NTSC DV to H264 MP4: Vegas renders wrong aspect ratio

[edDV]

Software deinterlace of DV home video can be destructive to quality. Also, typical noisy and shaky footage needs more bit rate than normal. Figure 9-15 Mb/s for MPeg2 or 6-8 Mb/s for h.264. This assumes target is a large screen HDTV.

I'm not happy yet with software deinterlacers for DV source. I get better results maintaining interlace to MPeg2 or h.264. Hardware deinterlacers in Blu-Ray players or HDTV sets get the best quality result. MPCHC does an ok Yadif deinterlace for computer playback. I deinterlace for internet upload.

What do you think about Handbrake for deinterlacing ?
If you had to choose the to 3 deinterlacing programs - for rendering/converting - which ones would you choose ?

Handbreak uses Yadif for slow and slower modes. I've tested all modes with 1080i HD recordings but haven't done a one to one comparison with Vegas deinterlace for DV video. I should do that.

For HD, the hardware deinerlacers in my Sony Blu-Ray player and HDTV sets look better than Yadif. This especially noticeable with fast motion sports. Yadif tends to blur the motion areas a bit. A good test is capture a direct 1080i MPeg2 TS football or hockey stream (NBC or CBS), Yadif deinterlace it to 1080p and compare to 1080i playback on the same HDTV*. True, the 1080p did suffer a recode as well as deinterlace. 1080i always looks better to me.

I need to try this with 480i DV camcorder material.

Here is the Handbreak deinterlacing guide.
https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/DeinterlacingGuide


* off a USB2 flash stick. Your mileage may vary based on your HDTV deinterlacer quality.