I have another question, which also might result in a suggestion. Currently there’s no deinterlace filter available in the filters section. I can only choose between five options at export time, which means there is no preview available. There’s also no possibility to adjust the parameters for each export setting. Is there a reason for this other than ease of use?
I perfectly understand that most users of Shotcut don’t have to deal with the issues I have to with old stuff (especially digitalised documentaries from VHS tapes). Since I cannot preview or adjust the deinterlace filters in Shotcut, I have to use either Handbrake or Avidemux to deinterlace a video either before or after editing. Avidemux in particular offers many options and a preview (even though one has to experiment a lot) and can deliver excellent results. However, this also means re-rendering the video each time, i.e., potential loss of quality.
Are there any plans to provide more options and a preview for deinterlace, perhaps even filters outside the export dialogue?
There is in Settings > Player: Progressive checkbox and Deinterlacer sub-menu. It is not available as a filter, and there are no plans to make improvements in this area.
The reason there is no filter is because deinterlacing is a normalization process that the engine does ahead of the editing process. Dan answered your question about preview. What other options would you be looking for?
First, thanks to Dan for the hint regarding the player settings!
@brian: If you don’t mind looking at Avidemux, you can load a video into it and have a look at Video > Filter > Interlacing to see how many options there are, including changing and setting parameters. It need not be as complicated and overwhelming as it is there, but a few more options that let users tweak the result would be nice.
However, I’m aware of the fact that most users don’t have to struggle a lot with digitalised VHS documentations like I do, so I would place my suggestion at the low end of a nice-to-have list.