How to play interlaced lossless AVIs in PotPlayer [GUIDE]
 

This player software is useful when you want to quickly view your captures with double-rate deinterlacing. VLC is useless for this task unless your captures happen to be Bottom Field First, because its field order is hard-coded when the source file doesn't specify it (and AVI carries no such header info). Apparently the PotPlayer developers actually have a brain in their heads, offering the option to toggle this.

If you want to follow along with the exact file I used to take the screenshots, it's from mparade.

Just a few simple steps

1. Open a file and observe the normal ugly, combed playback we expect from interlaced AVI files.
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2.1 Right-click, Video -> Deinterlacing -> Always Use.
2.2 Right-click, Video -> Deinterlacing -> De-interlacing settings...
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3. Change the Software Deinterlacing Method in the dropdown to one of the 2X options. My personal preference at this time is Motion Adaptive(2X Frame).

* If your capture device is one of the few that uses BFF, set this dropdown to match. There is also an Auto option that I suppose tries to guess the field order automagically, but I assume there is a reason this is not the "Recommended" option from the developer.
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4. Play forward and give it a second to kick in, or start playback over from the start of the file. Observe the nice, smooth motion and lack of combing. ;)

* If motion stutters back and forth, change the Field order dropdown from step 3.
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Optional
5. Compare the various software 2X methods to Hardware Auto. To enable hardware deinterlacing for AVI playback, you must toggle the dropdown labelled When an interlaced flag is not detected to Use Hardware Deinterlacing.

My results with Intel hardware deinterlacing look softer than Motion Adaptive, though it does avoid the artifacts left behind (stray interlacing from the motion mask). So it's personal preference. It's easiest to tell the difference between these two screencaps if you open them both in new tabs and flip back & forth between them.
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Final note
Remember that if you want to play back ordinary progressive files in PotPlayer after this, you will have to switch back to Auto from Always Use. The quickest way to do this is to tap Ctrl+I twice to toggle your way back through the interlacing modes, rather than opening up the multi-level context menu.

How does this differ from the Yadifx2 in VLC?

I see that the reason is field order, but are you sure? I've never really had an issue with it. Granted, VLC acts different on different systems, and different versions. VLC is no longer my favorite player for non-H.264, and I've been reluctantly using MPC-HD. If this is a good alternative, I'll be installing it next time I preview captures on my main Skylake system. VLC and MPC both act up on it at times -- MPC audio sync, VLC glitch at file playback start, VLC audio sync.

MPC is also too soft at deinterlace.

I also hate having to re-tell VLC how to deinterlace every freaking time I start the software. Does PotPlayer remember settings from last time? I almost always want to view it deinterlaced. It's most irksome on tablets and laptops.

Tools -> Preferences -> Video
You can set Deinterlace to "Off", "Automatic", or "On". I use automatic.
Set "mode" to your choice. I think the default is "linear". There are other choices. I use "yadif".

Re: VLC plays AVI only bottom field first.

I'm resubmitting the bug/feature to VLC when I have time. I can give the ticket ID later if anyone wants to contribute and persuade developers to make custom field order.

Just installed the latest VLC version that the main website offers, which is 2.2.4. Slightly shocked that it requires 120MB (web plugins disabled). Thought it was smaller.

Opened at grandmas.avi. Forced Deinterlacing On, Mode Yadif (2x). Playback stutters as expected from a player that uses BFF on TFF content.

The ticket referenced by metaleonid in this old thread has never been resolved, or updated in the past 3 years.

Depending on the renderer used, there are some options you can tweak in MPC-HC.

The trick is to change the setting in Preferences and Save it, as Sanlyn alluded to. When you change it in the context menu, it only uses that setting temporarily.

Yes. It uses the most recent setting, including when set via context menu.

IMO, don't waste your time. And if any of the "mods" on there realize that there is an existing ticket for the issue, they will probably delete any new one.

Well, I didn't create the one. 2 similar ones. He asked me to provide samples for the second ticket. The samples were provided for the 1st one. So I'll hopefully reply soon.