Cleaning up capped VHS MPEG2 file

[mrwhitethc]

I acquired a bunch of straight VHS to DVD caps, however they seem to be all encoded at Half-D1 (352x480). This is the only format the person had as they got them from a friend of a friend kind of thing. I'm hoping to clean these up as best I can and reauthor them nicely any help appreciated.

Sample Clip:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5tamj6

[powerpc123]

You might see some quality improvement loading your videos in VirtualDubMod and passing them through some filters.

[lordsmurf]

I can help in about 2 weeks. PM me.

[RickA]

Greets,

Believe it or not they did right in capturing VHS at Half-D1 resolution of 352x480. That is about the digital equivalent of vhs. One could cap them at a higher res but I think they are passing the point of diminishing returns. These two sites may help in explaining why http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/understandsource.htm and http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/vhs_capture.html .

More to the restoration aspect of your question these sites may help you get started: http://www.geocities.com/wilbertdijkhof/analog_comp/comparison.htm http://www.aquilinestudios.org/avsfilters/
http://avisynth.org/oldwiki/index.php?page=Section+3%3A+Filters%2C+plugins+and+colorspaces
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtechbeta/avspostqual.html
http://neuron2.net/msharpen/msharpen.html
http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/cleaning.ars/8
http://www.compression.ru/video/index.htm

Undot() is a personal fav filter - removes pixel sized noise, aids the compression factor. Less noise = more space for video = less compression needed. If you have a strong vid card fft3dgpu can be a nice versatile filter. The non gpu version is nice too, but on the slow side. Keep in mind that understanding and correctly using filters can feel like an esoteric artform at times. The people on this site are a goldmine of information. Good luck.

Cheers,
Rick

[mrwhitethc]

Lordsmurf, I PMed you, thanks, and RickA I'll get to reading, thank you for setting up some starting points.

[lordsmurf]

Looking at these, I'm going to say this was probably the best that they're going to look. Had another VCR, proc amp, and detailer been used in the mix, you MIGHT have gotten a slightly better image (maybe 10% improvement at most).

The video has good color saturation, although it's slightly bleedy. Only very slightly. It might be a tad dark (which causes both the rich colors and the bleeding), which I'd have fixed with a proc amp. It's really too late to address now. It's not major anyway.

The bitrate is pretty decent, maybe it could have been a slight bit more. There's some very minor edge MPEG artifacting, but a SDTV will hide it, and a good HDTV would filter it (assuming it's a good enough HDTV set, not a cheapo).

The image is stable and there are no real flaws.

There is some magnetic dropout from the tape (those static lines that blip on screen here and there, from time to time), but I don't know that this can really be addressed. I've seen some AVI Synth and/or VirtualDub filters that have attempted to address this in the past, but I was never all that impressed with the final outcome. There was a filter thread, which involved both myself and GShelley61, about 2-3 years ago, that discussed the topic of filtering out magnetic tape dropouts. Search for it, and try it if you want.

It's my opinion that any re-encoding of this file could just as easily lead to making it worse, rather than improving it. The risks of re-encoding, combined with the advantages of a 10% quality gain, would likely put you with not much visual improvements when done.

I saw no chroma or grain errors, those appear to have been pre-filtered for you. So you've got that going in your favor.

[mrwhitethc]

Thank you very much for your analysis LordSmurf, your help is much appreciated and actually leads me to less work =)

[lordsmurf]

Another trick is to adjust your display. Just turn down the color saturation and up the brightness a slight amount on your television when viewing these discs. My adjustments are in the OPTIONS > PICTURE menu, accessible through my Sony HDTV remote. Because even tv stations can vary, I'm always adjusting the settings a tweak here and there. It just takes maybe 10-20 seconds to fix the image for something you'll watch for many minutes or hours. Far less destructive and time-consuming that a re-encode might be. Adjusting the television is a good option for "fixing" slight picture imperfections.

No two sets see the same anyway. Maybe your friend did use a proc amp after all, but his display was a bit bright. All you need to do is make yours match his a bit more, for watching his discs.

[themaster1]

"Sorry, the file you requested is not available." that's what i get
Can you re-up the sample file so i can see what you're dealing with...and possibly help who knows..

[mrwhitethc]

Here you go, I've re-upped it to megaupload

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L06DSRSN

[themaster1]

Ok
Well I have looked at the footage and frankly i don't think that by cleaning it up you will have something better.

The contrast/brightness seems ok to me which is a good point.

[mrwhitethc]

I pretty much thought the same thing after LS said it but you never know who could offer what so I appreciate the extra set of eyes. I've decided the only way they will be better is to source out the VHS copies and do the transfers myself.

[themaster1]

Oh yeah if u can get the vhs that would be a good point aswell as using the right tools: s-vhs player with tbc/dnr as mentioned many times in this forum.
Let's not forget the right mpg encoder, pro coder to not cite it ..because it's what i use and trust me, quality wise, there are not many out there better than it.

[mrwhitethc]

Yeah I'm trying hard to find the original VHS, I did find one person but he is very very slow to respond and his terms to get the tapes seem very vague. Oh well, it's kinda like being a detective