Blend seems to cut the framerate nearly in half, or at least the perception of the framerate when compared to linear. Very noticeable on sports programming which runs nice and smoothly in linear but not so much with blend. I’m using both the Channels iOS app as well as VLC on my PC as points of reference. On both Channels for iOS as well as VLC on my PC, there is virtually no noticeable difference in smoothness of motion in the picture between linear and blend, but on Channels for ATV, there is a noticeable difference.
That is correct, the blend mode does 30fps while linear does 60fps. We recommend linear for US customers and anyone watching sports, and blend for UK customers (especially those watching non-HD channels).
Is that a function of the ATV vs other platforms for blend? The thing I don’t like about linear is that it causes a ‘shimmering’ effect on certain objects on screen. It can be construed as a shaking effect, or causing text to look jumpy. Blend through VLC on my Windows PC looks much closer to what I get via a set top box from the cable company, and is buttery smooth.
Edit: The last DVR I had from my cable company did output 1080p, so ti was doing deinterlacing on 1080i channels. I know many output at 1080i and thus don’t do any. That’s the reason I drew comparison.
SD channels here in the UK look much better using blend. Forgot to check on HD but assuming won’t make much difference
Have you guys looked into MMAL Advanced deinterlacer? I’ve been playing around with the HDHR app on my Raspberry Pi 3 and it looks pretty fantastic. The jitters/shimmering of linear are gone, and the picture remains clear at 60fps.
MMAL is only available on the Raspberry Pi hardware.
Ah, I gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
I should’ve already asked this, but are there any plans to offer any additional deinterlacing modes?
No plans at the moment. We have tried quite a few already and the more advanced ones don’t perform well on the ATV hardware because the CPU is already very busy decoding mpeg2.
Makes sense. Thank you.
Is it possible to automate the deinterlacing? Blend is better with sd and non sport, the difference between sd and HD is already made in the guide.
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