Opinions on Interlaced/Progressive requested

[olobay]

Hi,

I had a few questions regarding the format for encoding video to standard def DVD. If SD tvs only play interlaced, what advantages are there to encoding progressive? Which gives better quality interlaced or progressive? Is there a specific point when you should encode progressive or intelaced (footage with lots of motion)? If you are transcoding from PAL progressive should you use NTSC intelaced or progressive? Are there any links in this forum or outsied that I can read?

Thanks.

[lordsmurf]

Match the source.

[Alex_ander]

1.Progressive footage is originally better: any point in a frame belongs to (almost) the same motion phase. Interlaced needs twice lower bandwidth for TV signal representing a picture of same resolution and is cheaper for broadcasting and analog recording.
2.Encoding progressive when possible is important e.g. for further pulldown-type framerate conversion (NTSC/PAL in either direction). This type of conversion leads to partial interlacing but is better than progressive-to-progressive in smooth motion reproduction.
3.Encoding to progressive is only possible from progressive source. Deinterlacing an interlaced source for this is not lossless, so it's better to keep an interlaced source as is at encoding.
4.Editing an interlaced video is more complicated for its sensitivity to different artifacts at non-linear operations.