Should I use Deinterlace for old VCR tapes?

[dman777]

I have a bunch of old music videos on VHS tapes that I have captured to my computer from the VCR in AVI format. Now, I am going to convert them to MPEG 2 useing the software called Super. In that software there is an option in 'other encodeing options' for Deinterlaceing.
I tried encodeing with the Deinterlaceing and without it, and it's hard to do a good compareison, but for some reason the encoded video file without the Deinterlaceing seems to be a little sharper...but I can't tell it that is just in my head. Should I have the Deinterlace on when encodeing from AVI to MPEG 2?

[Richard_G]

If you intend viewing the final video on a TV, or may convert it to DVD for viewing on a TV, leave it interlaced. Deinterlaced, or progressive footage is only used for computer displays. The original was interlaced, so you won't gain anything.

[ofbarea]

If you intend to play these videos on a TV through a stand alone DVD player, do not deinterlace.

[MOVIEGEEK]

You should capture VHS @352x240(288 PAL) that way you don't have to worry about deinterlacing.

[edDV]

You should capture VHS @352x240(288 PAL) that way you don't have to worry about deinterlacing.

But you loose half the vertical resolution, some horizontal resolution and half the motion resolution (smooth 59.94Hz to jerky 29.97Hz).

352x480i (352x576i for PAL) interlace would preserve vertical and motion resolution.
720x480i (720x576i for PAL) interlace would also max horizontal resolution but would double file size.

[MOVIEGEEK]

You should capture VHS @352x240(288 PAL) that way you don't have to worry about deinterlacing.

But you loose half the vertical resolution, some horizontal resolution and half the motion resolution (smooth 59.94Hz to jerky 29.97Hz).

352x480i (352x576i for PAL) interlace would preserve vertical and motion resolution.

I would agree if he/she was transfering via firewire but in my experience capturing analog @352x240 is best.
OP:Here's some more tips:
When capturing analog use field B(even).
When transfering DV-AVI use field A(odd).
I very rarely capture analog anymore and I mainly use my camcorder to transfer via firewire.

[edDV]

For some reason 29.97 progressive frames per second looks tolerable on a computer display but to my eyes is unwatchable on an interlace or progressive TV.

[Richard_G]

I know that the theory says that capturing VHS in anything more than half D1 (352 x 576 PAL or 352 x 480 NTSC) is a waste as the original quality isn't up to much, but I've always stuck with full D1. OK, so it may take up twice the hard drive space, but if your hard drive isn't adequate, don't start playing with video!

My recommendation is Full D1 interlaced to give the best possible quality for playback on TV.

[GMaq]

Hi,
Just my 2 cents, but aren't we heading towards progressive TV displays? De-interlacing is not necessary at this point in time but I've found in the last 6 months with portable video (iPod) conversions that I wish I had done a lot more captures @ 720x480 and that I had de-interlaced since most of the MPEG-4 and AVC Codecs perform better that way. If you are going to the trouble of converting these VHS tapes, don't forget to consider what you may want to do conversion wise in the future, one thing is certain: Standardized formats like DVD are going to have shorter and shorter shelf lives and we are going to have many options to make Video "bigger" like HD/Blue Ray or "smaller" for Portable devices.

[edDV]

I know that the theory says that capturing VHS in anything more than half D1 (352 x 576 PAL or 352 x 480 NTSC) is a waste as the original quality isn't up to much, but I've always stuck with full D1. OK, so it may take up twice the hard drive space, but if your hard drive isn't adequate, don't start playing with video!

My recommendation is Full D1 interlaced to give the best possible quality for playback on TV.

We've gone through this several times in the forums. 352 is not sufficient for full reproduction of 4.2 MHz NTSC broadcast and is marginal even for 3MHz VHS but 352 does save half the file size for DVD.

[edDV]

Hi,
Just my 2 cents, but aren't we heading towards progressive TV displays? De-interlacing is not necessary at this point in time but I've found in the last 6 months with portable video (iPod) conversions that I wish I had done a lot more captures @ 720x480 and that I had de-interlaced since most of the MPEG-4 and AVC Codecs perform better that way. If you are going to the trouble of converting these VHS tapes, don't forget to consider what you may want to do conversion wise in the future, one thing is certain: Standardized formats like DVD are going to have shorter and shorter shelf lives and we are going to have many options to make Video "bigger" like HD/Blue Ray or "smaller" for Portable devices.

The progressive TV (or quality progressive DVD players) will do a better job deinterlacing 480i/29.97 with its internal hardware deinterlacer than you can with available software deinterlacers using reasonable processing times. Most software deinterlacers* distort the image quality in various ways and reduce motion resolution from 59.94 fps to 29.97 or less.


* I'm not talking about inverse telecine for film here.