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

[Neologism]

Dan,

On 29 Oct 2001, Dan Hollis wrote:
> BTW linux encoders for mpeg2 are sadly lacking. Fortunately there's free
> 'tsunami mpeg' for windoze. You can get nice results and complete control
> of your interlacing with it.

Cool, I just grabbed it.  I've played with VirtualDub, which rocks,
showing that I'm not above stooping to use Winblows once in a while. :) 
Having said that, I'm contributing to the open source tools on Linux in
this domain.

> Wow that is pretty amazing they've hacked undocumented feature of H+ and
> make it into a generic framebuffer :O but looks like it only works with
> older H+ card based on EM8220 chip and not newer EM8300...

Drat!  I was hoping that by buying a new H+ I would some day be able to
make use of this.  Could you please point me to your evidence for the
chip specificity?  I'm still in the middle of my purchasing decision &
communicating with Sigma sales.

> Maybe someone can ask them to release source, or just reverse engineer
> it...

This has already been pleaded and begged for ad nauseam on the Sigma
newsgroup.  Whomever released it seems to have vanished without a
trace.  People on the group have compared him to Santa Claus. :)

> BTW this is exactly what I'm doing. :-)

Here's a summary of my capture experience:

Because it had the best Linux support and warm feelings on the 'net, I
started with a Pinnacle DC10+ MJPEG capture card.  It worked fine, but I
felt the quality wasn't quite up to snuff.  I communicated with the
driver writer, who gave me some magic to try, but it mostly increased my
capture size.

Venturing further, I learned that DV appears to be a successor to MJPEG,
and seems to be of higher quality at similiar bandwidth.  I bought a
Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge and though I've seen the results only after
grinding them through Divx4 (playback through the Hollywood doesn't work
for some reason), they appear better than the MJPEG captures from the
DC10+.  The capture size is smaller, too.

Unfortunately, I've gotten a handful of garbage frames in some of my
captures.  I don't know where the problem is, but for now am presuming
it's the Hollywood.  Some research on Usenet shows that the revisions of
the Hollywood have been of shaky quality and customer support from
Dazzle has been zero.  There are three other DV bridges in the same
class.  The Sony can be ruled out because it's crippled with
Macrovision.  A review of the Formac claims it suffers from RF noise. 
That leaves only the PowerR Director's Cut.  There isn't much on the
'net about it, but it's all positive.  I can't find anywhere to purchase
one except from the PowerR web site, which is lacking such frills as a
return policy.  I placed an order for one yesterday but haven't heard
anything yet, including no email confirmation for the order.

We seem to have a lot to talk about on this subject.  Since it's
offtopic, why don't you email me directly: Neologism at P O Box dot COM.

Neologism