Restoring Youtube VHS Recordings

[Rugratskid]

So, I have 2 copies of a commercial for Alvin and the Chipmunks plushes. One with low quality and one higher. Only problem is, the hgih quality one has a blue hue for about 1 second throughout the video. I also made a copy using the low quality one and fixed it up the best I could. All three of those can be viewed here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/34ede7ydqmdpzxh/rMYROpqYd3#/ If someone could fix the blue hue that's on the video for about a second in the high quality video, I'd be very grateful.

[sanlyn]

The "restored" version is unviewable and can't be repaired. Version 1 is better but still useless. Version 2 has several instances of magenta tint (mostly blue), 3 instances of blue, several of greenish yellow, and a couple of reds and pinks -- so far, anyway. I doubt much could be done with version 2. You can't make repairs or change color without re-encoding. After digital video has gone through multiple low-bitrate encodes it's pretty much destroyed. You should be working off the original VOB.

[Rugratskid]

Re-encoding is fine, I'd just rather make it a better bitrate so it doesn't loose to much quality.

[DB83]

If that 'high quality' version is all you have ie no other source (you did not do the conversion to mp4) you simply can not throw more bitrate at it.

Any real quality has already been lost.

[sanlyn]

Re-encoding is fine, I'd just rather make it a better bitrate so it doesn't loose to much quality.

Sorry to say, that's not the way it works. Lossy encoding means you lose. Period. lost data won't come back later. Where do you think it's going to come back from? You started losing data from the beginning when VHS was captured directly to DVD. RE-encoding thru cutting and filtering lost more. The usual deinterlacing methods lost even more. So, the time when one could have worked on the chroma problems went down the toilet a long time ago. If the tape had that many problems to begin with and you knew it required extensive repair, capturing to DVD was the first misstep.

[jman98]

Guys, take a chill pill. Rugratskid is not some stupid newbie who asked about how he could take a BD and "rip" it to 700 MB with no quality loss. He wants to try to make the video he's got marginally better and minimize loss in the process. This whole idea that he thinks he can re-encode with no loss is not what he said. Read the posts again. That's something you (DB83 and sanlyn) have read into his posts.

Damn, sanlyn. Who pissed in your cornflakes? You NEVER give up. All we need is some loser to come here posting about some impossible task and act dumb as a rock and you'll post 20 or more times to help him. In fact, the stupider they are and the less they listen to you, the MORE you have typically tried to "help". We get one guy who asked for help, even marginal help, at improving You Tube downloads of stuff he probably can't buy anywhere and all he gets is a bunch of bs in response. I'd help him if I could but fixing those kinds of problems is outside of my league. What's the deal, sanlyn? He wasn't stupid enough for you? The fact that he actually has a clue makes him unworthy of your endless help?

[DB83]

jman98. I read the posts. I also looked at all three vids. Did you ?

The 3rd one, the 'High Res', does not appear to come from the OP. It has a website title. I was merely responding to the mis-conception of the OP that he could throw more bitrate at a yt download and get a better result.

The 2nd one is clearly a VHS source and a pretty bad one to boot. The 'improved' one defies description.

I have do real issues with you but sometime to do go off half-cocked. Maybe it is you who really needs the chill-out pill.

[sanlyn]

jman98, I disagree. The O.P. doesn't know what he's doing, or is blind as a bat. A statement like this from post #2:

Re-encoding is fine, I'd just rather make it a better bitrate so it doesn't loose to much quality.

was my cue for all that. If the O.P. thinks that re-encoding at a higher bitrate won't lose quality or will improve the results in some way, he apparently thinks that video encoding is the same thing as ZIP or RAR. Talking about "quality" here is nonsense: just look at the "restored" version. If you and the O.P. think this is restoration, you're both on the wrong track.

We (some of us) would like to maintain at least a nominal nod to quality in these threads. All 3 videos look like crap. The mistakes are blatant and preventable.

[DB83]

I also wonder if a badly-worded topic header and OP has influenced the replies.

The OP has never stated if he created any of these videos (other than the 'restored' one). My guess is that both were downloaded from yt and are not his creations which goes some way to explain the un-viewable restoration.

It would be useful if he was to confirm this or otherwise.

[jagabo]

I only addressed the "blue" frames from frames 253 to 311 of the Version 2.mp4 with some cheap tricks. There are lots of other problems that I didn't bother with.

ffVideoSource("Version 2.mp4") 
AssumeFPS(30000,1001)
TDecimate()

ReplaceFramesMC(202,1)
ReplaceFramesMC(204,3)
ReplaceFramesMC(242,1)
ReplaceFramesMC(244,3)
ReplaceFramesMC(248,1)

chroma=Trim(213,213)
chroma=chroma.Loop(760,0,0)
chroma=MergeChroma(last, chroma)
ReplaceFramesSimple(last, chroma, mappings="[214 230]")

[sanlyn]

Cool fix for those frames. Yet another jagabo fix for my jagabo fix folder (which is gettin' pretty darn big at this point!). I was experimenting with ReplaceFramesMC but didn't get as far as you. Mind if I play with that for a while?

It would be a good idea if the O.P. would reveal where these vids came from. Why was VHS mentioned in the title? Seems that VHS was involved somewhere, you can see head switching noise at the bottom of the frame.

[redwudz]

The last video is apparently from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nm-02WkrIGg
I DL'd with Replay and ran it through VD Mod and cleaned it up a little with Color Mill and a bit of Gaussian Blur. Would need to filter the audio a bit with Audacity for noise and correct the sync and it would be improved. The color flashes I didn't deal with. Unfortunately, I accidently closed VDM and didn't save it.

[sanlyn]

Thanbks for the link. The downloads are 320x240, but the O.P.'s posted sample is 480x360. The link downloads look even worse. So if Rugratskid didn't create the clips, I have to apologize for mentioning the way they were captured (if he didn't originate them). Where does "VHS" come in? Wish we had more info, but I'll keep working Frankenstein expertiments on "version 2".

[jagabo]

Version 2.mp4 is from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqnlj6ZZ9bg

[sanlyn]

@jagabo, this doesn't seem to be working correctly for me:

chroma=Trim(213,213)
chroma=chroma.Loop(760,0,0)
chroma=MergeChroma(last, chroma)
ReplaceFramesSimple(last, chroma, mappings="[214 230]")

I used this to mask the purple:

a=last
chroma=a.Trim(213,213)
chroma=chroma.Loop(760,0,0)
chroma=MergeChroma(a, chroma)
ReplaceFramesSimple(a, chroma, mappings="[214 230]")

?

[Rugratskid]

Wow, the fixed copy looks fantastic! That's exactly what I as looking for. Just some color fixes and restoration if possible.

[DB83]

Wow, the fixed copy looks fantastic! That's exactly what I as looking for. Just some color fixes and restoration if possible.

And it is pretty ignorant to ignore the questions asked of their source.

Well it is now confirned where the 'High Res' one came from but what about the other ?

[Rugratskid]

That's from Youtube as well.

[sanlyn]

Been an interesting day. Finally got the audio in sync. There's still a little purple, but...it'll never fly on my big plasma.

[Rugratskid]

That looks amazing! Thank you so much!

[Rugratskid]

Could someone teach me how to do this in virtualdub for the future?

[sanlyn]

Most of the cleanup can't be done in VirtualDub. If you're having trouble with Avisynth, just ask.

[Rugratskid]

Yeah, Avisynth seemed a little too hard for me since it's only script and not a program.

[sanlyn]

It's a program, all right: a processor, file server, and a host for hundreds of filters. The script I used is attached in Post #19. SOme of the instructions are built-in Avisynth commands (such as Crop and MergeChroma) and a bunch of very popular plugins. VirtualDub is used to monitor what the script does and to direct the results to a format and container of some kind. A script is just a text file. Look at a few scripts and you'll get the idea (and you'll even see the same commands and filters used again and again). I've said it once and I'll say it again: if a klutz like me can do it, just about anyone can.

If you have Avisynth on your PC, go to your Programs listing and look for the Avisynth program entry. Expand that folder and you'll see a link to Avisynth's documentation -- which begins with "Getting Started". If you don't have Avisynth installed yet, the complete docs are also on the web: http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Main_Page#New_to_AviSynth_-_start_here . Take care. It's addictive.

[Rugratskid]

Thanks! I'll give it another go!

[sanlyn]

Have at it. Don't be intimidated by new or unfamiliar software. Likely you're accustomed to automated "programs" that make all the decisions for you -- meaning that you get little or no insight into what's going on. As for me, getting into Avisynth wasn't nearly as difficult as learning to use something like After Effects Pro. AE looks like "just another fancy editor", right? Wrong. And Avisynth can do a lot of things that Adobe never heard of.

The biggest prob with Avisynth at the beginning is getting the plugins straightened out. But help with that is easy to find around here.