Progressive playback on non progressive players

[Eric Pautsch]

If you author a disc with a progressive stream, only a player’s progressive outputs will do. Also you must have a monitor which is capable of displaying progressive. If you do not have a progressive player, the player itself add the 3:2 cadence for interlaced outputs. If your footage was originally shot and edited progressive, then your disc should be as well. No need to worry about which player will play what. All players will playback a progressive stream, it just depends if it has P outputs. Never deinterlance or convert for DVD.

Depends on what you mean by professional, but most Hollywood titles are progressive. Not sure the ratio of progressive and non-progressive set tops.

[James Baker]

Thanks for replying. Could you clarify a couple of things?

I have an animation which has been encoded and put onto DVD-video. Obviously being an animation it has no original separate fields. When put onto to DVD it has been encoded as Progressive.

If you have a DVD player that does not have the P outputs and a screen that cannot show progressive, will it be unable to play this DVD at all or will it just play it back jerkily.

In other words if I have the DVD encoded to progressive does this severly limit where my DVD can be shown?

Also, in your reply you said that if the original is progressive then the DVD should be encoded as progressive but then said later that you should never conver for DVD.
Does this mean that you shouldn’t convert to progressive from interlaced? Are Hollywood DVDs converted from progressive to interlaced to ensure they work on all players?

Thanks, James

[Eric Pautsch]

That progressive stream will be interlaced coming from a set top with no progressive outputs. The player adds the 3:2 to be play back on interlaced monitors.

No, you should not convert from progressive to interlaced. Encode progressive and let the player add the “interlacing”. Whether you have a progressive or interlaced MPEG stream has nothing to do with compatibility. It only allows players who have progressive outputs to play back the stream as progressive. If your player has no P outputs then the player itself will playback interlaced.

[Noah Kadner]

Don’t overcomplicate it. Progressive content is automatically interlaced by the DVD player. Grab any recent hollywood DVD you can see for yourself- they are encoded at 24p.

Noah

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[James Baker]

When a DVD player with no P outputs interlaces the progressive stream does it play as smoothly as if it was interlaced to start with?

If a DVD has been encoded with a semi professional product like Nero does this affect how well a DVD player may interlace the stream?

James

[Eric Pautsch]

1. Yes but I think you may be confused. If a program is interlaced, keep it interlaced. However, there will be no plyback from a players P outputs. If a program is Progressive, encode as a progressive stream. This way a player with P outputs will show a progressive picture. The same player will output interlaced from the normal outputs…makes sense? Never deinterlace a progressive stream…you loose half your temporal information.

2. No

[Frederick Smith]

Sorry for raking up such an old post.

We’re authoring a PAL DVD – not NTSC, so we need a little help.

The source is a 25-fps progressive computer animation. Should we (CAN WE) encode the MPEG2 stream at 25P instead of interlaced?