During interlacing, pictures that form a video frame may be captured at two distinct time intervals. These pictures, which may be referred to as fields and which form the video frame, comprise a plurality of ordered lines. During one of the time intervals, video content for even-numbered lines may be captured, while at a subsequent time interval, video content for odd-numbered lines may be captured. The even-numbered lines may be collectively referred to as a top field, while the odd-numbered lines may be collectively referred to as a bottom field. On an interlaced display, the even-numbered lines may be presented for display on the even-numbered lines of a display during one time interval, while the odd-numbered lines may be presented for display on the odd-numbered lines of the display during a subsequent time interval.
With progressive displays, however, all of the lines of the display are displayed at one time interval. During deinterlacing of interlaced video, a deinterlacing process may generate pictures for display during a single time interval. Deinterlacing by combining content from adjacent fields, which is known as weaving, may be suitable for regions of a picture that are characterized by little or no object motion or lighting changes, known as inter-field motion. Displaying both the top field and bottom field at the same time interval may be problematic in cases where the video content comprises significant motion or significant lighting changes. Objects that are in motion are at one position when the top field is captured and another position when the bottom field is captured. If the top field and the bottom field are displayed together, a comb-like, or jagged edge affect may appear with the object. This is referred to as a weave artifact.
Alternatively, deinterlacers may generate a picture for progressive display by interpolating missing lines in a field from adjacent and surrounding lines. This is known as spatial interpolation, or “bobbing”. While spatial interpolation avoids weave artifacts in regions with high inter-field motion, spatial interpolation loses vertical detail and may result in a blurry picture.
Conventional methods for deinterlacing interlaced video may produce weave artifacts, for example by incorrectly biasing deinterlacing decisions towards weaving when spatial interpolation may be more appropriate. Similarly, conventional deinterlacing methods may often times bias deinterlacing decisions towards spatial interpolation when weaving may be a more appropriate method for deinterlacing. Furthermore, conventional deinterlacing methods may utilize a determined amount of weaving and spatial interpolation, or “bobbing”, which may, however, result in visible artifacts such as contouring artifacts.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.