Can the ADVC 300 clean and enhance my old VHS tapes?

[wasserkool]

I have been doing extensive research to find a good way to capture all my PAL VHS tapes that is over 10+ Years old on to the PC with the best possible quality. I tried a few cheap USB capture device and they did not produce satisfactory results. So I decided to bite the bullet and jump into the much more advanced ADVC 300. Some of the tapes contains very precious memories that I want to preserve before they all degrade away.

Many of my OLD VHS tapes are actually recorded footage from my VHSC (mini VHS) camcorder and all are in PAL format. Thus they are quite noisy and the camcorder only has Composite out. Will the ADVC 300 do a good job a cleaning up the signal, especially in terms of the noise, artifacts and general annoyance from an analog source? I read on the spec that it has hardware digital noise reduction and edge sharpening.

The reason why I jumped from a $70 device to a $500 device is because the cheap capture device do not have any hardware based image enhancement. I must use virtualdub and filters to clean up the video, but after comparison, the filtered video looks worse than the original video.

Maybe some of you guys here can answer my question

Here are some screenshots of the videos in question. THey are raw untouched AVI captures:

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/3296/86556093qi7.jpg


http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/3154/76595024ru5.jpg


http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/3457/32241640jg0.jpg


http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/835/37802811zu9.jpg





Do you think the ADVC300 will do a good job a cleaning and enhancing those videos?


Thanks!

[SatStorm]

No.

ADVC300 is a great way to capture VHS tapes, but beyond that, the build in TBC and the build in filters are not something to rave about. The cheapest DVD standalone recorder on those 2 matters do a better job IMO.

Better invest to ADVC110 and buy NeatVideo (for virtualdub or whatever). Also get a good VCR with TBC (but from the pictures you provided, I don't think that you need a TBC).
Also prepare yourself to get a very good PC, with C2Q9450 for example.


OR: Get a good DVD standalone recorder. You gonna have the 85% of the best possible results, in less cost and less time.

[2Bdecided]

Some VCRs have reasonable DNR built in.

The software DNR can be very good - it shouldn't make your images look worse if you choose and use it carefully. It's painfully slow though.

Images will look plastic-y if you overdo the noise reduction. Your don't look that noisy - concentrate on the chroma (which is a mess) while being very gentle with the luma.

The whites and blacks in your images are clipped. You'll have to get the levels right somehow - probably before you capture. The ADVC300 has some kind of limited level control.

The ADVC300 DNR introduces artefacts if you use the stronger settings. I don't have one, but I've read this from several different users in various forums.

I have the ADVC110. It's very good, but I did need a TBC - with it switched off, vertical lines are slightly wobbly, and this is on S-VHS-C originals.

There are two ADVC forums on the manufacturer's website with excellent technical support...

http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/forum/

EDIT: I see you're already there!

Also, look at the threads in the restoration forum (here at videohelp) on VCRs - an S-VHS one with TBC and DNR is a good idea, even (especially) for VHS.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
David.