Abstract: A method and apparatus for detecting and correcting motion artifacts in interlaced video signal converted for progressive video display. A correction is applied where interlaced video material is determined to originate from film source, thereby having been converted to video using a process known as 3-2 pulldown. Where the video material is not a result of the 3-2 pulldown process, a check is made for the presence of “pixel motion” so that corrections may be applied to smooth out the pixel motion. To determine 3-2 pulldown or field motion, a video field is compared to the field prior to the previous field to generate field error. Field errors are generated for five consecutive fields and a local minimum error repeated every five fields indicate the origination of the video material from film source using the 3-2 pulldown process.