[MEncoder-users] High quality MPEG4 encoding of interlaced DV source

[Pierre Catello]

Hello,

I'm having hard times figuring out the best way to encode at high quality
some PAL DV footage.
At first, I though x264 would be the best, but interlacing raises some
issues :

- "weave type" deinterlacing (resulting in 576p 25 fps)  is not an option as
the footage are high motion water sport actions (lots of panning, quick
camera movements, dynamics high contrasts zones with water reflexion etc.),
where any lost in smoothness is noticeable.

- this leaves me "bob type" deinterlacing (576p 50fps), which in mencoder
involves something like tfields 4 or yadif 3 from my understanding. At this
point, I don't have much understanding of what yadif 3 does. I understand
that the 576p comes from an original vertical resolution of 288 lines that
tfields 4 interpolates to 576. But what yadif does? another type of
interpolation?
There is also mcdeint that can be used after either tfield or yadif... As it
supposed to interpolates motion compensated images, why is it used after
yadif 3 and not from tfields 0 (getting 288 lines frame as input) ? seems
confusing to me...

- is the quality of mcdeint comparable to what can be achieved with the
popular MVbob() and MCbob() for AVISynth?

Anyway, 50 fps high bitrate x264 encoding results in very demanding decoding
power for the player...
I could also encode the interlaced content, but from what I have read
interlaced support in x264 is very new and requires good knowledge of the
codec as it breaks with some options.

So, may be less demanding codec such as xvid or lavc would be better for
this kind of 50 fps content. In this case, which one would you recommend to
me. Previously, I had only worked with MPEG-2 to encode DV, and I'm feeling
a bit lost in the all the new MPEG-4 features.
Most infos I can read is about re-encoding DVD source, and what I have tried
from the suggested settings (in the 1500 kbs bitrate range) led to badly
blocky pictures. Seems like the water sports footage I'm working with needs
well over 3000 kbs to look nice, or the settings suggested for "high quality
xvid" (mpeg quantization, 2 pass with a 1500 kbs target bitrate, VHQ4...)
are not adequate for my sources.

If some of you share with me some settings that work well for high motion DV
footage, it would be great.

Thanks a lot for any tips

PS: I uploaded a 40 MB dv clip typical of the sources I'm working with there
:
http://dl-3.free.fr/52616e646f6d4956f738096b7a28013e3337dd4f4a52bf83fa1857097ae4dc54/132.dv.avi