How to deinterlace 480i to 480p: are these the correct steps?

[TS1993]

Source footage is 720x480 interlaced, 29.97fps. I would like to make it 720x480 progressive, 59.97fps.

Are these the correct steps:

1. Drop video file into Assembly media area
2. Right click on video file and select Modify - Interpret Footage
3.  In Field Order area, change to Conform to No Fields (Progressive)
4. Press OK
5.  Create sequence with settings 720x480, progressive, 59.97fps
6. Drop video into timeline (click Keep existing settings)
7. In timeline, right click video and select Field Options
8.  Select Always Deinterlace
9.  Click Export tab
10.  Under Video - Basic video settings, click Match Source
11. Click Export

When I follow these steps, my video has those interlaced lines around the edges of objects. So what I am doing wrong?

[Joost van der Hoeven]

Premiere does this automatically if you set it up correctly:

1. Make sure your footage has the proper interpretation: so interlaced, 29.97fps. Check via Modify - Interpret Footage in the project panel.
2. Right click on the clip in the project an choose New Sequence form Clip
3. With the newly create sequence selected, got to the Menu Bar and choose Sequence > Sequence Settings...  and change the Editing Mode to Custom and set the Timebase to 59.94fps (59.97fps does not exist). An click OK

You are now good to go, Pr knows the clip is interlaced and lives in a progressive timeline and shouldn't see combing. If you want, you can use Optical Flow on your clip to have Pr generate the missing frames from the original fields. Right Click on the clip in the timeline and Choose Speed/Duration... and only change the Time interpolation to Optical Flow

Note: SD video is/was alwas non-square pixels; depending of how your 720x480, 29.97fps shot was filmed, it's the pixel aspect ration is either 0.9091 (4:3) or 1.2121 (widescreen). So you might want to convert these to square pixels too while you are doing this. See this page.

[TS1993]

Thanks! Just want to double check something. Is the Interpret Footage settings meant to be set to what the raw video is, or what the final video is meant to be? From your answer above, I assume the former. Is that correct?

[Joost van der Hoeven]

No, the interpret footage on the clip should be just vanilla, they should state what the clip is. I your case 29.97fps, interlaced, probably lower field first, 

[Remote Index]

Hello TS1993,

I was going to direct you to the Adobe guide on this, but it's a disaster and will likely confuse you more than help.

Instead, I'll just add to Joost van der Hoeven's advice above:

- The default de-interlacing in Premiere Pro discards one of the fields (ie. discards half the resolution of the frame); it's unclear how it "interpolates" information to make up for this.

- When he says "you can use Optical Flow on your clip to have Pr generate the missing frames from the original fields" the meaning isn't clear (since you have no frames "missing" in the original footage which makes frames from pairs of fields). He may be referring to using speed effects on your clips. He may, however, be referring to a acheiving a higher quality "de-interlace" effect (regardless of speed) by using the optical flow option. I'm not sure where his information comes from on this (not from Adobe, as far as I know), and it requires clarification.

Hopefully he (or someone else with knowledge) will chime back in with some clarifications.

R.

[Averdahl]

@TS1993 In this case you could just drop the interlaced 29.97 fps footage on a progressive 59.97 fps timeline. No need to do anything with the interlaced 29.97fps footage, Premiere Pro takes care of everything.

[Remote Index]

Averdahl,

Thanks for contribuiting this tip. Interesting. Half the visual resolution at double the temporal resolution. The frame rate will definitely have a different "look" from 29.97 but this might be the starting point for a workflow that includes optical flow. I'd be interested if you know of those who have worked with these issues more.

R.

[R Neil Haugen]

Interlaced is interlaced ... as was heavily covered in a long discussion on this on the Facebook Premiere pro editor's group, by quite a number of folks with long broadcast experience. Like Joost has, btw ... he's quite a noted broadcast editor/colorist if you are not aware.

"29.97i" is actually always technically 59.94 ... it's always just half the data, the odd-lines/even-lines thing. Normally set for one field, upper or lower, 'first'. So you have 59.94 discrete frames per second, alternating which (odd/even) line has actual image data. "29.97i" is simply another way to name that pattern.

Does that help thinking about this? It did for me.