dvd...progressive or interlaced?

[hakeemshabazz]

I thought all DVDs were progressive, and were just interlaced on normal tvs...but then today I read a post on another forum & the person said most DVDs are interlaced...and progressive DVD players de-interlace them.

Is this so?

And if it is, then when I encode to mpeg2, should I be doing it as interlaced or progressive?

[racer-x]

Every DVD is different. It depends on how they shot the movie. If they used Digital cameras, then there's a good chance that the footage is interlaced. If the only used film, then there's a good chance that it's progressive.

It all depends on your source. If it's interlaced, then encode interlaced. If it's progressive, then encode progressive. You have to determine what the source is.

[sacajaweeda]

Quoting my bible:

Technically, DVD-Video can only be stored in interlaced format. Signals from standard video cameras are already in interlaced format. Film, which is inherently progressive, is encoded into MPEG-2 as paired fields. Even though the encoding is field-based, the frame-based nature of the source can be preserved. This allows progressive-scan players to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

[hakeemshabazz]

sacajaweeda: I'll have to pull out my decoder book, to de-crypt your bible quote :P

and how do I know if the source is progressive or interlaced? I tried looking, but I can't find any program that gives that particular info.

[sacajaweeda]

Well you could check the frame rates with something like VirtualDub. If your frame rate is 23.976fps, it's progressive.