Noise on VHS tapes

[didikai]

Newbie question here.
I have seen some hardware / software claims regarding 'cleaning noise' from video while capturing.
Is there such a thing?
Does it clean up dropout from tapes?

[redwudz]

You don't 'clean' noise. You just remove it or mask it out. These processes also remove part of your video. If you don't have a high quality video file, then the result of cleaning or filtering may look a little better in some ways, but you won't get back lost quality.

Dropout is a lack of video, you can't cure that. You can cut it out, not much else.

I'm most familiar with VirtualDub. It has a lot of filters that can sometimes remove or mask some noise. But always at a quality loss. You would need to get your video into AVI format to use these type of filters. There are some MPEG editors or encoders that have noise filters also.

What kind of 'noise' are you talking about? You would need to describe the 'noise" exactly for us to be able to offer some suggestions. There's not a lot of software filtering that can be used during capture.

You may want to look into a hardware solution. Sima and a few other companies offer some hardware filtering, such as a TBC that can be used during capture. They're not cheap, though.

[Buddyboy]

if you have sony sound forge you can also get a noise reduction plugin. thats what i have

[didikai]

You don't 'clean' noise. You just remove it or mask it out. These processes also remove part of your video. If you don't have a high quality video file, then the result of cleaning or filtering may look a little better in some ways, but you won't get back lost quality.

Dropout is a lack of video, you can't cure that. You can cut it out, not much else.

My ATI Theatre Pro apparently has a 'noise filter' feature.
I am talking about video noise and not audio noise.

Is there a way to sharpen up a poor video source, or remove the white specs?

[guns1inger]

Most filters use an algorythm based around averaging surrounding pixels, both in the frame you are cleaning, and temorally the previous and even subsequent frames, to interpolate what should have been where the noise or spots are. Depending on how well they are written, and how they are configured, they will reduce the noise. However all have side effects. As worst they will remove a lot of other detail as well, leaving you with a plastic feel, or smudging that shifts around the frame. None of them will take a VHS capture and make it look like DV or DVD quality. Even with a good quality source you need high end hardware to get close to that type of quality (think transfer of old TV shows for commercial DVD release)

[lordsmurf]

Supposedly convolution3d helps with dropouts, but I've never tried it.

For the most part, dropouts are not correctable because as mentioned above, it's simply data that is missing.

[Wile_E]

Look here at the Avisynth plugin, DeSpot and DePan. I've used it with great success on my VHS tapes. It will "cover up/mask" the noise, just as guns1inger said in his post.
http://bag.hotmail.ru/despot/despot.dhtml

Just because VHS tapes have static on playback, doesn't mean it is because of tape dropout, or aging tapes. It was probably recorded that way to begin with, with the static. Most of the VHS tapes my family has, was recorded over-the-air with an outside TV antenna and booster. We didn't have cable at the house at that time. There was always slight static in the signal.