Improving video quality

[tyde]

Hi...I'm new to this site and to working with video. I have a large collection of VHS tapes which I converted to .mp4. I have Movavi converter and Movavi editor. What I would like to know is ...Is it possible to improve the video quality of these 800 MB video files.Any help will be appreciated...thank you

[LigH.de]

Once you encoded them into a lossy format ... hardly. Recompressing them again will reduce the quality further.

Technically, "increasing the quality" is impossible, because every difference to an original "master" is defined as quality loss; even if the result looks more convenient to the consumer. No technology can measure how you feel when you look at the video.

To get the optimum from a tape, some people take the effort to record it 4 times, calculating an average between them (or 5 times and calculating a median). That will consume a lot of time, and (using a losslessly compressing codec) a huge amount of hard disk space.

Whether you do that or not: Any video filter should be applied before you decide to compress the result to the final format. If you filter video which has been compressed efficiently before, you will already have compression artifacts due to your limited target bitrate, and if you filter them, it may produce side effects, but quite certainly, compressing them again will reveal them even more.

[tyde]

Thank you for your reply....So what does increasing the resolution actually do. I've increased resolution of a compressed file up to 1080 p and found the picture quality to be the same ...but the file much larger.

[LigH.de]

If you play a small video in full-screen mode on a FullHD resolution monitor, the video renderer upscales the video in real time just as well as if you pre-calculate and recode it. Possibly with a different method (kernel). But not remarkably "better" or "worse" per se. In each case, every pixel on your monitor will display the result of an interpolation calculation instead of the originally stored value.

A precalculated scaling may appear more or less convenient to you or any other person watching the result, compared to one of many different real time scalers in renderers. It's mostly a matter of taste and of efforts in the used algorithms of both sides. Especially madVR can be elaborate, possibly too much for an obsolete graphic chipset.

You may add even more filters if you precalculate the scaling, before encoding it with a much higher bitrate. That may improve your impression further. Or not. As already said, "a matter of taste".

[Hoser Rob]

You can upscale SD to HD but there isn't HD level detail in SD so you won't get any more of that. You can't put in something that isn't there.

[VHSAlessandro]

I am not quite ready yet, but at some point in the near future I would be willing to intake an average vhs home movie origina and transfer it, to show how good VHS can really look if the best playback equipment is used. I understand that people with Analog Videotape Studios don't exist anymore, but if you find one, the results can be quite stellar. Then if the VHS or SVHS transfer is transferred to Pro Res, which I think is DV 50, that is plenty of quality.

[hech54]

Then if the VHS or SVHS transfer is transferred to Pro Res, which I think is DV 50, that is plenty of quality.

Quality that vhs tapes NEVER had.

[VHSAlessandro]

Then if the VHS or SVHS transfer is transferred to Pro Res, which I think is DV 50, that is plenty of quality.

Quality that vhs tapes NEVER had.

The issue is what level of quality is basically lossless for the VHS signal. DV 25 is probably close but the black levels tend to get crushed, so I think DV 50 is the perfect compromise since probably most other software would work with DV 50 wheres lossless is another story. Your point also dovetails back to the original point about VHS quality. Any analog signal, whether its audio or video, actually has more to offer than playing it at an average default level. So the average looking VHS home movie can actually look a lot better if it is actually played back in a top of the line professional VHS / SVHS machine that is then adjusted to optimal levels that are then checked via a wave form / vector scope and via a professionally calibrated monitor that also has underscan and cross pulse.

However, on a first pass, it's probably best to get everything transferred off the VHS without damaging the VHS, then studying the dvd or dv copies to see what VHS tapes warrant a retransfer at higher quality. It is right to worry about capture quality, but it is also right worry about playback quality of the VHS tape as it is being transferred to a digital format.

[LMotlow]

I see. Another analog to lossy DV fan and no VHS cleanup. The usual YouTube level.
I cease to be surprised.

[Cornucopia]

And prores is much better than, and not related to, dv50.

Scott

[VHSAlessandro]

I see. Another analog to lossy DV fan and no VHS cleanup. The usual YouTube level.
I cease to be surprised.

Please don't place me in that arena. I still have a functioning Analog Videotape studio that would probably surprise many here as to how good VHS can look from the source when played back properly. Perhaps what is going on is people realize they can't put the expense into the playback quality so they try and compensate on the capture side with huge amounts of storage.
Perhaps the cleaner looking the original playback quality, the less overcompensating has to be done on capture.