Deinterlace Your Online Videos

posted on November 12th, 2008


Deinterlace your videos!

Here are FOUR simple steps to remove interlacing when you export your videos in Quicktime Pro, iMovie HD, iMovie ‘08, or Final Cut Pro.

****See original size****

1. File > Export

2. If you want this to be DEAD SIMPLE choose ‘Movie to Apple TV‘ (.m4v - playable on iPod, Zune, any computer, uploads to Viddler). DONE. If you need a Quicktime MOV, then choose ‘Movie to Quicktime Movie’ and move on to Step 3.

3. Choose ‘Size…’ (The last dialog box will open.) — You can find more information about tweaking window 3 here.

4. Tick ‘Deinterlace Source Video’.

Giddy up!

Want to learn WHY you should deinterlace your videos before you put them online? Okie dokie!

(I will use NTSC (30fps / 525 interlaced lines) as an example because most online video is played at 30fps. Discover PAL here.)

Back in the days of (analog) television, video was interlaced (a technique to improve the picture quality of a video signal primarily on CRT devices without consuming extra bandwidth). This meant your television alternated between odd and even lines of light beaming out of the monitor 30 times every second. It moves so fast our eyes can’t even tell. Sweet!

Technology has changed though. First there was HD 1080i (i = interlaced), then that was superseded by HD 1080p (p = progressive). Progressive scan is a method for displaying, storing or transmitting moving images in which all the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence. First being a low quality image and progressively improving. Remember, this all happens at 30 frames per second.


This animation shows the difference between progressive and interlaced video.

Web video is progressive. If you upload a video that has been interlaced, then it won’t display properly and you’ll end up with video that looks like Justine’s My new show on Pluggedin! or Lisa’s Mostly Madonna.

Note: I know Justine and Lisa are both very experienced in video production, so I assume it was the companies that they each work for that exported as interlaced (who knows why…) and the girls just uploaded *that* file to the web.

Go deinterlace your video now and put it on Viddler.

Update! Here’s a list of programs (thanks to Miro’s blog) that can deinterlace video on Windows operating systems:
Editing Suites:
Adobe Premiere (Windows, Mac ~ $$$)
Sony Vegas (Windows ~ $$$)
Windows Movie Maker (free)

Video Processing Application Guides/Tutorials/Manuals:
VirtualDub (Windows ~ free; open source)
MPEG Streamclip (Windows, Mac ~ free)
mencoder (Linux ~ free; open source)
FFmpeg (Linux ~ free; open source)
VLC (Windows, Mac, Linux ~ free; open source)

Short URL: http://djsteen.com/wp/p/28

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  • Wow, that was like how your tv works 101. We just bought a 1080 p and so this really helps. Plus we download movies and play them on our tv.
  • Very interesting indeed. I have long wondered what the difference was between all the different classes of output. I was in a TV store recently with my husband and he was very keen on buying an HD TV. i had no idea what he was talking about but didn't want to sound dumb so I stayed quiet. I snuck back home to do some reasearch on the net and found your site which was by far the most informative in the subject. Thank you.
  • Adobe Media Encoder, select the "deinterlace" option on the output tab and give the video 50 frames per second. Adobe then converts every field into a frame, as there are 2 fields per second you need 50 frames per second for a 25fps video. So in essence, you get a 50 "fake" progressive fps video instead of the usual 25 interlaced. The result of such a process is very smooth video, just as smooth as the source.
  • Excellent article - I never understood the difference between analogue and HD although there were plenty of times I pretended to - especially when trying to look knowledgeable when buying TVs with my girlfriend. Thanks for the education!
  • Thanks for the instructions was very useful..
  • Thanks for sharing, was very useful I am going to experiment on this..
  • You nailed the spot, thanks of the information, I'm really trying to figure it out, good thing I stumbled upon your entry.. thanks a lot.!!
  • Wow this is really awesome. I like this tips.. Thanks for the sharing.
  • axxo
    Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again - taking you feeds also, Thanks.
    Also Visit http://musicxpose.com/ For Free HD Movies.
  • Thanks do much for your post, I have been struggling with the interlacing which seemed an never ending problem for me.
    You have just made my life so easy and it seems to be simple process..
    Thanks again for an educating post..
  • thanks for the tip mate!
  • you are on my rss reader now
  • Thank you for this great tip. Check out these videos I re-exported again after I read this article: http://www.angelav.com/artists.php?m=1&i=43
    Cheers!
  • Thnks for sharing this tips for online video. Good post and very informative..
  • Thank you for sharing this tip. I will try it.
  • Don
    Great Tip! But in iMovie '08, you need to do share -->Export Using Quicktime. Trying this now, can't wait to see the results!
  • No love for us PC folks? :-)
  • John,

    Dean Jansen, from Miro, has a good post here that mentions Windows alternatives. I've also added this list to the bottom of my post. :)

    Giddy.
  • Hi,
    Video sharing is all the rage since a while now, and it does not seem to end. Everybody wants to share their videos, their passions and the things they like. There are so many sites around to publish videos on the web that it is sometimes hard to make a choice. We know some of the big players on the market like YouTube, Revver or Dailymotion, but there are so many others competing to be the number one, or targeting a specific audience, be it geographically (China, Japan, Turkey...), by language (German, Arabic, French...) or for the kind of content they focus on (cooking, planes, extreme sports...).
    I have compiled a growing list of already 900 video sharing sites, video search engines, video download sites, and video publication and statistics online services that you can check at http://www.ilikesharingvideos.com
    For each of them, you will get useful information such as their history, the country from which most of their visitors come, their niche, their rank, their latest news...
    This site offers some other interesting features, like a forum about online videos, how to make money with your videos, how to create your own YouTube site, video contests, etc.
    So if you are interested in video sharing or online video marketing, give an eye to this site, it worths it.
    Cheers
  • Nice post Derek. I remember when you were talking about this in Podcamp.
    Cheers.
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