A new motion adaptive deinterlacing method and apparatus detects motion corresponding to a pixel to be interpolated. The method and apparatus generates a subframe level motion map based on at least a portion of a current field and at least a portion of a plurality of previous fields. Based on the generated subframe level motion map, the apparatus and method generates a plurality of motion vectors associated with the subframe level motion map by applying a plurality of motion masks, associated with the pixel to be interpolated, to the subframe level motion map. The apparatus and method further generates deinterlaced content by adaptively interpolating the pixel to be interpolated for the current field based on the plurality of motion vectors produced by applying a plurality of motion masks to the subframe level motion map.