Field (video)

Still image forming part of a video In video, a field is one of the many still images displayed sequentially to create the impression of motion on the screen. Normally, two fields comprise one video frame in what is known as 2:1 interlacing. 3:1, 4:1 and 5:1 interlacing also exist. When the fields are displayed on a video monitor, they are "interlaced" such that one field is displayed on the odd-numbered lines of the screen, and the other field is displayed on the even-numbered lines. Converting fields to a still frame image requires a process called deinterlacing, in which the missing lines are duplicated or interpolated to recreate the information that would have been contained in the discarded field. Since each field contains only half of the information of a full frame, however, deinterlaced images do not have the resolution of a full frame. Sometimes in interlaced video, a field is called a frame, which can lead to confusion. To increase the resolution of video images, new schemes have been created that capture full-frame images for each frame. Video composed of such frames is called progressive scan video. Video shot with a standard video camera format such as S-VHS or Mini-D