[noggin]

As he ducks 1080i59.94 / 1080i29.97 sample please...

[link] 

Interesting, MediaInfo says it's h264 interlaced but playing it says progressive and I see no interlaced artifacts. VideoToolBox decoder is being used and I also see vtb being reset (ResetVTSession) a few times as sps changes in-flight. This is v3.9.4 under testflight now. For further discussion, best to take it out of Kodi forums into you know where    

It's definitely interlaced.  VLC plays it and deinterlaces to full 59.94 motion. It's definitely not 29.97 progressive or 23.976 progressive in an interlaced wrapper - it's full 59.94 motion (i.e. 29.97 interlaced with intra-frame motion)

As you say, MediaInfo confirms it's interlaced h.264, and it's using MBAFF tools (so some macroblocks will be encoded progressive if they have static content, others interlaced if they have intra-frame motion.) MBAFF is probably the most widespread interlaced coding mode for h.264 nowadays. I seldom see PAFF, but do see some separate field encodes still : 

Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 29.970 (30000/1001) fps
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : MBAFF
Scan type, store method                  : Interleaved fields
Scan order                               : Top Field First