Deinterlacing?
 

What is the best method to deinterlace the frames from 60 fields to 30frames without resolution loss?

Magic Bullet is the best deinterlacer i have used, although a little slow to render.

Can you use that in FCP?

It seems like Magic Bullet Editors that's available for most NLEs doesn't include the deinterlacer. So the answer is no, you have to buy Magic Bullet Suite for After Effects.

Another favourite is RE:Vision Effects FieldsKit. It has been around for quite a while, and I'm comfortable with it. I haven't tested Magic Bullets deinterlacer so I can't compare them.
http://revisionfx.com/rsfk.htm

My Film Effects http://www.nattress.com/Products/fil...ilmeffects.htm has very good de-interlacers and 24p conversion. If you can run FinalTouch, http://www.nattress.com/Products/Fin...SmartDeint.htm my plugin has a superb de-interlacer that is even better!

Graeme

Opinions.

What do you all think the best one is?

There is no "best". Each algorithm will work differently on different footage. You've really got to try them to see.

Graeme

What are the best reasonably priced or free tools out there, for the PC?

Alparysoft deinterlacer is available for at lot of different NLE:s on pc and produces quite good results. $25

http://www.alparysoft.com/products.php?cid=7

DV Film Maker works well. It may not be as good as Magic Bullet, but is apparently 10x faster and includes batch processing. So deinterlacing a whole tape is as easy as just letting it run over night. I've never had a problem with the results I get from it.

Practically everything is faster than MB...

Graeme

This is a link for what is essentially a pretty good, quick primer on deinterlacing:

http://www.100fps.com/

There are a number of methods and filters for deinterlacing, using VirtualDub and Avisynth (VirtualDub and Avisynth are freeware, and the filters are mostly freeware). This is a pretty good, general purpose deinterlacing filter for VirtualDub, and it is free, versatile and fairly simple to use:

http://neuron2.net/smart/smart.html

Can that be used in FCP, or just After effects?

True, almost everything is faster than MB, but I've found the best quality out of MB.

It is a good idea to try several different demos to find what works best for you (and fits in your price range). Like Robert said, VirtualDub has filters that will deinterlace and work well for free stuff. If you want to spend the money, there are many options out there. For a comparison of SOME of the possible solutions out there you might be interested in this article: http://www.dvxuser.com/articles/60i/

Thanks for that link
 

That is a very informative, concise comparison of the plug-ins they used.

Nice one. If you have the time and money, it looks like MB is the move.