Deinterlacing is a solution to display interlaced videos on progressive screens. It is not the perfect solution as there might be combing in the image but we will talk about that in a little while. This post is dedicated to provide information to turn on (auto) or off the ‘deinterlace’ feature in VLC media player. It is just activated or deactivated with a press of a button.
The hotkey or shortcut key in VLC to activate or deactivate deinterlacing: D
Just press the ‘D’ button on your keyboard when a video is playing and a message will display on the top-right.
Deinterlace on (Auto) – When it is activated.
Deinterlace off – When it is turned off.
It is as simple as that.
Automate Deinterlacing (On/Auto/Off) in VLC
There’s a simple option that needs to be activated to enable deinterlacing by default in VLC. It can also be set to auto which will give the software the choice to turn it on or off. It can also be set to always off.
- Go to Tools > Preferences [CTRL + P]
- Click on Video
- Select Off, Automatic, or On under Video > Deinterlacing.
- Click on Save.
Advanced VLC Users: Choose Streaming deinterlace mode
Advanced users, who know what they are doing, can choose the streaming deinterlace mode when it is turned on. VLC has different streaming deinterlace modes: Blend, Mean, Bob, Linear, X, Yadif, Yadif (2x), Phosphor and Film NTSC (IVTC).
To choose which mode is picked by VLC:
- Open Tools > Preferences [CTRL + P]
- Select All under Show settings
- Navigate to Video > Filters > Deinterlace
- Choose any one like Blend, Mean from Streaming deinterlace mode drop-down
- Click on Save
What is deinterlacing?
Videos are of two types: Interlaced and progressive. Interlaced videos are those where one frame will only have alternate lines of a picture displayed. Progressive videos sequentially draw all the lines that a video has. Interlaced videos (eg. 1080i videos) are used by cable companies to save bandwidth while broadcasting. Progressive videos (eg. 1080p videos) are common with streaming sites like Netflix.
The displays that we have these days are all progressive. Meaning, they support 1080p, 720p videos by default and not 1080i. The solution to display such interlaced videos on our progressive screen is to deinterlace them. Now, it’s not perfect as the science behind deinterlacing cannot solve all the problems and people might notice a slight combing in parts of an image. But it is the only solution we have and it works for most.