Repairing old VHS Tape

[kn1]

Hi,

I've been in the process of transferring old home VHS stuff to DVD. I have one tape that seems pretty bad - tape degredation has resulted in poor video quality. Lots of flickering and the picture won't hold. I don't know all the technical particulars - but it's clear this tape is in bad shape.

Anyone know of any service out there that will take a VHS and through the wonder of modern technology make it "better"? Doesn't have to be perfect but it's almost unplayable...

It's 15 years old by the way (if this matters) - and is the oldest tape I have.

Thanks in advance for any help here...

- Kevin

Yes, there are services out there. But repairing an old VHS depends on several things:
1) How much unplayable is it? There is a limit to what could be repaired, though once I myself after sery long work managed to extract some footage from a bad VHS for someone, which looked VERY bad at original...
2) Which leads to the question of how much are you willing to pay?
3) Is it a VERY important tape?

MPEGObsession

[kn1]

It's a pretty important tape - my wedding...

I'm not going to say "price is no object" - but I'm also willing to pay what is reasonable to make it happen...

- Kevin

[Quigonsean]

If they can restor Star Wars A New Hope as bad as it was they can fix anything. It's just a matter of finding the right person. What country are you in?

Sean

[jsnkc]

Re-mastering star wars, and fixing a 15 year old VHS tape are 2 completley diffrent things. Most of the hollywood studios use proprietary software and hardware that only they have access to, if you tried to find someone to do that in the real world you will have a very diffitcult time. Pretty much all professionals know that VHS is what it is and there is really no way to make it look any better apart from running it through a TBC and doing some basic color corrections and things. My advice would be to capture the VHS in the best way that you can and get it burned onto a DVD, but even that doesn't guarantee that it will last longer than the VHS tape with all the stories of DVD Rot going around these days.

[ckdexterhn1]

I still have an old Panasonic work horse (circa 1985) that I play some of my older (10+) VHS tapes on when I need to do VCD transfers. It's a 4 head machine that still works pretty well although it does have some tracking issues. I recently got a JVC S-VHS, and I've copied some of my old VHS tapes to S-VHS with good results.

Quality won't be perfect but you can make it from unviewable to viewable with some hard work... With the tape I worked on some frames were lost so I replaced them with combined frames, ran a noise filter, and from something that was horrible, you could see something. It looked bad, but much better then original...

Edit:
Why would you copy a VHS to S-VHS tape? S-VHS has higher quality, yes, but it will degrade just as much as VHS with time...

[tom28]

One idea is to record on a DVD recorder such as Panasonic E30 which has a time base corrector build in and 3d noise reduction. Time base corrector is neccessary for your type of VHS which is out of sync, it will correct the time base error and provide a stable recording into the recorder.

Then if it is successfully recorded on the the DVD you can always input your mpeg2 into your application, filter it, improve the quality and reencode it back to Mpeg2 and burn it on DVD.

You can either buy a panasonic E50 E60, which is going down in price or borrow one, or buy a E30 at circuit city and test it out and see if it works.

www.panasonic.com

[jsnkc]

Actually if you take a MPEG-2 file and try to edit with it you will be getting a signifigant loss in quality, so that is definatley not the way to go.

[ckdexterhn1]

Why would you copy a VHS to S-VHS tape? S-VHS has higher quality, yes, but it will degrade just as much as VHS with time...

S-VHS will save the quality you still have without losing more from making the dub, plus it help to make the picture more stable (less flickering and rolls) so that if you choose to make a VCD or DVD you can.

[tom28]

Jason, you are right, forgot about that.

The second option is after the successfuly recording via the E30 and to play your DVD back into your capture card, capture in AVI or DV, input to your editor, filter it, brighten or increase contrast, something like that, etc etc and see how you can make your capture better, re-encode and burn it back. If you satisfy of the DVD recorder from the E30 then you don't have to do the capture and encode again.

Since if your Tape is bad enough, during play back, your capture card will not be able to capture the footage, it will drop lots and lots of frame; thus using DVD recorder is a way to go since it records with the Time Base Corrector and will not drop frames like using the capture card.

Depends, 704x576 25fps at 15mbps gives very good quality, though if you can, uncompressed is always better...

In anycase one has to see exactly what is the problem as there isn't any single solution, each problem has it's own solution, I sugust you'll ask around people with equipment...

[jsnkc]

You will still probably do more harm than good doing it that way, the more times you uncompress and recompress a video you will get quality loss. The best way is to just transfer it once and leave it alone after that.

[kn1]

Sorry for a delayed response - I've been in meetings....

Anyway - I'm in the US.

I appreciate everyone's comments but the issue here is that the video coming out is horrible and I'm not sure how I would make it better with TMPgenc, etc. It's way out-of-sync - not video/audio - but rather the picture just never seems to lock properly.

I can deal with poor quality if I can solve the video "jumping around"? issue...

Again - sorry for my non-technical babble.

- Kevin

[kn1]

...and I may try the Panasonic recorder idea...

Thanks for the lead...

- Kevin

[tom28]

Yup usually the Time Base Corrector (TMC) will correct the Sync problem, so my recommendation is to try it on the Panasonic E30, unless the tape is so bad the TMC will be not able to correct it. Circuit City will give you refund if not satisfy with no questions ask, so get a E30 and see if it works, if it doesn't you can return it.

[jsnkc]

IF you can, try to play it in a few diffrent decks to see if the playback problems are better on some machines than other ones. I know a lot of times here we get tapes that will play back crappy in even professional decks so we have to actually use a consumer VCR in order to play the tape back cleanly. It might be the opposite in your situation. If that doesn't work, then I believe you are pretty much stuck with what you have unless you want to spend thousands of dollars to have someone else do it that has better equipment. I'd be more than happy to take a look at it if you do wanna spend some money to have it look better, we have a wide range of VHS decks here that we can play it back in and convert it to DVD for you. You can contact me off-list and we can talk prices if you're interested.

[tom28]

Yes, some VCR operate differently, trying on different VCR would help.

I ran into the interesting article on TMC and Sync, see below link:

http://www.broadcastpapers.com/sigdis/timebase.doc

[jsnkc]

Running it through a TBC will sometimes improve the quality, but sometimes it actually does more harm than good. We have some very expensive top of the line TBC's at our facility and we have noticed that sometimes when you run old Betamax or VHS tapes through them the quality actually looks worse than when you run it without the TBC.

Isn't there any device that could read the signals carefully off the tape and store them, let's say, in a harddrive and then correct them digitally in non-realtime making sure what to change in the signal and what not in order to keep the quality?

Just make sense to have something like that, though sense isn't the world's strong side in recent days...

[Lesmar]

What is better in transfering from VHS to DVD

1) Using a DVD Recorder like Panasonic or Philips

2) Using a Capture Card in the computer

Thanks

If you have a capture card with which you can capture with a loss-less compression then that is the best. Real-time compression will never look as good as non-real time.

And then there is the advantage of being able to do 2-pass encoding when you capture and only then compress...

[jsnkc]

The set top DVD recorders are actually very good as real-time encoders. We use them all the time, just record to a DVD-RAM disc, then transfer the files to your computer and you are good to go. You can't edit with them though. Also be sure to use the highest quality setting possible, usually the 2hr mode.

[Bob W]

I use a small gadget I bought at BestBuy that goes at the output of the VHS recorder/player to filter/amplify/level, and sync the video. This seems to do a good job of cleaning up a bad tape. The device is called a "Video Copy Master" and the model number is SED-CM. It sells for I think $39 and is available in the stores or at the BestBuy online site.

[wingnut]

Hi,

just thought I'd add that you can edit mpeg2 with no loss of quality providing you just want to remove/rearrange footage and dont want to "remix" it i.e. add soundtracks etc. Just use womble mpeg2vcr.

For DVD RAM recorder users you just demux the VRO(?) file from the DVD RAM disk to m2v/ac3 then remux it to MPG then you're good to go with frame accurate cuts in womble.

That's the way I'll go dumping my ATI capture card, (if I can ever afford the DVD recorder that is )

Cheers

Edz

[presto]

I wonder if kn1 is having the same problem I have. Some of my VHS tapes play fine on TV but will not "hold" when played on my computer. The picture flutters. It looks like a part of the picture is turned into a slightly transparent flag and is flapping around the top half of the picture.

It is not macrovision and it is not horizontal hold.

Since the tape plays find on TV there MUST be a way to record it onto my computer.

[rgscout]

I red on this forum that´s possible to correct the video signal using Digital Camcorders( passthrough trick ). I think that´s is cheaper than TBC option.
I´m looking for that post. But I´m sure I saw.

Thanks

[txpharoah]

I red on this forum that´s possible to correct the video signal using Digital Camcorders( passthrough trick ). I think that´s is cheaper than TBC option. I´m looking for that post. But I´m sure I saw.
Thanks

No.

[disturbed1]

You could dub it to another tape, as posted above. This saves the original from being played over and over again.

You can pick up a JVC SVHS model for just over $100, and cheap TBC like device for $40 (the copy master plus can act as a TBC). These won't be as good as the pro editions available, but since your not going to do this for a living I wouldn't recomend investing that much.

This will also make it easier to capture to the computer as it rewrites the sync info to the new tape. Trying to capture from the original tape will almost gaurentee too many dropped frames and extreme A/V sync problems.

When ever I under take a serious restoration project like yours, that's the first step I do. Then I capture uncompressed 720x480 yuy2, and output each frame to targa (tga) files. Each frame is then edited in Paintshop Pro by hand, exported back out in a numbered sequences with blank images to fill in the too bad to restore spots, reasmebled in a video editor to add wipes and dissolves for the bad frames, then finally encoded and authored.

It's a very time consuming task. But worth it for your memories. Keep in mind that a 10 minute clip alone has about 18,000 frames, and this type of work commands top dollar, but achieves the best result.

[txpharoah]

You could dub it to another tape, as posted above. This saves the original from being played over and over again.

This can work, but not always. Good idea. Just wanted to back you up on this.

You can pick up a JVC SVHS model for just over $100, and cheap TBC like device for $40 (the copy master plus can act as a TBC). These won't be as good as the pro editions available, but since your not going to do this for a living I wouldn't recomend investing that much.

Yes, these are okay.
More professional editions mentioned are the JVC HRS9800U S-VHS VCR for about $500 and a Datavideo TBC-1000 for about $200.

This will also make it easier to capture to the computer as it rewrites the sync info to the new tape. Trying to capture from the original tape will almost gaurentee too many dropped frames and extreme A/V sync problems.

Hmm... I've experienced some of this as well, but on only some rare ocassions. Is this some sort of documented fact or a 'fact' based upon your experience and assumptions. I'd honestly like to hear more on this.

When ever I under take a serious restoration project like yours, that's the first step I do. Then I capture uncompressed 720x480 yuy2, and output each frame to targa (tga) files. Each frame is then edited in Paintshop Pro by hand, exported back out in a numbered sequences with blank images to fill in the too bad to restore spots, reasmebled in a video editor to add wipes and dissolves for the bad frames, then finally encoded and authored. It's a very time consuming task. But worth it for your memories. Keep in mind that a 10 minute clip alone has about 18,000 frames, and this type of work commands top dollar, but achieves the best result.

I had no idea there were any other video restoration pros out here. My restoration is limited to private freelance services (no new customers) and personal restorations. We don't do any restoration at my normal job. I've never had to entirely disassemble a video in frames, but the need may happen soon, as I have a booger of a project (that will pay VERY nicely). I'm also curious what you'd charge for restoration of this extreme (and the scale, whether it be per minute of the footage or an hourly rate or project rate).

How would you reassemble the individual frames? I admit I never get down to video at the frame-by-frame level, motion accuracy and carriage from frame to frame is what I always worried about.

Blank frames? As in not repeating frames, but just absence of the image? How does that look? I'd think there would be dropout or semi-noticeable loss. Covering it with wipes/fades may be good, but what if you don't need a transition there? OR worse, CANNOT have a transition there? Reproduce the frame? Or leave it out altogether? Or leave in the old one?