A method of deinterlacing interlaced fields of video for display on a progressive display device including the steps of: (a) determining which pixels in a scan line of an interlaced video have motion; (b) providing at least one candidate motion vector for each scan line of a selected set of scan lines of interlaced video, wherein the at least one candidate motion vector is applied only to pixels of each scan line determined to contain motion; (c) determining a final motion vector for each scan line of the selected set of scan lines of interlaced video for use in deinterlacing the interlaced fields by repeatedly changing the at least one candidate motion vector for each scan line based on pixel intensities from each of a plurality of same polarity fields at locations along a single horizontal or vertical dimension, until the at least one candidate motion vector is determined to be the final motion vector; and (d) generating missing pixels for a current field having a different polarity, the current field being a field between said plurality of same polarity fields, by using the final motion vector for each scan line to generate pixels in each scan line determined to have motion; wherein determining the final motion vector for each scan line of the selected set of scan lines of interlaced video for use in deinterlacing the interlaced fields by repeatedly changing the at least one candidate motion vector per scan line includes: (e) applying the at least one candidate motion vector to pixels determined to contain motion in said single horizontal or vertical dimension in a first field to produce motion vector compensated pixels associated with spatially corresponding pixels in a second field that has a same polarity; (f) comparing the produced motion compensated pixels to pixel intensities associated with spatially corresponding pixels in the second same polarity field to produce statistics data on a per scan line basis to determine validity of the per scan line pixel candidate motion vector; (g) determining at least one per scan line value based on the produced statistics data generated by the comparison of the produced motion compensated pixels to pixel intensities associated with spatially corresponding pixels in the second same polarity field; and (h) providing a new candidate motion vector in response to the at least one per scan line value if the candidate motion vector is not determined to be the final motion vector; wherein the new candidate motion vector is determined to be the final motion vector by providing another untested candidate motion vector and repeating steps (e) to (g) such that if the per scan line value becomes more undesirable the new candidate motion vector is selected as the final per scan line motion vector. (a) determining which pixels in a scan line of an interlaced video have motion; (b) providing at least one candidate motion vector for each scan line of a selected set of scan lines of interlaced video, wherein the at least one candidate motion vector is applied only to pixels of each scan line determined to contain motion; (c) determining a final motion vector for each scan line of the selected set of scan lines of interlaced video for use in deinterlacing the interlaced fields by repeatedly changing the at least one candidate motion vector for each scan line based on pixel intensities from each of a plurality of same polarity fields at locations along a single horizontal or vertical dimension, until the at least one candidate motion vector is determined to be the final motion vector; and (d) generating missing pixels for a current field having a different polarity, the current field being a field between said plurality of same polarity fields, by using the final motion vector for each scan line to generate pixels in each scan line determined to have motion; (e) applying the at least one candidate motion vector to pixels determined to contain motion in said single horizontal or vertical dimension in a first field to produce motion vector compensated pixels associated with spatially corresponding pixels in a second field that has a same polarity; (f) comparing the produced motion compensated pixels to pixel intensities associated with spatially corresponding pixels in the second same polarity field to produce statistics data on a per scan line basis to determine validity of the per scan line pixel candidate motion vector; (g) determining at least one per scan line value based on the produced statistics data generated by the comparison of the produced motion compensated pixels to pixel intensities associated with spatially corresponding pixels in the second same polarity field; and (h) providing a new candidate motion vector in response to the at least one per scan line value if the candidate motion vector is not determined to be the final motion vector;