Field order conversion and Pinnacle Studio/Expression

[Chris_S68]

I searched on this subject, but had trouble finding definitive answers.
After years of working with Analog video, I'm moving into DVD kicking and screaming.
I've got some videos that were originally encoded as interlaced/lower field first. My understanding is (and experience seems to confirm) that DVD is upper field first.

My problem is that the software bundled with my DVD burner is Pinnacle Expression and Studio - pretty rudimentary. I cannot find any way of changing the field order. I tried encoding the video with TMPEG with the proper settings, as pinnacle claims it doesn't re-encode compliant source, but after burning with pinnacle, the fields are still out of whack. Funny thing is, these videos were encoded with an old Miro video board. So I have some questions:

Does TMPEG actually encode with the fields changed to the proper order with the field settings under "advanced", and is Pinnacle re-encoding, thereby undoing what TMPEG fixed? It looks like the way things stand now, until I get new software, I'll need to actually reverse the field order/dominance of the video itself before encoding. Would the full version of TMPEG (or any other/better authoring software) allow me to convert to the proper field order at encode/burn time without the extra step?

Thanks for any help,

Chris

[donpedro]

I don't have an answer, but I will look into this sometime later.

[donpedro]

I found this. Any help ?

The "rule" is that any analogue capture is top field first and DV are always bottom field first. There are exceptions - some cards do that vice versa for drivers reasons - and also the vfm drivers from Hauppauge for win2k/XP have this problem. You never know from sure...
But if you install the latest btwincap wdm drivers, for all the bt8xx(x) Hauppauge cards, it is Top Field first.

Look for a "deinterlace" setting in your capture software. Or check for field order settings (A/B, upper/lower, odd/even, whatever your software calls it).

[Chris_S68]

Thanks for your help! I've been working on a project, so I haven't had a chance to play with this recently.
I'm almost positive the video is lower first. I remember when I first set up the ol' DC20 the manual said upper field, but in order to get the proper output I had to go with lower - seemingly opposite of what the manual said. It's animation I've done, rather than video, so no capture was involved. I can't (nor would I want to) re-render, so I've gotta make this video work. I figure I'm just going to have to run it through Virtual Dub (or whatever) and reverse the fields when I have a chance.

Thanks again,
Chris