[MPlayer-users] Preserve interlacing; prevent tearing on TV-out?

[Dan Hollis]

On 28 Oct 2001, Neologism wrote:
> > The final problem is that divx simply does't support interlaced video, so
> > your chances of getting field order incorrect is high (roughly 50%).
> I'm using Divx4, not DivX ;-), and it's claimed to be compliant with
> MPEG4.  MPEG4 supports interlaced video.  I was unable, however, to find
> any statement claiming that Divx4 supports interlaced video, and it's
> closed source so who knows?

BTW encoding interlaced video with Divx4: unless you can specify the field
order, you'll have the same problems encoding captured broadcasts. You
haven't got any control over the field order so it's 50/50 chance it will
be wrong. With a proper mpeg2 encoder you can tell the encoder that the
broadcast is odd-field-first or even-field-first. I don't think Divx4
codec has any such encoding control switch.

If the field order is wrong and there's no control in Divx4 codec for
field order, you might be able to pre-process your video to swap fields
before sending it to the Divx4 encoder.

> The quality is just fine for me, so I don't feel motivated to buy an
> MPEG2 hardware decoder (since I'm able to decode MPEG4 adequately in
> software, I prefer the flexibility of mplayer to a hardware solution).

I don't like mpeg4 -- there is too much temporal filtering by the Divx4
encoders for my preferences, and there are lots of nasty artifacts. Maybe
they will get better in the future, but right now they suck...

> The downsides are that I cannot tune the overscan and the brightness is
> too high (and not changable).  I consider this to be a proof of concept:
> What I want is clearly a VGA card with a TV-out.

BTW with hollywood plus you will get overscan and contrast/brightness
controls for sure ;)

The difference between television-output of Divx4 through TV-out card, and
television-output of mpeg2 through hollywood plus, is night and day... one
is gorgeous and the other is not. And the gorgeous one is not the Divx4 ;)

-Dan
-- 
[-] Omae no subete no kichi wa ore no mono da. [-]