[MEncoder-users] How does one interlace progressive content?

[Loren Merritt]

On Sun, 5 Aug 2007, Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
> On Sunday 05 August 2007 07:06, RC wrote:
>> On Sun, 5 Aug 2007 03:08:15 +0200, Grozdan Nikolov wrote:
>>
>>> so how are interlaced PAL DVDs made? I have a couple of them here and
>>> mplayer  always reports 25fps frame rate
>>
>> They are interlaced to begin with, NOT converted from progressive to
>> interlaced.
>>
>> I can't imagine what you hope to accomplish by converting progressive
>> video to interlaced, but I can assure you it won't have any positive
>> effects at all.
>
> I'm actually trying to accomplish nothing. It's not that I encode progressive
> content to interlaced. I'm trying to understand how interlacing (and
> telecine) is made because I'm curious. I know interlacing and telecine is bad
> but I'm curious about how it is made, hence all the questions I asked here in
> the past ;)

The video camera itself is interlaced, i.e. captures one field at one time 
and the other field at another time.
No one makes interlaced dvds from progressive content; if a progressive 
source exists they make progressive dvds instead. Though sometimes you see 
a weird mixture of progressive content with interlaced special effects (or 
vice versa) which doesn't look right on any kind of display.

--Loren Merritt