New newb with old question

[Madzir55]

I have a VHS tape with a vertical flutter problem. I'd like to clean it up and make a dvd copy of it. I've looked at possible fixes here in this forum specifically, but another problem is I have NO experience whatsoever with video editing. I apologize for posting this in what is probably a topic already covered too many times, but it's difficult for me in knowing what to look for or even understand the answers given to previous similar posts. What I am looking for (if it exists) is some kind of software fix, or a hardware fix if it is not too expensive. Time Based Correctors are not cheap, so that is not a possibility for me. If anyone would suggest anything that could help eliminate or reduce vertical flutter in VHS tapes I would greatly appreciate it. Hopefully it will be something I will be able to understand because I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Thanks!

[redwudz]

I'm assuming you have made the best capture that you can. What format did you cap the video to?

There are a few filters that might help, such as a VirtualDub 'deshaker' filter if the problem is jitter of the video. But your video would need to be in a format that VD could use. Deshaker filter: http://www.thedeemon.com/VirtualDubFilters/detailed.html#75

Other VD filters here, some specifically for VHS: http://www.thedeemon.com/VirtualDubFilters/

Much more to all this, but we would need some more specific information.

And welcome to our forums.

[Madzir55]

This was captured on a VHS recorder at least 15 years ago, perhaps longer. I believe it was a 4 head Toshiba machine. The tape is all I have so far. I'm hoping to get recommendations on software with which to transfer it to my hard drive. I recorded it in extended play mode and have had success with other captures. The capture in question was at the beginning of the tape. I don't know if that makes any difference. Other tapes I have don't have this fluttering, so maybe it suffered some slight damage. The audio is decent enough. You'll have to pardon my newbness. Terms like filters and such are new to me. Thanks for your quick reply! And thanks for the kind welcome!

[redwudz]

How are you getting the video onto your computer? VHS player to ...? Do you have a capture card or external capture device? Brand and model?

If you have enough hard drive space, a lossless capture codec like HuffyUV or Lagarith would be my choice, but the files would be very large. The advantage is they are easy to edit and filtering will cause minimal quality loss. If it's in MPEG format, your available options for filtering are a bit less.

You could drop one of your captured files into MediaInfo set to 'tree' mode and post the info here if you aren't sure of the format your computer is capturing to. If it's MPEG, VD can probably open it with the correct plug-in installed. You can install Lagarith or HuffyUV and convert it to one of those formats for extensive filtering. VD has lots of guides available on it's toolpage.

It's possible the beginning of the tape is damaged and the 'flutter' is from the tape moving around in the transport. A pro setup might fix that but probably way beyond your budget. Deshaker is slow and will cause some quality loss. I would try a 10 or 20 second clip and see if it could help. You would likely only have to filter the first part of the video. The rest you could just adjust the color/saturation and maybe filter out some VHS noise.

[Madzir55]

I haven't transferred the video yet to my computer. I was hoping to get some recommendations on software that could do that. I have an ATI Radeon HD 5770 video card. It has ATI Avivo HD video and display technology and Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT). I have an external hard drive with 300 GHz free, along with two internal HD's with a total of about 160 GHz free. I'll examine the tape closely to see if there is any physical damage.