How do I properly de-interlace footage in Premier pro ( without scan lines)

Question

I has some super 8 footage digitized a few years ago, unfortunately they captured it then encoded it to a DVD. I first experimented with handbrake to extract the footage then imported it to Premier. The results were fine but it occurred to me that I could make the edits directly from the VOD files rather than converting it to mpeg 4 first. The issue I'm having is with interlacing. Handbrake seems to have run a deinterlacing filter that did a pretty good job, you only see lines in some high motion frames.

When I follow the instructions and simply click "always deinterlace" under the field options of my sequence containing the VOD file, the scan lines are still apparent even in low motion frames. When I export the sequence as pro-res, the same lines appear.

Am I doing something wrong? is there a filter I can run inside premier to get rid of the lines an maximally preserve the information, or am I gunna have to get the footage re-digitized.

Answer 1

It's possible the footage on the originally digitised version was incorrectly imported, so the interlace lines can't be removed. Super 8 video is inherently not interlaced as it's a series of film frames, but when they encoded the DVD, it may have been encoded as an interlaced video.

Handbrake may also have incorrectly decoded the interlacing, which would mean anything you try to do in Premiere won't work.

I think it's possible now to directly import .VOB files into Premiere now, so maybe try that - skipping the Handbrake stage. Then check the interlacing options in Premiere, try "lower field first" if it's UK footage, "Upper Field First" if it's not (or just try either and see which one works by rendering a little section with lots of motion in the shot.

There used to be a setting to ensure highest quality when de-interlacing in Premiere, but either it has disappeared or I can't find it.