I have a bunch of interlaced files I'm looking to transcode into "something else TBD" and was experimenting with windows media encoder. The encoder has a little field order checker to determine whether a file is TFF or BFF. Well, for most of my files, WME tells me that my file is "mixed mode" and therefore recommends deinterlacing. GSpot tells me that the files are TFF, every blessed one of them. WME seems to scan the entire file so maybe it's looking for changes in the order whereas Gspot is only examining the first few frames?

Anyway, I was confused so I wanted to know who/what to trust. I'd like to believe that my files are interlaced, in the same frame order, and I was interested in encoding them (interlaced) to WMV Advanced Profile. (This is archival footage - if I can keep it interlaced, that would suit me fine.) But not if the field order is mixed.

Secondary question - what are my choices for a leading-edge codec that supports interlaced content? I have terabytes of footage that I've got to shrink. I know WMV advanced profile / VC1 supports interlaced and I guess I can live with the Windows-only thing. About about h264/xvid/divx/quicktime/whatever? Last I'd checked, it seemed that WMV had a lead in this area but it's been many a month and maybe things have changed.