Capture fast moving sharp edges, view on interlaced tv

[eyestrain]

I'm capturing VHS tapes using an Avermedia capture card. These are dance tapes, with fast moving bodies, and high contrast-sharp edges (like arms/legs moving fast against a background.)

I've read that converting interlaced sources to progressive loses information, so I'm trying to encode in both interlaced and progressive to get at least one in good quality.

Able to capture without lost frames to both Huffy and Picvideo at 19, using Virtualvcr 720x480 29.97 fps.

Converted 1 minute samples at 4000 and 8000 kbps to DIVX at 720x480 using Virutaldub and Dr.Divx, in both progressive and interlaced.

Play using Windows media player and Divx Player.

Viewing on a 27" HDTV monitor (using component out of Radeon 8500), in 720x480p, 704x480i, and 1776x1000i.


As expected, most of the interlaced encodings look terrible in progressive, with every other line off when there is movement.

However, even when viewing interlaced encodings in interlaced mode, and progressive encodings in interlaced or progressive, the image pixelates at the edges when moving. Also true when viewing original capture AVI's, and when viewing VCD and SVCD conversions of the captures.

It looks fantastic when still, indistinguishable from original VHS. But the edges are annoyingly jagged, wherever and whenever there's movement.

Is this normal? Is there a way to avoid it?

(Thanks to all manual writers and a few posters who helped me get far as I have.)

[lordsmurf]

The DIVX is doing it.

[eyestrain]

OK, I tried making MP2 encodings instead, at 4000 kbps. Same problem

I suspect the captures aren't good. Tried iuvcr, virtual vcr, and virtualdub. Coundn't get virtualdub to work. The other two work, but both result in the blockiness during any movement. With either Huffy or Picvideo.

Tried capturing at 59.94 fps, but it didn't help.

To tell the truth, I've spent an obscene amount of time on this project, and am near giving up.

Maybe I should try a filter to fuzz over the edges? Would lower quality but might make it more viewable.