What's the best way to de-interlace?

[BirdDaddie]

I have read that decomb-Bob was the best way but I tried that and my videos still show interlacing artifacts. I read over and over not to de-interlace because it ruins the quality.
What should I try next?
The source is a 29.9fps cartoon.

[LMotlow]

Best deinterlacer these days is QTGMC.

But your "cartoon" is probably a film-based movie. Movies are telecined. They have to be inverse telecined, not deinterlaced.

[manono]

And how about a 10-second sample from the source - one with steady movement - so we don't have to guess?

As LMotlow implied, animations rarely use 29.97 as the 'base' or 'real' framerate.

[BirdDaddie]

it is the Futurama discs
should I inverse telecine?
I am using VidCoder.

[LMotlow]

I'll echo manono. Animations are often telecined movies, but some use a mix of duplicate/blend frames. Best idea is to submit a short sample of a few seconds with motion in it. You can upload clip samples in the forum. If you need advice on how to cut a sample, ask and let us know the video type you're working with (DVD/MPEG? MKV? MP4. MOV? Xvid? DivX? ? ?).

[BirdDaddie]

I'm afraid to post a clip as this might violate copyright or something.
I tried it on decomb Bob and it looked ok untill certain parts(mainly the mouth when they talked) were very distorted.

[manono]

I'm afraid to post a clip as this might violate copyright or something.

Fair Use allows for the use of short passages from copyrighted works without violating copyright. And Vidcoder/Handbrake doesn't have the best bobbers. As LMotlow already mentioned, the AviSynth bobber/deinterlacer QTGMC is far and away the best. But the chances are very good you shouldn't be deinterlacing or bobbing in the first place, but performing an IVTC (something they stupidly call detelecine).

Once again, a short untouched sample from the source would be best, maybe even one that doesn't come out of VidCoder looking very good.

[Brad]

it is the Futurama discs

This series is notoriously difficult to turn into progressive because of the odd telecine and blending methods used.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=133836
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=171524

[pandy]

I have read that decomb-Bob was the best way but I tried that and my videos still show interlacing artifacts. I read over and over not to de-interlace because it ruins the quality.
What should I try next?
The source is a 29.9fps cartoon.

Deinterlacing - for speed use Yadif, for quality already mentioned QTGMC .

[jagabo]

From the short clips I've seen Futurama was shot on film at 24 fps, digitized to interlaced video at 29.97 fps, then edited. Shots were slowed or sped up, faded, cut, titles were overlaid, etc. all as interlaced video. And at least some of the edits were botched by treating interlaced YV12 as progressive YV12, screwing up the colors. So simply deinterlacing will not get you clean progressive frames. This post has a link to one sample that shows these problems:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1703057#post1703057

I'd probably start with something like this:

Mpeg2Source("VTS_04_1.demuxed.d2v", CPU2="ooooxx", Info=3) 
Interleave(TFM(field=1,mode=1,pp=1), TFM(field=0,mode=1,pp=1)) # bob
MergeChroma(blur(0.0, 1.0).aWarpSharp(depth=10)) # blur interlaced chroma artifacts, then resharpen
SRestore(frate=23.976) # select least blended frames

There are still some combing where TFM locked onto the titles rather than the animation and during fades. And some others right after cuts.