I am having a hard time finding out how to deinterlace video as online tips seem to refer to older versions of FCPX and Compressor. So now, in 2018, can anyone tell me how best to deinterlace? Either in FCPX or Compressor or any other software.
iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6), 3.4 GHz, Fusion drive
If your source video is DVD/MPEG-2, DV, DVCPro or any codec that starts with DV - set the Field Dominance Override to Lower First. Everything else, set the Field Dominance Override to Upper First. Select your clip in the Event browser and you can find the Field Dominance in the Info Inspector > Settings. If this setting is set to Progressive, then FCPX will not conform interlaced video in a progressive project... because it thinks the clip is already progressive. If the setting is set to "Off", then FCPX will try to infer by the clip's codec what the status is — it doesn't always make the correct guess.
Since you're dealing with a cartoon, you may also have a frame rate issue. Cartoons are generally created with around 15fps (some as slow as 10!) and if your cartoon video has been "normalized" (or conformed) to 30 fps (by which I also mean 29.97i) then that interlacing might be burned into at least every other frame (there may be no "fixing" it without the original.)
Your video is no longer available on Dropbox and I missed being able to download it and inspect it, so, what are the specs of the original video? (Codec/Format info - not "container" info like mov, mp4, etc.)
So even if it appears to be interlaced still in the timeline, it will output corrected? I guess I can try myself, mind you, so I will.
Okay, just did, but it is still interlaced. I chose 720p HD in the project settings. Is that the only setting I need to make the project progressive?
Make sure the viewer is set to show both fields. If the interlaced material is being scaled other artifacting may appear.
Any frame size can be set to progressive. Youre material can’t be 720. There is no 720 interlaced format.
This is the properties of the video file, which is a digitization from an old video, so I changed it to 29.97p and exported and it still has interlace lines. What am I doing wrong?
Yes, that's what I did. Didn't help.
This example has fast moving animation and so shows the worst incident of ghosting and lines.
Can you post this clip somewhere that it can be downloaded?
I can put a Dropbox link here, but let me know when you have downloaded it and then I can delete the link. Thanks for your help, Tom. Dropbox - Self Assessment 40.mov
Ah, okay. It was a transfer from a video so maybe that's why. Thanks for trying to help.
Sorry, but where do I make the clip field dominance progressive? I can't find it.
It must have a different link, because the dropbox page is still 404.
Sorry. Not sure why. Try this. Dropbox - Self Assessment 40.mov
Fox’s last image shows the inspector. Make sure the popup at the bottom has Settings selected.
I have no experience with Compressor 4.x. , but it shouldn't be necessary to use Compressor to conform any video to another frame rate — Cinema Tools is supposed to be built into FCPX. The problem is: FCPX has to know *how* to conform the video and it cannot do a good job if it cannot tell what the format of the video is. A lot of consumer grade camcorders use funky custom adaptations of (likely open source) codecs that do a terrible job of reporting the specifics of the generated video.
That report of 59.94 is very much like PsF. It's not real. The clip reports (lies) 29.97 to a player. I have no doubt the original is 60 fps, but it is definitely *not* progressive. FCPX imported the (OP's) video and automatically set the Field Dominance to Progressive (it's not nice to lie to FCPX) typical of the "lie" PsF reports to disguise its 60i original as a lower progressive frame rate (like 24p, or 30p). Checking the Deinterlace option compacts 2 frames to 1 and doubles the even or odd scanlines on the frame used (I not sure which FCPX uses — I'm fairly sure the algorithm used is "doubling"). Even if your project is 59.94, the "effective" frame rate is already reduced by half. If the original was intended as 29.97 (p) then checking the deinterlace option should be unnecessary in conforming to a 29.97p project, and in this case it is optional. I just thought the "ink" outlines looked less jagged with the Deinterlace option turned on (and there are enough frames per second to work with).
How to deinterlace video
