Questions about features (Deinterlace, Post Processsing) etc

[Comicsnut]

I use VLC mostly for watching either downloaded videocasts and backed up DVDs. I think it's the best solution out there. I had looked for something for a long time before stumbling upon VLC at version 0.6.2. Since then I haven't looked back.

It's never, ever caused me a problem but I would like to understand its features more in order to get the most out of this amazing solution.

As I am no video expert (I just want to open a video file and watch quality output, VLC does that) I want to appreciate the more, to me, advanced features.

In particular what are the following options?

• Deinterlace
  Deinterlace Mode
  Post Processing

These are found under the right click > Video context menu.

I'm sure it most likely depends upon the video that these items come into play but I was wondering if someone could help me better adjust my video output.

I'm somewhat familiar with Interlacing versus Deinterlacing as I'm familiar with HDTVs but as far as videos go I'm a noob.

In closing, reading through the FAQs here I wasn't able to find the best way to configure these settings.

Any recommendations?

[nkoriyama]

VideoLAN Wiki is your friends!
About Deinterlace, see the wiki page: Deinterlace
About Post Processing, quote from the wiki:

Post processing attempts to increase the quality of a decoded stream. In VLC media player, it will reduce blockiness for low-bitrate video streams, at the expense of smoothing out some detail. This feature is not available for all codecs that VLC supports.

You can set default behavior of Deinterlacing and Deinterlacing mode in the preferences. (Tools -> Preferences -> Video)
I set:
Deinterlacing: "Off". Because I want to enable only when playing interlaced videos, and press key "D" to toggle on/off. "Automatic" detection sometimes fails.
Mode: "Yadif". Because I contributed the part of Yadif

I don't use Post Processing, so I cannot explain it.

[Comicsnut]

Thank you very much.