[MEncoder-users] Mencoder deinterlacing

[Ross Clement]

Dear all. I have some newbie problems with mencoder and interlaced DV files.
Unfortunately the most appropriate thread title for me to use "I have no
idea what I am doing" is already taken.

I'm doing a lot of conversion of DV files to DVD compatible mpegs. This is
for home videos, not professional videos, hence absolute top quality is not
important. When I'm converting DV files from slideshows created in kino, I
use the following commands:

#!/bin/bash

mencoder skegness_full.dv -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf -ovc lavc -oac
lavc -lavcopts
vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:vbitrate=5000:keyint=15:vstrict=0:acodec=ac3:vpass=1:aspect=4/3
-srate 48000 -af lavcresample=48000 -o /dev/null

mencoder skegness_full.dv -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd:tsaf -ovc lavc -oac
lavc -lavcopts
vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1835:vrc_maxrate=9800:vbitrate=5000:keyint=15:vstrict=0:acodec=ac3:vpass=2:aspect=4/3
-srate 48000 -af lavcresample=48000 -o skegness_full.mpeg

And that's certainly good enough for my purposes. I have played around with
trell and mbd=2, but this is good enough.

However, when the source material is from a video camera, it's interlaced.
If I'm using ffmpeg, then I can very simply get rid of the interlacing with:

ffmpeg -i bradgate_park.dv -deinterlace -target pal-dvd -b 4000K
bradgate_park.mpeg

And that is again "good enough for my purposes". But sometimes ffmpeg ruins
the sound on the DV file, with it sounding a bit like a click 'n glitch
remix.

What should I add to the mencoder options to do deinterlacing. I tried using
"-vf pp=ci" in several places, but it didn't seem to get rid of the
interlacing. I'm tempted to use -vf lavcdeint since I'm using lavc. What
would people recommend?

Also, there's nothing in my mencoder commands which specifically refers to
PAL format. I presume that I'm getting PAL compatible output because the
input material is 720x576 @ 25fps. Is this true? I'm considering buying a
small still camera with movie mode as the video camera I'm using isn't mine.
And that would almost certainly record @ 30fps, meaning that I'd be better
off creating NTSC DVDs. Could I just use the same mencoder options with ntsc
compatible source material?

Thanks in anticipation...