DV and Interlacing - Newbie quesion

[sidders]

I've just purchased my first DV Camcorder and have a query. I am under the impression that DV PAL footage is interlaced. When I play back my DV AVI, I cannot see any interlaced artifacts. I have tried encoding with CCE with Alternate Setting (for Interlaced sources) and with the ZIgZag Progressive setting, but whichever I use, I can see Interlacing lines on my encoded mpg. Can anyone help me with this? Does Media Player etc deinterlave DV footage on the fly? If so, do I have to deinterlace this footage when using CCE?
Any help would be appreciated.

[SomeJoe]

Unless you specifically set your camera to film progressive (and not all DV cameras have this capability), your DV footage will indeed be interlaced and will look perfect when played on an interlaced display device (i.e. a TV).

Most computer playback software (including Windows Media Player) will deinterlace the footage on the fly during playback. This hides the interlacing lines. An exception is when Windows Media Player plays back MPEG-2 using an installed MPEG-2 DirectShow filter -- in many cases it will not deinterlace that footage.

To playback MPEG-2 footage on the computer and deinterlace it during playback, use a DVD player application like PowerDVD or WinDVD.

Proper encoding in CCE would be to encode interlaced, using alternate scanning order. It would not be recommended to deinterlace the footage prior to encoding unless you were going to playback only on the computer (in which case an aspect ratio adjustment would also be appropriate).

[bb]

Originally posted by SomeJoe
Unless you specifically set your camera to film progressive (and not all DV cameras have this capability), your DV footage will indeed be interlaced and will look perfect when played on an interlaced display device (i.e. a TV).
True; most DV camcorders do interlaced video only (bottom field first), escpecially the cheaper models.

Originally posted by SomeJoe
Most computer playback software (including Windows Media Player) will deinterlace the footage on the fly during playback. This hides the interlacing lines. An exception is when Windows Media Player plays back MPEG-2 using an installed MPEG-2 DirectShow filter -- in many cases it will not deinterlace that footage.
Windows Media Player always uses DirectShow filters for MPEG-2 playback. It depends on the MPEG-2 filter used whether the video gets deinterlaced during playback or not.

Regarding the encoding procedure you'll probably appreciate the "DV to DVD" guide.

bb

[SomeJoe]

Originally posted by bb
Windows Media Player always uses DirectShow filters for MPEG-2 playback. It depends on the MPEG-2 filter used whether the video gets deinterlaced during playback or not.

That's what I meant to say, but after re-reading my version, it didn't quite come out that way. ;) :D