General question - why to deinterlace video at all?

[hribek25]

Hello fellows,
First of all, thank you for such a great tool - I really like it.

I have read many materials here and there but one thing is still not fully clear to me. Why to deinterlace video at all?

Is my understanding correct that current flat LCD TVs are not able to naturally show interlaced video like CRT TVs were, and so basically any (interlaced) inputs have to be deinterlaced at the end of the day, right? And the only question is whether it is deinterlaced on video level, or DVD player level or TV level, right?

If I am correct then why should be better to deinterlace video on video level and not on TV level? I suppose "offlline" deinterlacing engine should provide much better results then deinterlacing on the fly on TV level, right?

I hope my question makes a bit of sense.

Thank you,

Petr

[JohnAStebbins]

1. Progressive content generally compresses better than interlaced content. So deinterlacing before encoding produces smaller files.
2. Some players and TVs have poor deinterlacers. Some players don't understand interlaced content at all. So quality during playback may suffer.

[Smithcraft]

I'm out of the loop with what Plex offers, but if it hasn't changed, it only offers basic deinterlacers so Handbrake might offer a better option with making it progressive once and for all.

SC