interlacing - affects the "look" of the video on a

[geek rock]

i've been doing capturing, encoding, etc for quite awhile, mostly from TV sources, and i haven't really done much in the way of interlacing/de-interlacing.

i have noticed though, that if i capture something, say, a sitcom, and then encode it and burn it on a DVD, the "look" of the picture has changed. from what i can tell, this only applies to things that i assume are shot on video - talk shows, sitcoms, etc.

in the original picture (that i watch on the TV) the picture seems "warm" - like it's shot on video in a studio. when i capture and encode and play back the file on my TV, the video looks "cold" - rather like it's been shot on film.

if you aren't following what i mean - think of a fawlty towers episode. the interior scenes are "warm", and when an exterior scene is shown, it looks different - "cold" if you will. this probably sounds like a really weird problem, but i'm unable to describe it in a better way!

is there something i'm not doing with interlacing here that's causing this? obviously i want my final MPEGS to look as close to the original broadcast as possible.

-Mark

[DJRumpy]

Two suggestions. Luma compression is probably the cause of your faded colors. It will make your brights appear somewhat bleached, or washed out. It will also make your darks 'sparkle'. Make sure your not compressing the luma range during the encoding process. The settings will refer to a 16-235 luma range, or a 0-255 luma range.

The other think you should look at is Inverse Telecine. You can do this if your source capture is telecined. It may be. You can find more info here: www.lukesvideo.com

If your source is telecined, and you perform IVTC, you will remove any interlacing artifacts, and return it to a progressive stream, which will give you a better looking mpeg.