Progressive Scan - Example of Interline Twitter

Example of Interline Twitter

This rough animation compares progressive scan with interlace scan, also demonstrating the interline twitter effect associated with interlace. On the left are two progressive scan images. Center are two interlaced images. Right are two images with line doublers. Top are original resolution, bottom are with spatial anti-aliasing. The interlaced images use half the bandwidth of the progressive ones. The images in the center column precisely duplicate the pixels of the ones to the left, but interlace causes details to twitter. Real interlaced video blurs such details to prevent twitter, but as seen on the bottom row, such softening (or anti-aliasing) comes at the cost of image clarity. A line doubler could not restore the previously interlaced image at bottom center to the full quality of the progressive image on the top left.

Note: Because the refresh rate has been slowed down by a factor of three, and the resolution is less than half that of typical interlaced video, the flicker in the simulated interlaced portions and also the visibility of the black lines in this image are exaggerated. Also, the images above are based on what it would look like on a monitor that does not support interlaced scan, such as a PC monitor or an LCD or plasma-based television set, with the interlaced images displayed using the same mode as the progressive images.