desperate to improve my home movie

[timster123]

I've got a 20 year old vhs that's the only surviving footage of both my childhood and several relations before they died, however i was really shocked and depressed by the state of the video the last time i played it. (i've taken a picture of the tv with my camera to give you a better idea of what i'm talking about)
It's virtually unplayable at the begining (which is the most treasured material) a particular problem is whenever there's white on the screen (e.g. if someone's wearing a white dress) then in that part of the screen it has what looks like static in it's place.
The other big problem is the colours which are really really green now.
It's also just a bit jerky and unstable.
I've tried transfering the video myself using a standalone dvd recorder but as i said the quality was really bad, so i'm just hoping there's something i can do to salvage the material and hopefully at least get rid of that white area static problem.
So my questions are, does anyone know the specific problem with the white areas i mentioned?
When i come to transfer the vhs, do you think i should transfer to mini dv for archive purposes?
I don't own any exspensive hardware and it wouldn't be worth my whil buying it for one tape, so i'd probobly be looking to get a professional to do it, however there seems to be only a couple of people locally who advertise to transfer tapes and cine film and i'm not sure if they'd have specialist equipment.
What equipment should i make sure they have to ensure the highest quality transfer (time based correctors?)
I wanted to ask, what sort of a difference would playing the tape on professional equipment have? Dramatic or subtle?
Is the biggest improvement made in hardware or software?
Which brings me onto the next stage, what software or computer techniques would you advise me to use in order to improve the footage? Can this be done by an amateur? Or should i look for a professional? How much is that likely to cost?

Sorry if i'm asking too many questions at once but doing this is my number one priority in life right now.
I'll be eternally grateful if someone could be kind enough to help me out.

[Soopafresh]

I'm purely guessing, but it looks like it was stored near a magnet.

Getting rid of that much green ? Might make sense to convert the whole portion of video into B&W during post-processing.

If you still have the DVD to transfered to, you can cut and post a section and we'll have a better look. There are some very talent folks around on this board who can provide a better diagnosis and prognosis.

Open the VOB files on the DVD with DGIndex. Mark a segment to create a sample with. See below.


The resulting segment will have a .M2V extension on it. You can upload it to a shared file hosting site like Http://www.bestsharing.com

[thecoalman]

When i come to transfer the vhs, do you think i should transfer to mini dv for archive purposes?

I always archive as DV, there's better formats but it's the most practical IMO. MPEG is lossy and others are way too big.

.... so i'd probobly be looking to get a professional to do it, however there seems to be only a couple of people locally who advertise to transfer tapes and cine film and i'm not sure if they'd have specialist equipment.
What equipment should i make sure they have to ensure the highest quality transfer (time based correctors?)
I wanted to ask, what sort of a difference would playing the tape on professional equipment have? Dramatic or subtle?

That would be my choice, I consider myself quite proficient in VHS transfers but from your picture and what you describe it doesn't appear to be something I would attempt to tackle myself. As mentioned above if you upload a short clip you'll get better and more in depth opinions. A TBC might fix the jumpy issue and some others but overall what you describe a TBC by itself it isn't going to do much if anything. A TBC corrects timing problems such as vertical jumpiness or horizontal skew. In other words it gives you a nice stable video.

I can't suggest specifically what a company should have and they most likely won't tell you if you ask them. You could ask them what kind of decks they are using for the transfers.... but be aware that a lot of transfer companies aren't using much more than what the average consumer would be using and have less knowledge and hardware than many of the people you would find on this forum that do a lot of VHS transfers. Don't look for a transfer company but one that does restoration, having said that it probably won't be cheap which would be another good indication of the work they do. That's not to say that if they are expensive they offer great services but If the service offered doesn't cost much more than what you would expect to pay for a regular transfer that is probably what you are getting. Ask for examples, I'd take the portion that you have already recorded as well to shoe them what you are dealing with and ask them point blank if they think they can improve it. Note that I doubt you'll get anyone to say they know they can.

Is the biggest improvement made in hardware or software?

Hardware, or specifically analog hardware. Once transferred to digital you have an absolute perfect copy of what the error or problem is.Minor filtering and adjustments can be made with software filters but they are no substitute for filtering before it gets converted to digital. Your jumpy parts for example cannot be fixed once they are transferred to digital, at least not without a tremendous amount of effort with poor results.

BTW I would avoid playing the tape until you get some more advice or decide what you are going to do with it. In conclusion you need someone with analog hardware and the skills to use it. Having said all that I wouldn't expect miracles.

[Timeless Moments]

Timster

Did you get this sorted out?

I run a transfer and restoration/digital remastering company and would like to look at your tape if not. As the other posters said, I wouldn't promise anything, but it may be worth a try. There are two ways to approach this.

1. We transfer the footage using a Panasonic deck and YUV or S-Video direct to the PC. We then use AVID LIQUID to reduce the noise, adjust the colours for saturation, gain, intensity and hue. We then look at all the above charactersitics for each colour channel and try to optimise the colours. Turning our attention to the white noise you see, as someone said this could have been caused by magnetic fields. We have some pretty neat algorhythms for fixing noise, but they work on a "best guess" a little like upscaling DVD players, however sometimes the results are very impressive, other time very little difference. However, I am confident we could improve the image to some extent.

Cost depends on the length of the film but I guess for this much manual remastering we are looking at about £100 for each hour.

The second way is to input the film into the PC as above and then grab every frame. Each frame is then hand corrected in photoshop. The results would be spectacular as would the price, so if you are very wealthy and if this tape means so much to you then option 2 would be preferred, however the cost would be thousands.

You can contact me via our website if you wish: http://www.timeless-moments.co.uk

[StuR]

Timeless Moments>

We transfer the footage using a Panasonic deck and YUV or S-Video direct to the PC.

hi do you mind saying which panasonic deck you use (or desks/non pan). It's always interesting to hear what others have had success with.
Also you only use PC? never DVD recorder direct? if so what is your experiance of the best models. Your usefully UK based so UK models I prosume. Ta

[Timeless Moments]

Hi

Panasonic DMREZ45V, it is a new model and pretty good for the price. If we have a good picture source we'll use the recorder, but where we want maximum quality we use direct to PC as using the recorder encodes to MPEG2 which is a lossy format. So far very pleased with this kit, the 4 heads and two audio heads work very well and it is easily the best picture I've seen from a domestic VHS tape.

Regards

Ian

[12Quidkidinnit]

Just did this with Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, using various colour correction and level adjustment tools. It's a slight improvement, and I was just trying randomly to see what would happen. So someone who actually knows how to do it properly should be able to make it look a lot better.

[JimboS]

I am by no means an expert on restoration......
Changing green to red In my opinion is not restoring anything...
It still looks like cr_p IMOP

[12Quidkidinnit]

I am by no means an expert on restoration......
Changing green to red In my opinion is not restoring anything...
It still looks like cr_p IMOP

So, apart from that, any constructive suggestions then ?

[guns1inger]

Without an actual captured clip there is nothing to work with. A digital photograph of a TV screen is not the same as the real thing by any stretch of the imagination.

However to be honest, I believe your attempt is in fact far worse than the original. It shows signs of heavy posterisation, loss of detail, and the colours are simply awful.

[Marvingj]

You definitely will have to used hardware instead of software. I suggest Elite Video BVP-4. The most likely cause especially with old or rental tapes is that some oxide came off of the tape and clogged the spinning video heads. The oxide on old tapes tends to flake off and rental tapes are subject to abuse in VCRs of questionable pedigree. They may be creased or crinkled. Sometimes more serious damage results but in most cases, a good cleaning of the video heads

[StuR]

Timeless Moments cheers, - Panasonic DMREZ45V looks very handy DVB/HDMIupscale. But I'm suprised your getting good results from a combi, especially a Panasonic. I say that as there often lambasted on this site although time and time again there recommended else where. I prosume you use HQ on the combi and DV quality for PC adjust then AVID>DVDR.
The VCR alone would not have a TBC/NR (better NR on PC though), not a problem?
That's for the info.

timster123 maybe someone could point you to a video hosting site so you could post a short clip (2-3mins in HQ) so others could have a go. It may give you an idea what direction to start going down as far as paying out for things. Have you posted what DVDR and VCR you used and the condition off the VCR.

[SingSing]

From the result, the tape either has serve drop out, and/or it is damaged thus the tape is not going around the VCR head drum properly.

The red color maybe caused by the macrovision circuit if you are using a current model of VCR.

You may want to play back on the original VCR, or a pre-1990 VCR, and check the result.