interlacing effects issues

[fredjeang]

Hi,

Is there a way to reduce the interlacing effects issues on rapid movements?

I paste this from Wikipedia: The European Broadcasting Union has argued against the use of interlaced video in production and broadcasting, recommending 720p50 frame/s (frames per second) as current production format and working with the industry to introduce 1080p50 as a future-proof production standard which offers higher vertical resolution, better quality at lower bitrates and easier conversion to other formats such as 720p50 and 1080i50.[4][5] The main reason argument is that no matter how complex the deinterlacing algorithm might be, the artifacts in the interlaced signal cannot be completely eliminated because some information is lost between frames.

What to think?

[BJL]

Can someone explain the original reason for interlacing? My guess is that historically, the choice (in the USA) was between 60fps interlaced and 30fps progressive, and the lower 30fps had worse visual problems than the faster but interlaced option.

But since 50fps (as with PAL and it 50fps interlaced) seems fast enough, it would seem that once "p50" is feasible, interlacing should be abandoned. So unless the experts correct me, the path forward for HD broadcasting seems to be 720p50 [PAL ] and 720p60 [NTSC], and then onto 1080p50 and so on.

Aren't most US HD broadcasters using 720p rather than 1080i?

[Christopher Sanderson]

Interlacing was a workaround to make television work - a progressive scan was not possible with 1940's (?) technology since the scan was not fast enough to draw 486 H lines in 1/30th sec, but half of them was do-able: interlacing was born. It should now be allowed to die.

The web abounds with discussion of interlacing. I'll point you at my favourite video guru Larry Jordan for a fairly recent article on it.

[fredjeang]

Interlacing was a workaround to make television work - a progressive scan was not possible with 1940's (?) technology since the scan was not fast enough to draw 486 H lines in 1/30th sec, but half of them was do-able: interlacing was born. It should now be allowed to die.

The web abounds with discussion of interlacing. I'll point you at my favourite video guru Larry Jordan for a fairly recent article on it.

That's a pretty clear article, the way I like them, efficient info. Thanks Chris.

[hjulenissen]

No you cannot completely "repair" the losses when throwing away 50% of the pixels. You can make an attempt, and it will give better results if you throw more resources at it.

I see interlacing as analog lossy video compression. It gives perceptually "near" 50/60fps progressive, and perceptually "near" 480/576 lines, but not both at the same time for the same objects, but then it matter less because of our vision.

In addition, interlacing seems to be an adaptation to capabilities of display tech.

-h