do is try it for yourself - make sure you set the Deinterlace filter to "Auto" ;>}