Transferring video for plasma display

[StuJB]

I'm a total newbie with video and need a litle help.

I have a Sony minidv camcorder which I connect to my PC via Firewire. I transfer video to the computer in WMV(hi quality large) format (using the windows XP utility) which I then stream to my plasma screen using a Showcenter 200 media extender. The showcenter outputs to the plasma in 720p format.

The problem I am having is that the video although looking quiet clear has a strange jagged edge effect on the things that are moving (in this case my daughter taking her first steps :-)). Is this something to do with the video being interlaced and then output as progressive on the plasma screen?

What can I do to get rid of this effect?

[redsox_mark]

Yes, this sounds like interlacing effects to me.

Now I’m not an expert on deinterlacing, but – your original footage is 576i. The approach I generally take is that if the original footage is interlaced, to keep it that way. Your plasma should be able to handle the interlaced footage fine. So why not just feed it 576i? Deinterlacing isn’t going to improve it.

When you capture to WMV, I guess you are deinterlacing then. I’m not sure of the quality of the XP utility in deinterlacing. If you really want to create 720p progressive footage from 576i interlaced material you may need different software, and knowledge I don’t have…

I've fed my plasma with both 576i DV and 1080i HDV... no "jaggies" on either... (but of course the HDV looks better).

[StuJB]

Thanks Mark,

I'm not actually doing any de-interlacing on the file when I transfer it to the PC (windows XP may be doing it automatically though). I looked at the footage again last night and it's actually not so much jagged as having a double image on horizontal motion...

Incidentally the same effects can be seen when viewing the file in Windows Media player on the PC. I tried importing a short clip in DV AVI format and the double image effect is not there so I think it's a problem with the WMV format.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a different utility (other than the one with XP) for copy video to the PC from the camcorder?

[redsox_mark]

The problem is .wmv is a progressive only format - when you convert from DV to .wmv it will deinterlace.
Does it look anything like these pictures?
http://www.100fps.com/
Deinterlacing is tricky, there are different methods (e.g. blend fields, interpolate). When you capture to .wmv it is doing some sort of deinterlacing with some unknown method.

You want to capture in the original DV-avi format. I don't use the XP Windows Movie Maker, but I believe it can capture DV-AVI, unaltered.
Alternately, any video editing software can capture DV-AVI, unaltered. I use Sony Vegas; a download of the more affordable “Movie Studio” version is available here
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/Pro...ct.asp?PID=977

You could then “stream” the DV-AVI file the same way you are doing the .wmv file… or you can create a DVD-Video.