Deinterlacing: Edge Detecting Interpolation Versus Motion Compensation

[NY2LA]

I am using Telestream's Episode 6.3 for encoding H.264 video in an MPEG4 wrapper, using the Main Concept encoder. The source video is DV, primarily digitized from analog videotapes.

I prefer to deinterlace the video myself, rather than leaving it to a player. Episode's Deinterlace Filter offers several deinterlacing algorithms. I have been comparing two of them, Edge Detecting Interpolation Heavy and Motion Compensation.

The Episode 6.3 User's Guide says, regarding Motion Compensation: "Motion compensation usually provides the best results, but may result in artifacts in scenes where motion is difficult to estimate." I'd like to use it, but I do see artifacts.

The screenshot below shows the word "Play" generated by a VCR, superimposed over a VHS videotape's signal, as it appears in two different H.264 encodes. The result of Edge Detecting Interpolation Heavy is at the top, and the result of Motion Compensation is at the bottom.

Note the stair stepping in the Motion Compensation deinterlaced video, which is disappointing. This stair stepping does not appear in the source DV video.

Can anyone suggest settings that might avoid this artifact? (Even if you don't know Episode, you could possibly tell me what to look for.) Or I am just stuck with this sort of artifact if I decide to use Motion Compensation?

Can anyone suggest what else to look for when comparing the results of these two types of deinterlacing?

[NY2LA]

I am also scaling the video from 720x480 to 640x480 (cropping 8 pixels off the left and right sides of the source 720 pixels) per Rec. 601 using the Resize Filter. I just turned on the Low Pass Filter, and that seems to help a lot.

Does it make sense that the Low Pass Filter is needed for Motion Compensation and not Edge Detecting Interpolation?

[jagabo]

I don't know anything about the software you are using. But the best deinterlacer right now is QTGMC() in AviSynth.

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/QTGMC

It's pretty slow though. Even on a fast computer you'll get single digit frame rates.