You'll get the best quality for interlaced TVs if you stay interlaced.

Keep the DVD interlaced, anyone with a progressive LCD, plasma, etc. will have your footage automatically deinterlaced in the display or in the DVD player.

The only time you want to deinterlace is for rendering to the web or a data disk for display on a PC.

It sounds like you are mixing field orders on the same timeline. ONe has to give. You either need to render the DVD or the DV footage to PROGRESSIVE. Then put on the timeline.

Dave T2

You either need to render the DVD or the DV footage to PROGRESSIVE. Then put on the timeline.I disagree. I would never do that. I second what Coursedesign said. Also, don't set deinterlace to "none." I had a long thread about this 2-3 months ago.

"1) Does the progressive scan DVD player hooked up via composite RCA's affect anything?"

Yes! Composite connections are significantly 'softer' than component.

"2) Which deinterlace method should I be using to provide the best viewing on a TV and PC?"

I'd suggest Blend. This does not turn your rendered output into progressive. It will still be Interlaced. However setting to either Blend or Interpolate is vital to your project as you are rescaling the video.

Bob.

The part of the video footage that is to be rescaled should be deinterlaced before scaling (pan/crop here), then reinterlaced after scaling.

That will give the best quality to DVD for both interlaced and progressive display.

"The part of the video footage that is to be rescaled should be deinterlaced before scaling (pan/crop here), then reinterlaced after scaling. "

Yes but that's exactly what setting a De-Interlace method in Vegas's project properties does. Let's not confuse the OP or he'll be trying to figure out how to do that manually when he doesn't need to.

Bob.

I agree with Bob. I am pretty sure that Vegas does all that, unless you set deinterlace to "none," which is why he shouldn't be doing that. Again, this was all discussed about 2-3 months ago. I don't have the time to search now, or I would provide a link to that excellent thread.

Thanks everyone for responding. I will basically set my project properties to "Blend" mode when working with interlaced footage (MPEG-2 and DV footage), when the output will be onto DVD. So keeping it "Blend" is the same as keeping it interlaced correct?

I did all three modes and came up with this:

Setting the project to "Blend" affects my MPEG-2 footage (remember no cropping occured using the pan/crop). I noticed the images were soft and blurry compared to the "None" setting. Can anyone explain that? Original footage is as ripped from the DVD (using Vegas' built-in process/utility/tool).

"None" mode looked the sharpest but when there was any motion, it gets screwed up across the board (TV, PC, progressive scan DVD player, etc.). So i get it to keep it interlaced.

Jay Gladwell & DaveT2 -
I left all original footage in the timeline as is. Did not change anything. The MPEG-2 files are upper and the DV footage is lower. I don't think I should change the footage's field order. I think John Meyer confirmed this for me.

Just to complete my earlier post, I responded to a PM from L_Town with this:De-interlace thread I started

But there is also this one:

De-interlace thread #2

and this one:

De-interlace thread #3

and also this one:

De-interlace thread #4

Lots of good info in the threads referenced in the John Meyer post (especially the second one).

Here are the rules you want to follow:

1/ if your source material is interlaced, always select a deinterlace method.

2/ If you are resizing from HD interlaced to SD interlaced, you need to select a deinterlace method, but which one you select doesn't matter.

3/ If you are rendering from HD interlaced to SD deinterlaced, blending fields will look better on high motion footage whereas interpolating will look better on static or slow moving shots.

4/ If you are working with progressive scan footage, do not check the "select deinterlace method" tab. Doing so will cost you about half your vertical resolution.

5/ If you are working with a mix of interlaced and progressive scan footage, choose whichever deinterlace method works better with your source material (blend fields for fast moving, interpolate for lower motion). The resolution you will lose in your progressive scan shots won't look nearly as bad as the resized interlace comb of interlaced shots that you will get if you don't check this tab.

Those are the rules, and here is the why:

The proper way to resize interlaced footage is to separate the even and odd fields into separate images, resize these two separate images, then fold the two images back into even and odd lines on the new resized image. This way you start with interlaced HD video and end up with interlaced SD video.

For some reason (that I don't think any of us understand), Vegas uses the "select deinterlace method" tab to determine how an image will be resized. If the "select deinterlace method" tab is not selected, Vegas will resize each frame as if it was a single progressive frame image. The result of this will be that the interlace comb pattern will be resized into a new pattern that will no longer correspond to the odd line / even line sixtieth of a second apart playback pattern of interlaced video playback. This looks absolutely terrible. If on the other hand, the "select deinterlace method" tab is checked, Vegas will assume that the video must be interlaced and separate the even and odd fields before resizing, then fold them back together in the proper fashion. This looks way better, especially on zooms and any horizontal motion.

If you are looking to make a regular DVD out of a 60i HDV project, you'll get the best results if you choose a deinterlace method (it doesn't matter which one because you aren't actually deinterlacing) and render from 1080i to a regular DVD ready 720x480x60i mpeg2 format and use that to author your DVD. The reason why is because Vegas only resizes interlaced footage properly when a deinterlace method is selected. The proper way to resize interlaced footage is to separate the image into two separate images: one made up of the even lines, one made up of the odd lines, This had me confused for the longest time.

If you want, you can also render a progressive scan DVD from the 1080i source footage, but you still need to select a deinterlace method. If your final render is progressive, the deinterlace method you choose will matter. Interpolate will give you a crisper image at the price of more judder on motion whereas blend fields will give you smoother motion at the price of a bit of ghosting on individual frames. Which one is better depends upon how much motion there is in your source material.

In any case, you really do need to select a deinterlace method any time you are working with interlaced material. It is important regardless of whether your final render is progressive or interlaced.

Conversely, if your source footage is progressive, you don't want to select a deinterlace method because if you do, Vegas will still separate even and odd lines before resizing them even though this is unnecessary. This won't look terrible, but you will be throwing away about half your resolution.

If your project is a mix of interlaced and progressive scan source material, select a deinterlace method before rendering. This is because your interlaced material will suffer more from the wrong setting than your progressive scan material will.

Thanks Laurence!

Laurence, that was very well summarized!

I can only add that if you have motion footage in Vegas and you don't get quite the deinterlacing quality you need, there are numerous other tools that deinterlace with motion compensation, including some open source tools described in past posts.