Video Output¶

New in v0.4.0 — your settings reset once

Video Output replaces the previous Interlaced Out and Analog Out settings, which overlapped confusingly. The relayout moves saved settings to a new file, so every OSD setting returns to its default the first time you run v0.4.0. Releases up to and including v0.3.0 still have the old pair.

Video Output is the core's one output-mode choice:

Mode	Behaviour
Auto (default)	Follows `MiSTer.ini`: an analog TV configured there means Interlaced, otherwise Progressive.
Interlaced	The decoder emits the disc's authored fields as a native 15 kHz 480i/576i raster. The analog pins carry it directly for a CRT; HDMI shows it as 480i through the framework scaler. MiSTer reports `720x480i @ 59.94 Hz`. SIF-height content — a VCD, or MPEG-1 — is the exception: it gets a progressive 240p/288p raster instead, since it has no fields to emit.
Progressive	The progressive picture, as before. HDMI at full quality, Film 24p available, and the analog pins carry the progressive raster for displays that take 480p/576p. `Analog Aspect` Letterbox or Crop corrects 16:9 discs for a 4:3 display; Auto leaves it to the scaler.

An explicit choice always overrides MiSTer.ini and persists across reloads.

Which one you want¶

Your setup	Mode
HDMI	Auto (lands on Progressive)
A 15 kHz CRT — composite, s-video, YPbPr, RGB SCART	Auto with the ini set up as below (lands on Interlaced)
A 15 kHz RGBHV rig the ini bits cannot identify	Interlaced, explicitly
A display that wants 480p/576p on the analog pins	Progressive, explicitly
HDMI, but a disc of true-interlaced video (TV, concerts) and you want native fields	Interlaced, explicitly
HDMI, a true-interlaced disc, and you'd rather not see combing	Progressive with `Deinterlace` = Bob (smooth motion) or Blend (steady, softer)

For a CRT there is nothing to set in the OSD — it engages from MiSTer.ini exactly like any other core:

vga_scaler=0        ; (the default) native video on the analog pins
composite_sync=1    ; or ypbpr=1, or vga_sog=1 — match your cable

What Interlaced mode does¶

DVD content shot on video — television, concerts, documentaries — is genuinely interlaced at 59.94 (or 50) fields per second. Weaving those fields into progressive frames throws away half the motion information, which reads as juddery movement. In Interlaced mode every displayed refresh is one genuine authored field of exactly one picture, which is what a CRT is built to show.

While it is active:

The CRT gets each authored field directly on a native 15 kHz raster — the smoothest presentation for video-sourced discs, and the same thing a set-top player outputs.
HDMI drops to 480i for the session, deinterlaced by the framework scaler. Deinterlace picks Bob (smooth motion, half vertical resolution) or Weave (full resolution, combing on motion). The scaler is not cadence-aware, so film content looks better in Progressive mode on HDMI — which is why Interlaced is not forced whenever a CRT is merely present, only chosen.
Film 24p output is unavailable (a 23.976 Hz raster cannot carry fields).

Film on a CRT in Interlaced mode is fine — 3:2 fields at 60 Hz is exactly what an NTSC player fed a TV — so a CRT-only setup can simply stay in Interlaced (or Auto) for everything.

Switching mid-title works, with a brief interruption

Changing Video Output during playback interrupts playback briefly — a short cut to black while the raster and A/V sync re-anchor, like a chapter jump. Setting the mode before loading just avoids the interruption; it is not required. Auto reads the ini bits at boot and while nothing is mounted; it does not change the output mode under a playing disc.

Sound stays in sync across the switch as of v0.5.0. Earlier releases could come back with the audio off the picture's timeline until you skipped a chapter; that is fixed, and there is nothing to do about it any more.

A mid-title switch steps playback back to the start of the chunk it was reading — up to about a second — and resumes from there, so the picture always restarts from a clean point. On a VCD or SVCD the step back can be a little longer.

The screen also goes black for the changeover instead of showing the picture breaking up while the display re-locks — about a second, and the OSD stays visible over it. Sound continues throughout. A brief glitch as the picture comes back is normal, and is the same one a chapter skip produces — see Troubleshooting. If the black lasts noticeably longer than a second or so, if a mid-title switch still freezes, or if sound comes back out of sync, please report it.

Pausing interlaced video¶

The two fields of a video-sourced picture are two different moments, 1/60 s apart. Showing both alternately while paused would flicker between them, so when you pause (or frame-step) such a picture the player holds one field, filling the other field's lines by interpolation — the "field still" a set-top player shows. The still is steady on a CRT and over HDMI with either Deinterlace setting, at the cost of half the vertical detail while paused.

Film and progressive pictures are unaffected: their two fields are the same moment, so the pause keeps the full-resolution frame. It works the same with every Analog Aspect setting.

Deinterlace¶

A picture from a video-sourced disc (television, concerts, laserdisc-style FMV) carries two fields, and they are two different moments. Deinterlace chooses how they are shown.

Setting	Progressive output	Interlaced output (HDMI only)
Weave (default)	Both fields at once: full detail, but anything that moves shows combing, fine horizontal teeth along moving edges.	The framework scaler interleaves the fields: full detail, combing on motion.
Bob	One field at a time, 60 (or 50) times a second, with the other field's lines filled in from the lines above and below. Motion is smooth and there is no comb; the cost is half the vertical detail, and fine horizontal edges shimmer slightly as the two fields alternate.	The framework scaler's bob, with the same trade.
Blend	Every line mixed with the lines above and below it. The comb becomes a soft ghost of the two moments, and nothing changes from one refresh to the next, so edges and text stay perfectly steady. The cost is sharpness everywhere, including parts of the picture that were not moving.	Not offered: MiSTer's framework scaler only deinterlaces by weave or bob.

The OSD only lists the choices that apply to the current Video Output. If Blend is selected and you switch to Interlaced, the setting shows and behaves as Weave there, and comes back as Blend when you switch back.

On the Interlaced output, a CRT always receives the real fields, whatever this is set to. Deinterlace only changes what HDMI shows at the same time.

Some things are never touched:

Film and progressive content. The player only deinterlaces pictures the disc marks as interlaced, so a film disc looks the same with every setting.
The Film 24p output. Bob needs a refresh per field, which a 24 Hz output does not have, so under Film 24p a Bob picture is woven. Blend still applies.
Subtitles, menu highlights and the HUD. They are drawn afterwards, so they stay sharp.

Many discs marked as interlaced never actually comb. On those, Bob and Blend only cost detail, which is why Weave is the default. Try Bob or Blend on a disc whose combing bothers you, and switch back for the next one. A paused picture is steady with every setting (see Pausing interlaced video); with Bob it holds one field.

Field alignment¶

On some televisions the picture could come back from a chapter skip, fast-forward or aspect change looking aliased, like a screen door. It is a field-parity coin flip in the display pipeline: the two interlaced fields land the wrong way round after an interruption. The core corrects this itself. Not every set shows it in the first place — a television with a tolerant sync separator may never see it at all.

When a picture starts — loading a disc, moving between a disc menu and the film, or switching Video Output — the core places the first field on the matching line set before anything is shown, the way a set-top player does. It may wait one field (1/60 s) of black to do so, but the picture starts aligned rather than settling.

During playback, the core still corrects an interruption it could not foresee, such as the decoder briefly falling behind. That correction also works while a picture is being held: a disc menu, an authored copyright or warning card, or a paused frame. It takes about half a second, so on rare occasions you may catch a picture settling mid-play.

Motion on FMV and laserdisc-style discs¶

A separate problem affected a small group of discs: the interactive FMV titles that began life on laserdisc — Thayer's Quest, Dragon's Lair II, Mad Dog McCree 2, Time Traveler and a few older films. These encode each field as its own picture, and the core used to play the two fields of every frame in the wrong order. The picture was sharp and correctly aligned, but motion stuttered — each frame stepped very slightly backwards before moving on — which reads as "not properly interlaced" on a CRT.

The core now takes the order from the disc. Ordinary film and television discs are unaffected: they encode whole frames, where this question does not arise.

CRT owners: please report anything that looks wrong

Verified on a composite set, over HDMI, on a RetroTINK, and on real PAL sets. Beyond that, televisions and scalers differ, and a set's sync separator is exactly what decides whether a field-alignment fault ever shows.

If your set ever leaves the fields the wrong way round after a chapter skip or on a paused frame — or anything else on the analog output looks wrong — a short report is worth a great deal. Please paste the analog lines from your MiSTer.ini and name your set.

Fixed in v0.5.0 — those reports came in, and found two more faults

RGB SCART and a RetroTINK 4K did report, and between them turned up two problems that were not the field-parity coin flip above:

The composite sync carried no equalizing pulses, which left the two fields 0.86 of a line apart instead of exactly half a line. Televisions differ in how much of that they tolerate, which is why some sets showed sawtooth or ragged vertical edges and others never did. The sync now carries the full standard vertical block.
Fixing that uncovered a field-order error the broken sync had been hiding — the two faults had been cancelling each other out. Both are corrected, with no setting to change.

Verified here on a composite CRT and over HDMI. The two sets that found the faults have not retested yet, so if you are on RGB SCART or a scaler, that report is still the one worth having.

What changed from the old settings¶

The old Analog Out = Native Fields is the new Interlaced mode, renamed — it was the mode worth keeping.
The old derive modes (Analog Out = Auto/Interlaced), which rebuilt CRT fields from a woven progressive frame, are gone: field pairing on that path was structurally unstable (the "wobbly interlace" field reports) and Interlaced mode is immune by construction. This also means the old "CRT 480i and full-quality progressive HDMI at the same time" combination no longer exists — with a CRT active, HDMI shows 480i. Pick the output that matters and set the mode for it.
The old Interlaced Out (HDMI fields) is subsumed: Video Output = Interlaced gives HDMI the same 480i-via-scaler picture. Its Auto content detector is retired — it switched mid-title, which never worked cleanly with audio.