Advice on File Formats and TBC for 8mm & VHS

[mrees]

Dear Video Restoration Gods,

I was hoping for a spot of advice.
I'm just about to start the process of converting around 500+ VHS and 200 8mm tapes to digital.
MOST of these tapes are in PAL, with a portion in NTSC and small portion in SECAM

A lot of the VHS tapes will be multiple generation copies, mainly of old band interviews and performances.
The 8mms are all master tapes and probably only ever played once or twice.

Capturing Method would be as follows:
VHS:
Sony SLV-EZ2000S ->RCA-> Blackmagic Intensity Pro -> Premiere CS5
8mm / 8mm Hi8:
SONY EV-C500E HI8 8mm ->SCART to RGB Component-> Blackmagic Intensity Pro -> Premiere CS5

The players have barely been used. The 8mm I just purchased off Ebay and the EZ I've had for a few years now with possibly 10 hours max under its hood.

Id like to gain the best possible master from these tapes as possible.
Im going to be throwing away the VHS tapes after this as they take up too much room and I don't even have a VCR setup anymore, so once these caps are done I wont have a chance (or the time anyway), to revisit the Video Cassette captures in the future.
The 8mm's I will keep

My question surrounds around a few things.

One, is end file format:

I was considering capturing in DV-AVI
Whats the thoughts on this?
The absolute final output for some of these tapes MAY be DVD, but at this stage, they will mainly be viewed on a Media Centre PC System using the DV files.

The second question was in regards to a TBC:

Is there one I can obtain for a reasonable cost that will do not just RCA, but also RGB? And also do PAL / NTSC etc? (Im based in Australia)
If not, what would most peoples advice be on RGB without TBC vs RCA/S-Video with it?
Remembering that most of the 8mms are master tapes
I just figured if I can capture via SCART - RGB than thats the way I should go, but maybe Im wrong.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated
Thanks so much for your time

Regards,

Matt

[sanlyn]

Dear Video Restoration Gods,

Thanks for the accolades, but no one here is a god. Certainly not I. We're just people.

You don't have to be a godlike genius to do what you want to do, but the number of questions you're starting with would take several forums to answer. It's amazing that you've been able to get your hands on so much pricey gear and software (better than many of us have, for sure), while knowing so little about how to use it. <- that comment isn't meant to be an insult, but rather a caution. You first need to get some basic info to clarify what you're asking. Any answers you'd get from many members here at this stage would be confusing.

Here is an example of one type of a (North American model) TBC http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=AVT-8710&N=0&InitialSearch=yes . It is a full-frame TBC that works with PAL, NTSC, and so forth. At its price it's the minimum that most would recommend. It also happens to be a competent unit used by many pros. But if you wish, you can spend more. Much more. Many others start at $1000 USD and work their way up, though the basic AVT offers stiff competition but without fancy features.

I was somewhat confused about the way you refer to "RGB" and "RCA". RCA is a type of metal connector that's used on literally hundreds of different types of a/v cable and electronic components. RGB is a colorspace designation and a method of storing and displaying color information. None of the tapes you referred to has its data stored as RGB color.

If you had 500 tapes to work, I suggest you start at the left-hand index on this website: http://www.digitalfaq.com/ . I started with about 600 tapes myself, 8 years ago. I'm now down to about 250 tapes.

I'm certain others who catch this thread can tackle a few more of your questions.

[mrees]

Thanks for your response
I hardly find my equip over the top, and I'm not too sure what you mean by I don't know how to use it' (??). Its OK I take no offence, I just don't understand your comment.
I may be new to TBC's and video restoration, but I'm not new to video production.

The comment about RGB is as follows:
The 8mm deck has a SCART output connection. There are scart to component adapter's available (RGB) as shown here: http://www.videoguys.com.au/Shop/p/1579/scart-plug-to-rgb-video-adaptor-pa3667.html
My question was, do I capture the 8mm using component without a TBC (as I cant find one that takes a component input), OR instead do I use the s-video output on the 8mm deck and obtain a TBC?
I would have thought capturing via component would have been the preferred method. But I was wanting advice and thoughts from others on this.

I have thought about this more and I think I have some ideas and options.
Instead of the above configuration, I think I'm going to purchase one of the new Blackmagic X264 Pro cards. These will allow direct hardware encoding to X264 which seems like a good storage mechanism for SD and HD content. Thoughts anyone? Link for the card is here: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/h264prorecorder/
To me its a worthwhile investment for the amount of capturing I need to do, and for the storage space I will possibly save of MP4 vs DV-AVI over a thousand hours or so of footage.

Any other help or advice would be greatly appreciated

[sanlyn]

It stands to reason that if your capture setup won't accept SCART, HDMI, or component, your best choice is s-video. I don't know why some people disparage s-video; Certainly it doesn't have the quality of component, etc., and s-video circuits won't give you HD, even if HD is the source. I've been using s-video for years from various downscaled HD sources (cable tv), and the results are pretty darn good. Not HD, but a far cry from composite.

Much depends on how well your equipment processes s-video. I don't have your source equipment, so I can't make direct comparisons. But in my experience the s-video circuits in DENON, Toshiba and SONY equipment outclasses the same circuits from Panasonic and JVC. I experimented with dozens of s-video cables (avoid any s-video cable that uses silver-plated core wire. Very very very noisy. Monster products won't do, either). After spending a fortune on s-video wire I ended up using a cheap $6 Chinese wire that looks as good as component on a tv up to 42 inches. The difference was rather surprising. I'll admit that if you could avoid s-video you'd get better results, but there's not that much that's inherently horrible about s-video itself.

[mrees]

thanx sanlyn

From the above equip layout Im pretty sure that I can accept most analog formats via component (or RCA from VHS).
Do you have any idea if the signal would be better via s-video with a TBC or via component?
Or do you know of any reasonable priced TBC's that support component?
Id even consider one that supports digital inputs and signals too if its of an OK cost

Thanks again for your post...

[sanlyn]

I don't know of any specific component-equipped TBC, but I can assure you that I've seen pro units that do, at B&H photo in their professional video department in New York -- they cost plenty, and likely their connections are BNC, not RCA. Most affordable TBC's that I've seen take composite and s-video. Yes, component circuits outclass s-video. But if you can't use component, stick with s-video and avoid composite.

You can use a TBC with a VCR's composite output, but convert to s-video on the TBC's output. That's a bit cleaner because the TBC normally converts internally to Y/C anyway, so you save a reconversion back to composite on output. However, I also see that some TBC's warn against this: if you use composite in, you should use composite out. The exception is the AVT-8710. It's s-video looks so clean, I've often used it as a composite-to-s-video converter just for viewing. The AVT is likely an exception to the rule in that regard.

When it comes to tape, remember that the tape path in most VCR's isn't all that exacting. There are many variations in frame rate on output, which is why some capture cards don't work well with VHS. Of course, no PC capture card that I know of has a built-in TBC, at least not one that works well. A TBC can at least avoid frame-rate problems and can make a few other corrections as well.

The exception to full-frame TBC's is that they don't correct some common problems with VHS, notably the problem of crooked verticals and horizontals. These are caused by variations in line-by-line output rate per-frame, not frame rate. Those problems require a line-level TBC. Some very pricey semi-pro VCR's have built-in line-level TBC's; the cheaper ones can't handle tapes that aren't fairly pristine physically. Fora messy tape with lots of problems, you'd need both types of TBC. The line-level type should always be first in the circuit, ahead of the line-level. The reason for this is that if the line-level TBC is first, the output looks "correct" to any successive TBC, which will do nothing.

I finally gave up on my VCR that had a builtin line-level TBC. It just wouldn't play very old or damaged tapes. I finally used it until I burned it up and parts support was discontinued. My solution was this: connect the VCR's composite output to the composite input of a DVD recorder (Panasonic, Toshiba). I don't use the DVD machine as a recorder, because I intend to do a lot of computer cleanup on that VHS. Instead, use it as a line-level TBC pass-thru device by using its s-video outputs directly to the capture device -- or even to a line-level TBC, if necessary (sometimes it isn't needed, unless you're playing with a copy-protected tape). The composite-to-s-video conversion circuits in many high-quality DVD machines are better than any cheap outboard converter around. This method has worked flawlessly for several years, even on some very grungy old tapes.

[Deter]

Not really how I would do any of this.

It took a few years to figure out a really good system. To get the best possible bit-rates / little to no macro blocking and a picture that is pretty freakin good for a 240 line VHS tape....

No Dup Frames, Good Clean Audio, No Dropped frames, No Audio / Video Sync problems.....No Motion Problems.....Pretty much solved all the major issues that come with bad VHS tapes....

However a really messed up tape or a 2nd hand copy with damage is normally going to suck and not really worth the time....

The hardest part is the damage which happens on the VHS tapes themselves. Aka Scan Line video sync problems with rips & tears in the picture. Before you say your tapes don't have this problem, I would bet the house that some of them do.

No really cure for this other than full frame video re-construction to fix the damaged frames. This takes a long time to do, but it is possible and the costs on just the labor could be very high...That is if I did it......So....(To do a 2 hour video it can take hundreds of hours)
......
The goal is to get the best possible picture out of the tapes......Your methods will not do that

[mrees]

Thanks for your feedback
I'm not at the point where I need a perfect transfer, well not for all the material

What I have is a whole stack of archived material.
A few hundred 8mm tapes that I've shot of live bands over the years (and some personal home videos), these I'm keen to get the best possible transfers as they are masters and I know there are no better versions of these available anywhere else.

The rest is a collection of around 500-600 (or so) VHS tapes
Now, the issue is this.... back in the day I cataloged all of these tapes in a database.
Listed every single item on every single VHS tape. Some of these tapes had items as short as a 30 second commercial. Full of glorious detail, including generation information and dates and times. Hi-Fi Stereo audio or not etc.

Now the only issue with this system was.. well, human error.
If say you had only backed up the data to another folder on the PC and lets say a robber broke into the house and stole your PC, suddenly you have a cupboard full of VHS tapes labelled 1-600 with no idea on whats on each and every one of them.
That's currently the position I'm in
A lot of tapes would be of bad generation and available online through various torrent sites etc, but a lot would be considered lower generation and considered low gen, these are the ones I'm after. As you can imagine sifting through potentially 14,500 hours of footage ain't gonna be fun

So Im looking for a fast method to capture, but something that will give me best possible quality. Of course Im happy to go back and recapture using a more intense method if there are items there of real interest. But currently Im thinking the only way to sift through all this footage is by online scrubbing. Using a VCR to do it just seems pointless and nothing but wear on tear on the heads.

The Hi-8mm deck I just purchased has a SCART Output, so I was hoping to use a Scart to RGB Component cable and get a TBC that has Component Input to help with capture. I havent found anything really yet that forfils this
The VHS I was going to use through a TBC then capture using the new Blackmagic X.264 card, This allows live cropping and adjustments and capturing to 264 on the fly. I figured this will be the best file format to remain complete quality and to gurantee a reasonable file size as I plan on archiving ALL of the 8mm tapes digitally and probably at LEAST 1/4 of the VHS captures.

The reason Im on these forums is to learn, and Id love any advice to put me on the straight and norrow if Im being totally rogue here
Ive so far gained quite a lot of knowledge just from feedback received from sanlyn.

And Im open to spending decent amount of money on equipment, as long as it doesnt drive me too broke.
Im a big fan on getting quality gear that will last me the years, and I do perform work for bands at times, so this equipment wont go to waste later down the line.

Also,, if anyone knows of any Mini-DV HDV decks out there that support HDV LP mode, please let me know. Im pulling out my hair trying to locate one

Thanks again for your 2c

[sanlyn]

The hardest part is the damage which happens on the VHS tapes themselves. Aka Scan Line video sync problems with rips & tears in the picture. Before you say your tapes don't have this problem, I would bet the house that some of them do.

None of my tapes had those problems after I used both a line-level and a frame-level TBC. Those tapes also played differently on different VCR's, some with less trouble, some with more. The JVC couldn't play them at all. Fortunately I had 4 other VCR's I could use, all but one of which cost about $400 to $600 when new in the 1990's, and another $500 or so for a couple of rebuilds since then, not to mention plain old periodic maintenance costs.

Another technique I used often was to get a slow-rewinding VCR and wind and rewind the tape several times without playing, then leave the tape untouched for week or so. Repeat that wind/rewind ("re-packing") a couple more times, wait a week between each repetition. After a few weeks, many of those problems are gone.

No really cure for this other than full frame video re-construction to fix the damaged frames. This takes a long time to do, but it is possible and the costs on just the labor could be very high...That is if I did it......So....(To do a 2 hour video it can take hundreds of hours)
......
The goal is to get the best possible picture out of the tapes......Your methods will not do that

I can send you a few before-and-after copies of some awful looking tape where those methods worked for me, and for other users I know. But I agree, I've seen some bad damage, and I'm talking about physical tears, not playback tears. If damage is that physically bad, a lab or frame-by-frame are the only choices.

I'm not at the point where I need a perfect transfer, well not for all the material
. . . . .
The goal is to get the best possible picture out of the tapes......

If you cut out the middle of your post and put these two sentences together, then . . . ?

[mrees]

Any recommendations for a line-level TBC?

[sanlyn]

Any recommendations for a line-level TBC?

Be back with you on this one a little later today, mrees, and with some brief samples I might be able to locate. Right now, seems my family is again interrupting my retirement years with some totally unnecessary nonsense that's taking up half the day (Surely I can't be the only person among 37 relatives who can install a PC printer without crippling the system?).

[Deter]

sanlyn,

Your Tapes have those problems if you recorded them at home and sometimes even on store purchased stock tapes you get those picture tears. If you are not trained to look for those types of errors you more than likely will not see them. However they are still in the video !!!

As I have stated in many posts they usually last 2 to 8 frames....

(Find these problems all the time, even on professionally released videos that were recorded from tape (Betacam) from years past...)

I will try your method of slow rewind and ff and waiting a week. Normally will do the rewind / ff about 5 times before doing any work on the tape.....

Have a ton of VCR's and can even repair broken ones.....

mrees

The problem is with so many tapes and videos, once you find a better method it makes all the work you did in the past worthless. That is what I found over the last 3 years.....


These are kind of high rent !
DVNR-1000 is the industry standard digital video and film noise reduction system. The modular crate can take a variety of different cards, including adaptive noise reduction, dirt and sparkle concealment, aperture correction, anti-aliasing, zoom and even color correction.

[sanlyn]

sanlyn,

Your Tapes have those problems if you recorded them at home and sometimes even on store purchased stock tapes you get those picture tears. If you are not trained to look for those types of errors you more than likely will not see them. However they are still in the video !!!

As I have stated in many posts they usually last 2 to 8 frames....

Trained eye not required. They're right in font of me.
I'm posting a sample tonite from a tape where those tears persisted for up to 10 minutes. And I once tried a useless tape, destroyed by one of those cheap rewinders, that was nothing but tear from start to finish. All these damaged tapes belonged to someone else. So far I never had that problem on tapes I made myself, but I did buy a used retail video once (never again!) that was in pretty bad shape.

I will try your method of slow rewind and ff and waiting a week. Normally will do the rewind / ff about 5 times before doing any work on the tape.....

Have a ton of VCR's and can even repair broken ones.....

Your rewind routine is good policy. I do the waiting part for really damaged, crinkled tape. It allows the mylar's inherent flexibility some time to return to a normal state. Doesn't solve a lot of problems, but helps. I'll post a sample later.

. . .These are kind of high rent !
DVNR-1000 is the industry standard digital video and film noise reduction system. The modular crate can take a variety of different cards, including adaptive noise reduction, dirt and sparkle concealment, aperture correction, anti-aliasing, zoom and even color correction.

High rent, to say the least. I see them selling $5000 to $9000 USD, used. I saw one of these once at B&H in New York. It had only component i/o and no way to hook it to a capture card. If I read its specs correctly back then, it had no line level TBC. But I assume they make more than one version.

[sanlyn]

Any recommendations for a line-level TBC?

Outboard line-levels I know of are studio-level, often very configurable 2-stage TBC's (line + frame). Prices I've seen start around $1600 USD for a rather basic model, and start climbing rapidly skyward into the ether.

Used VCR's with line-level TBC's show up on eBay. By now those legacy machines are in shambles. Few can play damaged tapes, parts support is nonexistent. They won't help with 8mm.

Most paupers like myself use a DVD recorder's TBC as a pass-thru device, as described earlier. Not all units can be used this way; many line-level circuits engage only when recording. Because these units record only compressed MPEG, that won't help with video that needs more work. If tears and geometry problems get digitized into compressed video, they're permanent. Also, damaged tape needs more than just a TBC. Capture to AVI.

DVD recorders known to have line-level circuits useable as pass-thru's are from Pioneer (can be expensive, and some don't work for pass-thru), Panasonic (use Line1 input only), and Toshiba. Forum members have used old Panasonic ES10, ES15, and ES20's, or Toshiba RD-X2 thru -X5 and the "RD-XS" series. If you find these used, they're fairly durable. It's OK if they won't play or record, you don't use those functions for pass-thru anyway. Newer Panasonics and Toshibas work, too. I've no word of other brands that can be used this way. I've seen it posted that pass-thru won't work with JVC, LG, or SONY.

I think Toshiba gives superior results. They and Panasonic today sell newer ones, but also some cheap under-$100 (USD) models. I can't vouch for TBC's on the cheapies, but I'd expect they have none.

A while back I mounted some video damage samples online. The links shown below allow downloads free, no passwords, no wait, and they're fairly speedy. These are direct links to files, not links to web players (those tiny online web players are ATROCIOUS!). I was able to get to 3 old samples today, one from sports and one from an opera.

From early on I always used at least a frame-level TBC, so I have few "raw" samples about. The "Demo1A.mpg" link below is from a nephew's damaged VHS of his college championship game taped off cable. The tape was in poor shape, abused thru over-use of those destructive fast-forward/play, fast-rewind/play, and pause and repeat features. The program was 3 hours of almost continuous damage. In this sample of the original, untreated video that I worked up a while ago, I reduced the frame size 15% so the noise wouldn't be hidden by a CRT's overscan area. After trying 3 VCR's, the tape played best on my rebuilt SONY 585HF (circa 1991). Most of the noise is along the top of the image. Note: The original tape was recorded at slow 6-hour EP speed.


[Attachment 7469 - Click to enlarge]

"Demo1A.mpg" (MPEG2, NTSC 352x480, 32.9 secs, Layer-2 audio) 23-MB
http://dc398.4shared.com/download/MIkkM1cq/DemoA1.mpg

"DemoA2.mpg" is the "after" version of the same clip at full frame size. The technique used here was 2 weeks of repacking + "rest" + line-level (Toshiba RD-X2 as pass-thru) + full-frame + some NeatVideo denoising. It still needed work: there's some residual streaks, dots and dropout, and some audio pitch bugs. But project time was running out, so these weren't fixed. Removing over an hour of commercials was the tape owner's higher priority.

"DemoA2.mpg" (MPEG2, NTSC 720x480, 32.9 secs, Layer-2 audio) 20.5-MB)
http://dc398.4shared.com/download/r34YxbDm/DemoA2.mpg

Repacking does help. TBC's won't fix the heavy streaks and flash across the middle of the frame in this clip, 4 seconds in. Flash due to dirt (loose oxidized junk, and just plain grunge).

"DemoB1.mpg" (MPEG2, NTSC 352x480, 7 secs, NO AUDIO) 5-MB
http://dc398.4shared.com/download/YHLNTm6b/DemoB1.mpg

"DemoB2.mpg" = the same clip, after the repacking routine. You'll hear audio briefly droop where the bad frames were. Just no time to fix any more.

"DemoB2.mpg" (MPEG2, NTSC 720x480, 7 secs, Layer-2 audio) 5-MB
http://dc398.4shared.com/download/jc8SzI7C/DemoB2.mpg

Sometimes, nothing helps. TBC's can't do everything. Crank up the software, and do what you can:

To make a long story short, a member submitted a VHS-to-DVD transfer that is the most ghastly thing I've seen. A good example of how NOT to transfer a tape. The tape had horrible damage from storage in hot conditions and exposure to a strong magnetic field of some kind. There's a green stain along the top, a red one at the right, and even more horrible errors too numerous to mention. It was recorded directly to DVD (that's a no-no with bad tape) at a frame size too small for even "poor" quality, using an idiotically stingy bitrate of 2500 mbps -- near the bare minimum for DVD and too paltry for preserving any level of detail. And no left channel audio!

The video is an opera, 2-hrs 56-min. Had the music and performance not been so great, I'd have said to hell with it. The original VHS was a private issue, long since discarded/lost/whatever. It was played on a budget Aiwa VCR, apparently thru a cheap copy adapter, directly to a Phillips DVD recorder (a brand I myself would avoid) whose so-so TBC helped little. There is so much noise in this tape, the singer in the sample looks as if she's singing in a driving rainstorm.

"A_A01a9_original.mpg" is from the original DVD transfer. There's a flash across the screen at exactly the wrong moment. Talk about bad timing!

(MPEG2, NTSC 352x480, 12 secs, Layer2 audio) 4-MB
http://dc228.4shared.com/download/7SlcvoJF/A_A01a9_original.mpg

"D_A01a9_newframe.mpg" after several filter runs with AviSynth, VirtualDub, NeatVideo, and some AviSYnth scripts and plugins. The AviSynth plugin BadFrames.dll repaired the bad frame. It replaces a bad one with a composite of the previous and following frame. A good line-level TBC could have helped immeasurably on the ghosting and color displacement, not to mention much of the flurry of noise. This sample isn't the "final". It's too bright, the color still ain't right, but all that came later.

(MPEG2, 352x480, 12 secs, Layer2 audio) 5.2-MB
http://dc167.4shared.com/download/bnW8D7HX/D_A01a9_newframe.mpg

Wish I had your copy of Adobe. I could have a field day with it, but just not enough time.

[Deter]

At 12 Sec on the NCAA video, I saw video tears it runs about 4 frames.....

The neat video settings need to be lowered a tad.....(The video is being blurred by NR)


Around 25 secs and 27 saw some more damage......It is possible to fix those tears.......


That was all I had time to look at.......

[sanlyn]

At 12 Sec on the NCAA video, I saw video tears it runs about 4 frames.....

There's more than that. The top 4 pixels are warped thru the whole tape. I ended up masking the top 4 pixels with a black border. On many tears you can see discoloration along the top in a band about 20 pixels high (look at the frames of the closeup of the player wearing the wool cap). Unfortunately we only had time for a single capture run.

The neat video settings need to be lowered a tad.....(The video is being blurred by NR)

Agreed. The high-frequency noise setting was too high. Frankly, I think VirtualDub's own temporal smoother would have been good enough. NeatVideo can often blend low-frequency areas in such a way as to make many slight streaks hard to see, but the high-freq setting was too high here.

Around 25 secs and 27 saw some more damage......It is possible to fix those tears.......

Good eye, Deter. Yep,and more dropouts and floating "wrinkles" and "ripples" all thru the 3-hour video. But I only had 6 working days before the nephew's graduation and birthday.

The 3rd sample (from the opera) is hopeless. The image is so soft and faded, it just can't tolerate more processing. It's an example of a case where a decent TBC might have saved much time and effort.