Issues with interlacing (I think), menu transitions, and video quality

Question

Please see this set of images (note: large image, may need to stretch browser window to see it without scaling artifacts):
http://www.karma-lab.com/images-pub/apple-q/interlacedmenu.jpg
I'm having issues that I think are related to interlacing in some way, but I'm at a loss as to what do about it.
This relates mainly to using Apple's DVDPlayer software for testing my build, but I also just tested it by burning a disc and using Apple's DVDPlayer, and the results are the same.
The problem is, that my menu transitions play back nicely in Apple's DVDPlayer when Video > Deinterlace is set to On, but the video footage looks crappy. If I turn Video > Deinterlace off, then the menu transitions look crappy, but the video footage looks clean. And when I test the disc on a DVD Set top box, it looks the same as the bottom set of pictures - the menus look good, but the video suffers.
My project is SD 4:3, 720 x 480.
The original video was mainly screen-capture footage, progressive, and the FCP sequence settings are Field Dominance: None.
The video was exported from FCP as QuickTime movies. They look great.
The video was brought into Compressor, and the "DVD Best Quality 120 minutes 4:3" preset was use to make m2v video for import into DVDSP4. In these presets, the field order is set to "auto" - which when applied to the clips sets itself to Progressive.
The finished m2v video looks great in QuickTime, and also in DVDSP in the simulator. But once the disc is built, it has the problems mentioned above.
The menus use a Motion background. I tried running it through Compressor and making sure that the field dominance was set to Progressive, just to see if that had any effect, but it didn't... I'm at a complete loss as to what to try next.
Is this just what happens with progressive video on a DVD? Do I need to somehow "interlace" my video before bringing it into DVDSP?

Answer 1

Trai_Forrester wrote:
Yes, you've probably edited and / or encoded your video incorrectly - easy to do. First of all, did you let your main source footage set the sequence settings (by dropping a clip in a freshly created new Sequence)?
I don't believe this works that way in FCP 5.14, which is what I'm still using for various reasons I won't bore anyone with.
However, if I control click on one of my video clips in a timeline in FCP, and choose "Item Properties > Format", it shows me that it is 29.97 fps, pixel aspect Square, Field Dominance none, and 822 x 622. This "strange size" is because it's all screen capture video, of a piece of computer software being demonstrated, and that is the size of the software's "window" - we captured at the native resolution of the software screen, so it is 1 pixel:1 pixel.
The sequence itself is then set to be 830 x 622 (4:3), Field Dominance None (among other settings).
Once exported, it is a QuickTime movie at 830 x 622, progressive.
From there, it is encoded using Compressor's "DVD Best Quality 120 Minutes - 4:3" preset, with Field Dominance in the MPEG-2 setting set to "Progressive", where it becomes the correct frame size and m2v format.
So yes...I don't see how I can do anything more to keep it Progressive...
What codec did you edit your motion menus in? Probably different than you source material - so the sequence settings shouldn't be the same.
The motion menus were part of a purchased set of templates. It comes as a QT movie asset. I encoded it to m2v myself using the same Compressor preset, which got rid of at least a weird color shift that was happening on transitions due to allowing DVDSP to create the m2v during the build - but I don't really know how to make sure that the motion menus are "progressive" - although if I import the m2v version of the clip into FCP and do Item Properties > Format, it tells me that it is Field Dominance: None - so perhaps they are.
Does anyone know if DVDSP's menu transitions are always interlaced?