Those thin little horizontal lines could be a couple things.
First, rendering directly to MPEG2 might create artifacts that look like what you're describing. Try rendering to an .avi file first and then render to MPEG2.
Second, you just might be seeing the interlace process. As you know, video is a different process than film. Interlaced video will have "fine hairs", especially on fine, delicate or fast moving images.
You might try right clicking on the offending video clip, clicking on "Properties" and then check "reduce interlace flicker" and "Resample" (VV3).

I have had exactly the same thing happen, but not in MPEG. In ordinary DV. NOT on the monitor, ONLY on the TV.

In particular, my daughter, who likes to pretend (3 years old) that she is a kangaroo, leaves these horizontal jazzies all over the place when you look at her bouncing arms.

I cut it down a lot, but not completely, by right clicking on the clip, choose Properties, Reduce Interlace Flicker.

If it is still bad, I add a bit of Gaussian Blur, .001, .001. If still bad, I add a bit more.

Does anyone have a better way to handle these artifacts? I would appreciate comments.

I've had the same problem. I finally got a good quality video with no lines by setting the Gaussian Blur to 0.05, and I did not even check the reduce interlace flicker.

I see this as well , but not with MPEG. I only see it with DV AVI when playing in WMP. Other players, including in Vegas, seam to be fine amd it plays fine when tranferred to tape as well.

I don't really care that this happens since AVI is never my final destination.

Took me forever but I found this page again : http://www.100fps.com/

Came across it the other day & it shows pictures of what I think you're talking about. has a lot of info on de-interlacing as well, if your final destination will be the computer (or similar progressive screen).

Otherwise, make sure the field order matches -> right click on the clip then properties, go to the 2nd tab, & note the field order. Now go to your project's properties and click the open file icon to find a clip on your timeline -> this should set the project to the format of your clip, same field order etc... Save your project under a new name in case. Set up your render as dialog selecting the desired template, but then hitting custom -> change whatever you want, but make sure the field order is the same as your clip and project. You'll still see the interlacing, just not on a TV.

mike

If you're playing a file that is interlaced on your computer screen, you'll see the lines. If you play it on a TV monitor, you won't. DV AVI is interlaced by default.

If you want to avoid having the lines when playing back on your computer, you need to render the file non-interlaced (i.e. progressive scan) - when you render, click on the "Custom" button for the file type you have chosen, and search around in the tabs for a choice for "Field order" (not all codecs have a choice), and choose "None (progressive scan)".

The problem with MINE is NOT on the computer. It is primarily on TV. Tried all three ways with field order/progressive, and standard Lower Field First looks best, but not too good in those fast moving segments mentioned in my previous post. The others are worse and worser.

I wonder if this is nothing but a field order issue. To find out for sure, get a short clip, and render it out three ways: Lower field first, progressive, and Top field first. Play them on a TV set. I'll bet one looks perfect, one looks poor, and one looks just horrible.