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  1. Member
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    I've been dubbing tapes over several months and have run into a situation I cannot seem to get around. I have a video tape on VHS-C made in a consumer Camcorder in 2002 that I cannot get to tape without a large horizontal noise bar either in the middle of my video or on the tops and bottoms. I have adjusted the tracking on the VCR I'm using to dub and while I can move the noise band up or down, I can't get it to lock the video. I'm thinking the vertical sync is having problems. Strangely, when I rewind or fast forward the tape, it looks fine, but nothing works when I try playing it to record. I'm using the Pinnacle Studio for Dazzle and the Dazzle recording device which has worked fine for over 100 tapes. I switched out VCRs and no improvement. I tried playing the tape start to finish, fully rewinding it, then did that several times, and no improvement. I have all the cables dressed for no EMI crosstalk, so it has to be with the tape. Is there any tricks to solve this? Anyone I can send this to for professional dubbing that can solve this problem? Any help is appreciated
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  2. If you can't get a clean cap, but can get either the top or bottom cleanly, you can always join the top of one cap with the bottom of another.
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  3. Member
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    Aug 2007
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    In instances like that I use a beater VCR and adjust the tape inlet and output guides by eye until I get a good picture.
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  4. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Oct 2006
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    Not sure exactly where or what, but Jagabo brought up a good point. If you can get the tape working on one part of the picture, yet a different tracking scheme makes it work for the other part, then it's real easy to join the segments with multiple captures and AviSynth after.

    Do you know how to use AviSynth?

    There are countless examples I can give, but here's a very simple example to start you off:

    1st capture, top half of picture looks good, but bottom half is problematic.
    2nd capture, exactly the opposite.

    Let's assume that height is 480 pixels. You will need to keep the best 240 pixels of each.

    2nd capture plays, say, 138 frames later than the 1st, so you'll need to time it correctly.

    The AviSynth script:
    Code:
    v1=AviSource("C:\top segment.avi").crop(0,0,0,-240)
    v2=AviSource("C:\bottom segment.avi").Trim(138,0).crop(0,240,0,0)
    StackVertical(v1,v2)
    Use StackHorizontal() if it's a side-by-side setup. You can build your script with more lines if needed for 3 or more captures. To ensure it's interlace-aware, height crops should be divisible by 8 (some say by 4, but I like to be safe ).

    Use lossless formats for best results.
    Last edited by PuzZLeR; 18th Jun 2014 at 11:59.
    I hate VHS. I always did.
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  5. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Oct 2006
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    Toronto Canada
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    Since we're on the subject, a little help if I may ask?

    I've had great results using the methods in my last post on those very badly damaged tapes, but, alas, life is not perfect sometimes.

    Most of my final results show no evidence of stacking, however, some, on maybe less than 1% of the frames here and there will, as you can see in the photo.
    Click image for larger version

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    The (good) problem with this is that it will show up on only a scene or two sometimes, not throughout the video (as you can see in the video sample attached). So I'm thinking of, maybe a more intelligent solution, or some sort of smoother of the seams.

    I would think certain parameters with autoyuv(), or smoothadjust() with its various functions, may be good candidates. Sure one can do some fancy editing for such scenes, but anyone have any ideas on a better solution, whether it's an automatic or manual one?

    Thanks in advance.

    PS: Since this is World Cup time, I've included a clip from a 1990 game. No copyright infringement is intended. As well, used DivX for low file size, hope it still can be worked with.
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    I hate VHS. I always did.
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