Capturing from Hi-8 (not Digital-8) and VHS to DVD

[Optical]

After capture a bit of the video there is noticible noise and other artifacts on the tape, probably b/c of recording in SLP mode. Is there anyway to filter those out so it looks closer to DVD quality or is it impossible?

[Capmaster]

Usually capturing from tape will yield a better video than the tape. That's because of the filtering which removes noise that is present on the tape. It won't ever be "DVD-quality" though, no matter what you do to it. VHS is recorded in half the resolution of DVD so you're limited. A well-captured VHS movie is quite watchable though.

[PhreakPhish]

you could de-mux and open the audio in sound forge or some other prog and fix the noise clip -then save that new wav and mux

[Optical]

What is the best program that allows you to filter out picture noise and other tape artifacts?

[Capmaster]

What is the best program that allows you to filter out picture noise and other tape artifacts?

Usually your capture app will have a box you check if the input source is VHS.

[WuphonsReach]

Capture to AVI (HuffYUV or MJPEG), filter in VirtualDub (or AVISynth).

My filter chain for VHS/S-VHS is currently (capture is at 720x480):

1) fill - to cover up the tracking noise at the top/bottom of the frame (usually 4 pixels wide)

2) 2D Cleaner - radius 1 threshold 10 interlaced (play with threshold from 5-20, possibly radius 2)

3) resize to 352x480, precise bicubic A=-0.60

4) Smart Smoother High Quality v2.11 - diam 3 thesh 15 amt 254 maint 10 weighted w/ diff (play with the threshold value from 10-25, try diameters of 3-5)

Does a very good job of removing some of the VHS / over-the-air artifacts without losing too much detail. But video quality is a bit subjective (everyone has their own views). Also, since you're cleaning the video in VDub, you have the chance to de-mux / clean / re-mux the audio. (De-mux first, clean the audio, then re-mux it when you do your filtering in VDub.)