re-visiting my wedding video 12 years later

[greymalkin]

All,

12 years ago I had a friend record my wedding video. He used a big SVHS camcorder and just propped it up on his shoulder..in other words it was shaky and pretty bad.

And to make matters worse..when he gave me the option of recording to SVHS tape or VHS I said VHS cause I could play it back right away. My mistake there.

Anyways..at the time I had very limited knowledge of capturing/video editing and captured to my computer with composite cables..over-edited and encoded with a sub-par mpeg encoder.

I have sinced learned the joys of avisynth and the great HCEnc and want to re-visit my wedding video. I still have the VHS tape and know I can get much better results by playing it through a good SVHS player and capturing via S-Video (are there any newer video options for SVHS)?

Once I get it captured I know what to do from there..I just want to make sure I capture it in the best manner possible. Is there a particular SVHS player I should try to rent/borrow/etc. and any other hardware that a mere mortal could find that might help me in this process?

My main complaint with the dvd I created is the video is just very blurry. I know I only used a VHS tape but I also know that the SVHS camcorder made some pretty sharp images (for the time period of course) even on VHS and I want to capture that as much as possible.

So I'm mainly looking for help in one of the areas where I failed last time..before I ended up with a digital file on my computer. I plan on capturing to lossless .avi, perhaps doing some light editing, then encoding with HCEnc and making a new DVD.

[zoobie]

First, I'd try to find your friend with the original SVHS.
Failing that, I'd drop the one tape off at a pro lab.

[greymalkin]

First, I'd try to find your friend with the original SVHS.
Failing that, I'd drop the one tape off at a pro lab.

Well I wish an SVHS tape existed..unfortunately I told him to just record to VHS..in other words, he put a regular VHS tape in his SVHS camcorder..that is the original "master" copy (retrospective face-palm!)


I'm not opposed to taking it somewhere and seeing if I can just get a pristine transfer to a lossless .avi. I don't really know who is trustworthy for this in my area (Houston, TX). If it would cost me a lot more to source the appropriate hardware than have someone else do it then I'm open to suggestions.

..for instance I just did a google search for professional vhs transfer service houston and I get a lot of hits..but their websites are all amateurish...they spend 0 time talking about what they use and they charge like $20 a tape. I have a feeling someone with good equipment who knows how to tweak their hardware to make the source shine (as much as possible) would charge a lot more than that for their time/equipment/knowledge.

[2Bdecided]

If it would cost me a lot more to source the appropriate hardware than have someone else do it

Yes, for one tape it certainly will.

You need to find someone who will capture it to a lossless file, not just copy it to DVD. They will have a decent VCR with a TBC, and a capture chain that can capture at the correct levels without losing anything. Then you can take that lossless file, tweak it, deshake it, etc, and then create your own DVD.


Someone will by along shortly to recommend one in the US...




You probably have wedding photos. It might be nice to include some of those in the video too. If tastefully done, that can work very well - and replace some of the worst bits of video! Scan them, then use an NLE (or AVIsynth at a push) to "animate" (slow pan / slow zoom / slow fade) them.


Do two edits - a full one, and a five minute highlights edit. Replace/enhance the soundtrack by/with suitable music if/where appropriate.


Cheers,
David.

[lordsmurf]

[ I don't really know who is trustworthy for this in my area (Houston, TX).
..for instance I just did a google search for professional vhs transfer service houston and I get a lot of hits.

Houston if full of quacks and amateur services. I know of no pro located there.

I did this exact thing with a family member wedding video last year. It was a gift. It was friend-shot (though much older than yours!) and the only master is VHS.

Same thing for me: scan photos, restore video. The final outcome was very nice. (The advantages of working in the video field and having pro equipment.) It's on Blu-ray now, though I saved the lossless master file.

The crappy part? She didn't seem to care. Took a week to do that.

"animate" (slow pan / slow zoom / slow fade) them.

"Ken Burns" effect.

[bendixG15]

.

The crappy part? She didn't seem to care. Took a week to do that.

Ain't that the truth .... has happened to me so many times that I just quit fixing their tapes.

[lordsmurf]

Burn me once and I'm done. No more thoughtful gifts from me.
Enjoy your $25 Walmart gift card.

Life's too short to waste it on ingrates.

[greymalkin]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I have received an offer I cannot refuse

+1 on the not caring part....or at the very least being oblivious part.

Most people have no idea how much time it takes to make a good product. I spent a lot of time on all the wedding videos I did just to come up with what I believe was a mediocre product.

<rant>I would always tell people I am not a professional...then I saw a few of the "professional" jobs and was horrified at how careless they were (one place put 3 hours of video on half a single layer DVD..the menu was the generic blue and white DVD-Recorder menu). These transfer houses have a cookie-cutter, mass production, happy meal way of doing things.

When I do wedding videos I make them wear a wireless lapel mic, patch it into the speaker system and my laptop...then I sync up that clean audio with the video..massaging it all along the way to turn up/clean up them mumbling their vows...turn down the screaming baby, coughs, etc..tweak the EQ..bring in the cleaned up camcorder audio and mix it in to bring back some of the room ambience...and I haven't even touched the video yet.

The wedding rehearsals are really frustrating..they expect you to be the audio guy, video guy, and everything in between and while you scramble to make sure everything just works they want to run through it twice then go eat </end rant>

Lordsmurf..you mentioned you put a VHS on bluray. Is there some sort of analog "upconverter" or did you use a higher bitrate than the dvd standard would allow? Just wondering what the determining factor was to put it to bluray vs. DVD.

[greymalkin]

continuing the rant from earlier about "professional" wedding videos. Another friend of mine mentioned they could no longer play their wedding video DVD. Being the nice guy I am I offered to take it and see if I could make another copy for them..also give them the digital copy to keep as a backup. I figured the DVD was just scratched a bit and the player wouldn't play it.

Thankfully I was right..I was able to copy it over to my PC and I played it just to see what it looked/sounded like. Below is the audio extracted from the Reception (the wedding ceremony was the same).

[Cornucopia]

Yes, unfortunately there are dipshits and nevercares in the pro audio and video arenas as well as the hobbyist/prosumer arenas, and since those are thoroughly UNREGULATED professions, it is quite difficult to tell one from the other, without good word of mouth or other tested valid references.

[rant]
My wife is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, and when you read that you know it actually MEANS something (had to have PhD from approved program, accredited internship, plus many hours of postdoc supervision, and then there's the License exam (like the Bar) and biennial fees and CEU's. Which might still mean that some pros don't try or remember all they should (my wife is NOT one of those-she is tops!), but you at least know they paid their dues and it OUGHT to separate the men from the boys. Wish A/V was like that - I can't tell you how many times I've done a shoot or manned a FOH board and had to listen to clearly jerkoff wanabees talk big about how they (can/could/do) do what I do!
[/rant]

Scott