DV jaggies in Final Cut Pro

[phil.good]

I’m capturing SD DV footage (PAL 25fps interlaced), which is 720x576 anamorphic, into my iMac with Final Cut Studio 2 software. I need to export movies onto DVD (for use on both Computer and Television DVD players).
My problem is I end up with severe aliasing (or ‘jaggies’) on diagonal straight lines. I’m really struggling to solve this. My colleague does the same job on a PC system using ‘Edius’ software and it looks perfect.
Since the end result has to look right on both (progressive) computer screens and TV sets I need to address the interlacing situation. So far I am at the stage where I leave the field dominance on the captured footage as ‘Lower’ and change the field dominance setting in FCP to ‘None’. This seems to deinterlace the footage but the aliasing is severe. I then also apply the deinterlace filter inside FCP and it softens the image and lessens much of the aliasing bit it is STILL noticeable. PLEASE HELP ME !!!!! If I don’t solve this I’ll lose my client and end up homeless!!!

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iMac - 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
16GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Mac OS X
Capturing from SD DV tape - 720 x 576 Anamorphic (interlaced)
Exporting to DVD
Color system: PAL 25fps
Final Cut Studio 2 software

[guns1inger]

For DVD don't deinterlace. If it is played on a progressive TV, the TV will deinterlace on-the-fly and usually will look better than what most editors can do. If you must deinterlace the footage (and so far you haven't provided a reason to) then you would have to look at getting avisynth working so you could use one of the better adaptive deinterlacers. However for DVD, the best option is to output interlaced (TFF) when encoding to MPEG-2, and let the user's hardware deal with it.

[phil.good]

Thanks for your reply guns1inger, I'm so confused about this because I need to burn to DVD. If I understand you correctly your saying the finished DVD will look fine on TV, but what about on a computer screen (where many people watch their DVD movies)?. Isn't it going to look aliased and crappy??? That's the reason for wanting to deinterlace, it looks terrible on the computer screen - but I need it to look good on both computer and TV.

[jagabo]

If I understand you correctly your saying the finished DVD will look fine on TV, but what about on a computer screen (where many people watch their DVD movies)?. Isn't it going to look aliased and crappy???

DVD player software on a computer should deinterlace too.

[guns1inger]

It depends on the player they use. Many will deinterlace on the fly, and many offer multiple deinterlacing methods so the user can find the best option for the disc. Most shot-on-video material pre-HD is interlaced on DVD.

[phil.good]

OK I just did a test burn and you are right, I've been trying to fix a problem that actually wasn't there. I feel like an idiot. But rest assured I am a truly grateful idiot. Thanks so much guys for your help, I really appreciate it.
BTW I'm blown away by how fast the response on here has been, I was expecting to wait days or weeks for some answers to show up.
Thanks again guns1linger and jagabo.

[guns1inger]

Interlacing is a constant topic here, either because people don't understand it and how it affects the image, or because under certain circumstances deinterlacing is necessary, but getting it right is an art in itself. Either way, better to ask be sure, than guess and get it wrong.

[phil.good]

Damn, guns1linger I hope you're still there, a problem has resulted when I changed all my sequence field dominance settings to match the DV footage (Lower, even) - the titles that I have put on (all done inside FCP) have gone pear-shaped (they are all aliased and broken up - kind of looking like they are suffering from interlacing problem). I have tried adjusting the field dominance of the title clips (default setting was "not set') but nothing seems to work. Any ideas????????

[jagabo]

Changing the field dominance setting should NOT cause spacial aliasing or comb artifacts. At worst it would cause the video to play back with a very fast jerkiness (25 back and forth jerks per second). Are you sure you didn't make some other changes that resized the frame? That would cause type type of problems you are seeing.

[phil.good]

Thanks for your reply jagabo,
No, all I did was change the sequence field dominance setting from none to lower. I burnt off a DVD to make sure it's not just a monitoring issue like my original question, and they're definitely combed. The footage looks great - but the titles certainly don't.