How best to set up a computer to do restoration?

[diprotic]

Lots of info out there about what VCR/TBC to get which is awesome. Still curious about:

* PC specs
* Restoration software (AviSynth or other?)
* OS
* Capture device

So, if I wanted to do some basic restoration using AviSynth, what might I need? I have a Dell Latitude i7 running Win10, and a fairly modern MacBook Pro.

I've thought about getting a USB capture device and running XP in a VM, since I understand many AviSynth features work best in XP, right?

Any input on the digital side of things would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Edit: Relevant info: my sources are very watchable, they just need some chromashifting and minor cropping for the most part. No heavy filtering, so I suppose I don't necessarily need AviSynth, it's just what I'm familiar with.

[PuzZLeR]

Any input on the digital side of things would be greatly appreciated.

Many will have varied opinions, but here's my input.

* PC specs
* Restoration software (AviSynth or other?)
* OS
* Capture device

What are you capturing? DV? VHS? SDTV? HDTV? Each is different, and each would need different minimums.

And yes, AviSynth is very relevant with video restoration. So many options.

So, if I wanted to do some basic restoration using AviSynth, what might I need? I have a Dell Latitude i7 running Win10, and a fairly modern MacBook Pro.

Yes, you will be best with an i7 when dealing with HD, and even with filters to restore VHS. Some AviSynth filters, especially the more thorough ones, would need that extra processing to denoise, etc, to keep times reasonably sane. Other software, like NeatVideo, also good for certain types of restoration, would need many, many, overnights without an i7.

Personally I would avoid a laptop for such "heavy plumbing", even capturing, regardless of its specs, and many will agree with me here for a number of reasons. I've always seen such computers as great for convenience offerings, and mostly for lighter stuff, not for the "real work".

Keep in mind, AFAIK, Macs don't support AviSynth.

I've thought about getting a USB capture device and running XP in a VM, since I understand many AviSynth features work best in XP, right?

I'm still sticking with XP and 32 bit for several capture devices (such as the ATI USB 600) or several AviSynth filters. Yes, they work best under XP, or may need a complicated installation otherwise on more modern systems. Even certain codecs, like HuffYUV, would need a manual installation on Win 7 and up.

I still keep an XP machine around for dedicated, and specific, tasks. I keep it clean - even recently changed some leaking caps and have a backup motherboard and processor for the long run.

Relevant info: my sources are very watchable, they just need some chromashifting and minor cropping for the most part. No heavy filtering, so I suppose I don't necessarily need AviSynth, it's just what I'm familiar with.

For such restoration, you will not need a powerful processor really, but AviSynth can take care of this too, and quite easily.

[johnmeyer]

+1 to everything PuzZLeR said.

There is absolutely no "one size fits all" script or software or technique that handles all types of restoration. Every tape, and each program, video, or film is completely different.

[diprotic]

I'm capturing/restoring VHS.

Sounds like I will be in good shape if I can give it as much CPU as I can, while sticking with XP and AviSynth.

Do you recommend the ATI USB 600?

[PuzZLeR]

I'm capturing/restoring VHS.

Ah yes, just saw that you mentioned VCR previously.

Sounds like I will be in good shape if I can give it as much CPU as I can, while sticking with XP and AviSynth.

Heavy restoration is CPU intensive, and capturing is demanding on many resources too, so yeah, the more horsepower the better here. And XP seems to be the least common denominator of compatibility when it comes to this genre, particularly VHS captures and VHS restoration.

Do you recommend the ATI USB 600?

All you'd need for VHS is a good USB device, and the ATI 600 USB is certainly one of them, but it's not made any more, so you'd have to deal with used/backstock resellers for it. Furthermore, it's certainly tricky, and complicated, to make work, for Windows 7 and up. But it works very well on XP as is.

For those that don't want such headaches, and want to purchase something new that would work on modern systems, there are some good USB devices such as the Hauppauge USB-Live2, StarTech SVID2USB2 and ezcap.tv (the REAL one from the site in its name).

Which is best? I have all four, and all seem to be excellent, and do recommend any for VHS capture. Maybe I'd give the edge to the ATI, but from my tests much depends on source. I should post my results on this, and do intend to. I will get around to it one day.

+1 to everything PuzZLeR said.

Thanks. However I was just relaying sentiments that most here would agree with me anyway, and advice I myself have had success with.

There is absolutely no "one size fits all" script or software or technique that handles all types of restoration. Every tape, and each program, video, or film is completely different.

True. And what compounds the situation is that there are different tastes and preferences. Much of the difficulty in giving such advice, particularly on VHS capture and restoration, is that much of it is subjective, which should not be surprising due to the nature of the beast when capturing something analog and converting it and "fixing" it for the digital world.

I have my methods and techniques that I am happy with, and have been told by several to post some guide on them here, but I do understand that others may not find them optimal for their projects.

[lordsmurf]

You need two basic types of systems:
1- Capture system based on WinXP
2- Software restoration system based on Win7

You need both, and there's no escaping it.

I've covered this before at the www.digitalFAQ.com/forum before.

[PuzZLeR]

When it comes to VHS capture AND restoration, using SD USB capture devices, VirtualDub (+filters) and AviSynth, I have yet to see anything that works in Windows 7 that does not in XP.

Maybe you'd need the odd C++ runtime library DLL in system32, or an update of Direct X - tools that may be native to Windows 7 due to their timing (and would only need a simple copy or installation in XP) - but nothing else regarding this field.

[lordsmurf]

The Win7 aspect is just about raw power.
Post-capture restoration is entirely a software endeavor.

[PuzZLeR]

The Win7 aspect is just about raw power.
Post-capture restoration is entirely a software endeavor.

You can get power installing XP on a more modern machine. The technicians I work with have easily done this for motherboards meant for Win 7/8/8.1 and up. This may fancy the O/P here.

Also, software for this genre (VHS capture/restoration), particularly SD USB capture device drivers, AviSynth plugins, and VirtualDub plugins, should run better in XP, and in 32 bit.

Personally, I hate giving advice for anything (theoretically) obsolete, like XP. But it is what it is.

I admit that I still love XP...

[johnmeyer]

I've had XP and Win7 on a dual drive system for five years. I spend 99% of the time using XP 32-bit, and only use Win7 64-bit for Lightroom and the latest version of Vegas Pro (ver. 13), which I seldom need to use.

Win7 is a fine O/S, but like all versions of Windows since XP, it actually doesn't do anything better. I realize that there is stuff down in the inner plumbing that is used by some programs, and for those I have to use it. However, the actual features and UI are not in any way better and therefore I feel no need to use it when I don't have to.

Of course I still have a 1987 laptop logging phone calls from my home PBX, and it runs DOS 3.1, so I may be a little bit of a retrograde person (not to be confused with a reprobate).

[PuzZLeR]

Windows XP - BEST OS ever IMO. And I don't care if it makes me sound old. (No, I'm not old.)

Do you too get that stupid message from MS telling you it's over? Three guesses as to what my fingers do every time I see it.

[diprotic]

The Win7 aspect is just about raw power.
Post-capture restoration is entirely a software endeavor.

Sysadmin here, not sure that Win7 is intrinsically capable of more "raw power" than XP, maybe except that XP 32bit can't address more than 4GiB RAM. Although IME, most SD capturing and restoration barely taxes RAM. I don't think XP introduces any limitations to the hardware's ability to use CPU. Open to correction on this point.

But overall, I have my answer: XP 32bit with a beefy CPU and good capture device.

I agree with Puzzler, XP is fully adequate in almost every respect. Every iteration of Windows beyond that is just new paint on the walls.

[johnmeyer]

XP is fully adequate in almost every respect. Every iteration of Windows beyond that is just new paint on the walls.

Bingo!

[lordsmurf]

XP tops out at about 3.5gb of RAM.
Quite a bit of hardware is now Vista+ compliant only.
That's why I capture with XP, restore/encode in Win7.
If needed, I can also run XP in a VM, on the new hardware.
Realize that I like XP the most as well. But you use what you have to use.

[PuzZLeR]

Keep in mind, we're talking about VHS capture and restoration here.

XP tops out at about 3.5gb of RAM.

Not necessarily a problem in this field. CPU intensive is where resources would apply here, and the topping of XP's RAM at near 4GB isn't an issue.

Quite a bit of hardware is now Vista+ compliant only.

True to some extent, and sadly likely more true by the day. But, again, not the hardware necessary for this field made as of this post, especially since VHS capture tech has not really advanced much in years. Maybe other stuff, like scanners, printers, etc., but, again, this is not this field.

[lordsmurf]

I agree with the capture aspect.
Nothing has really changed in 10-15 years now

I disagree about the restoration aspect.
There are many newer techniques, and unless you like 0.1fps, you need current CPUs.

[PuzZLeR]

I agree with the capture aspect.
Nothing has really changed in 10-15 years now

I disagree about the restoration aspect.
There are many newer techniques, and unless you like 0.1fps, you need current CPUs.

Like? I've asked you this in other threads without response.

Certainly not in the context of VirtualDub, Avisynth or VHS in general, and unless you're running multiple instances of tools, crawling down to 0.1fps is not a RAM issue as much as a processor issue.

Yes I'm familiar with fractals, and other methods, but that would slow down any processor and/or O/S even today.

[johnmeyer]

There are many newer techniques, and unless you like 0.1fps, you need current CPUs.

Wow, how old a CPU are you talking about? Mine is 5+ years old and I generally get 5-30 fps on all my scripts, even the really complicated ones. The CPU is capable of 8 threads.

As I'm sure everyone knows, there has been zero increase in CPU clock speed in the past decade, and all improvements have come from parallelism (e.g., multiple cores). As already pointed out, pretty much the only thing we've seen by way of improvement on the Windows side has been the changeover to 64-bits, which increases the amount of RAM that can be directly addressed. Most apps don't have any use for all this memory and therefore do not get faster when you upgrade from XP 32-bit to Vista/Win7/Win8/Win10 64-bit.

So, if you have a computer that you bought in the past 5-6 years, and it is working, keep it. Buying a new computer will not give you that wonderful boost in performance that we used to get every couple of years, starting with the first 4.77 MHz 8088-based IMB PC in 1981.

[lordsmurf]

The Intel 6700K that I just got smokes the AMD Phenom II X4 that I was using.

FFT (fast fourier transforms) are especially brutal on CPU. Same for most advanced median filters. Several of these techniques weren't realistic back in the 2000s. Even now, many are slow.

I don't really have an issue with fractals. My use of that is simple xy scaling. Adding another dimensions is where you need not just a faster system, but a whole server farm of Xeons. I also refer to fractal methods of resize, not just fractals period.

Clock speed isn't increased much, no, maybe ~25% at most, but that's just one aspect of a CPU.

I don't see the 80s, 90s, or 2000s boosts any different than the 2010s boosts. I was there, I remember them.

To me, these are just tools. It's not for gaming, bragging rights, etc. Right now, I could plug in an old Commodore and use it for word processing just fine. But it's not fast enough for other tasks. Even a computer from 5-6 years ago just isn't doing what I need.

However, this all said, the OP wants "basic" restoration. My old AMD did that just fine.

Windows 7 is just a byproduct of using the latest hardware. I wish they'd have made WinXP64 better. Even then, Windows 8 and 10 is preferred, and Windows 7 sometimes only works with workarounds. But there's no way I'm going to install those 8/10 OS abortions on a non-tablet.

[DarrellS]

Windows 98SE handled VHS restoration with my ATI 64 bit AIW and Virtualdub 3c just fine. I liked WK2000 the best with the Radion HD2600 but I had to switch to XP when I got the Q6600 and the NVIDIA GTS 450. I wished that MS would've upgraded WK2000 instead of coming out with ME and fixed XP64 instead of coming out with Vista. Windows 7 should've been an update to Vista, not an upgrade. XP64 had potential but was a dog as it was. MS has a habit of coming out with new OSs instead of fixing the ones they already have. We should probably be at Windows 7 now (not 10) with most of us sticking to XP64bit as a stable OS with 64+GB of DDR6 memory. I would like to have a modern I7 PC but with my fixed income, I haven't seen a real reason to upgrade for five or six years now. My MB will only take 4 more GB of RAM and I can't afford to build a new PC.