What Format is best for DVD Playback

[FLHaus]

Can any one recommend the best format to output to in Videowave? I want to make a disc that will play on the majority of DVD players you would find in households. There are so many choices, it gets a novice like me confused. Also, which is better when burning - Interlaced or Progressive?

 

Thanks for any education you can give me.

[Tom at Roxio]

I would say that you shouldn't have to convert. Many users on the net and a few even here swear that converting to progressive does indeed help with lessening the 'jaggies' of veritcal and diagonal lines in an interlaced video (when viewed on interlaced display). Granted when watching interlaced video on an interlaced display, this should NOT be an issue, yet users have still complained. It certainly wouldn't hurt to try in any case. Just kills some time.

Good point Gary.

 

Video quality is a subjective thing. It is something that most people don't pay a whole lot of attention to, I think. Those that do pay attention often focus on one attribute, ignoring other important attributes. I have been to many trade shows where I walked up to TVs where people are commenting out loud on how great the picture is, when in fact the picture had obvious problems. Once you point out the problems and how to look for them these same people view the quality in a totally different way. It is a blessing and a curse to have any expertise at all regarding video quality - once you become aware of the issues it is hard to watch television without seeing video quality problems.

 

One of the main benefits of interlaced video is that it has twice the field rate of progressive (in the case of DVDs). Updating the picture 60 times a second provides better motion portrayal than updating the whole frame 30 times per second. For scenes with a lot of motion (sports, for instance) 60 Hz interlace can provide a smoother picture than 30p.

 

If you deinterlace footage shot with a standard DV camcorder you can certainly remove jagged edges in the picture. It is important to realize that deinterlacing takes 2 pictures (fields) that were shot at different moments in time and it combines them into one frame. In essence this is blurring the picture with respect to time. There is no way to deinterlace without losing detail. The picture becomes "smoother", because it loses detail.

 

You are right on the money when you say "it wouldn't hurt to try". People should experiment to see what they like best.

 

I shoot a lot of sports video, especially football. I'm panning and zooming, and the football players are moving fast in every scene. I am looking forward to the time when true 720p cameras become a bit more affordable (then the $8000 that a Panasonic AG-HVX200 plus a FireStore drive would cost me today). Until this becomes a reality, interlaced video at 60i provides much better picture quality for sports video than 24p or 30p. On the other hand, if you are shooting home video without a lot of motion, you might find that 24p provides the "movie look" that you like (and some cameras can provide this). Again - you have to experiment to see what you like best for your situation.

 

Tom

[ggrussell]

Older CRT TVs are all interlaced. The newer HDTVs can be either although most users will have them hooked up as 720p or 1080p.

 

Fortunately, the DVD players take the guess work out of it. Most DVD players have a RGB (progressive) output and composite (interlaced) output. So it doesn't really matter how the disc is created. The DVD player will output the correct type depending on how the TV is connected to the player.

[ggrussell]

If you deinterlace footage shot with a standard DV camcorder you can certainly remove jagged edges in the picture. It is important to realize that deinterlacing takes 2 pictures (fields) that were shot at different moments in time and it combines them into one frame. In essence this is blurring the picture with respect to time. There is no way to deinterlace without losing detail. The picture becomes "smoother", because it loses detail.

I totally agree with your statement. I was just pointing out that there are plenty of people out there that swear it works.

[Tom at Roxio]

Can any one recommend the best format to output to in Videowave? I want to make a disc that will play on the majority of DVD players you would find in households. There are so many choices, it gets a novice like me confused. Also, which is better when burning - Interlaced or Progressive?

 

Thanks for any education you can give me.

This is a topic that often causes confusion. Interlaced video is what most camcorders capture, and what most of the world has been watching since the 1930's. Movies, on the other hand, are shot on film with 24 frames per second. Film is inherently progressive scan (the whole image is captured at once).

 

If you are creating a DVD from footage shot with your camcorder you will want to preserve the interlaced video. You don't want to convert to progressive scan. You don't want to deinterlace. Just edit your video in Videowave and produce your DVD in MyDVD as normal. Your DVD will play back the video as interlaced video, and your TV will display it as interlaced.

 

DVD-Video players must support interlaced video. Progressive scan DVD players have special circuitry designed to detect progressive scan content and output it in this format. But this is only a benefit for footage that was shot on film (like Hollywood movies that you buy or rent and many TV shows) or with a progressive scan video camera.

 

If you have an LCD or Plasma TV it is probably progressive scan. These TVs have deinterlacing circuitry built in, and they will deinterlace the video. There is always some quality loss when converting from interlace to progressive scan or vice-versa.

 

Note that as we move forward with HDTV there is one common format that is progressive scan (720p) and one that is interlaced (1080i). 1080p is possible for some HDTV sets, but not possible for transmission over an HDTV channel. Camcorders that can record 720p native are available, but still very expensive. Most HD camcorders record HDV, which is 1080i (recorded as 1440x1080, then up-sampled to 1920x1080).

 

Tom

[ggrussell]

If you are creating a DVD from footage shot with your camcorder you will want to preserve the interlaced video. You don't want to convert to progressive scan.

I would say that you shouldn't have to convert. Many users on the net and a few even here swear that converting to progressive does indeed help with lessening the 'jaggies' of veritcal and diagonal lines in an interlaced video (when viewed on interlaced display). Granted when watching interlaced video on an interlaced display, this should NOT be an issue, yet users have still complained. It certainly wouldn't hurt to try in any case. Just kills some time.