Need to set up a video restoration work station

[jacksonbancroft]

Hello,

Our company has several hundred old 3/4 inch U-matic videos. The are old lecture tapes from 1968-1974. My company wants them to be restored as best as possible. These are second generation videos. The original one-inch masters are not in very good condition and may not be useable at all.

These videos have faded, have poor washed-out color, video drop-out, tracking problems, skewing issues, etc. Also there are issues with focus, and general sharpness. We will hire a full-time person to restore these over a period of time.

My question is this: I cam spend up to 50 thousand dollars on software and hardware as part of this project. I have read about Phoenix, DaVinci Revival, Diamante software and others. These are fit within my budget easily. But if my priority is the best possible video restoration, what is the ideal hardware/software set up?

I assume a good TBC would be useful, but what else should I consider?


Thank you.

Jackson

[smrpix]

Do whatever you can to recover the 1" masters. The quality will be FAR superior.

"faded, ... poor washed-out color, ... focus, and general sharpness" are almost certainly in the originals. These do not change with time.

IIRC, 1" decks have built-in TBC's. --But it's been a loooong time, so I could be wrong about that.

[themaster1]

You'd need:
- A line TBC (make the H/V lines more straight >> can't do that in software)
- a full frame TBC (for damaged tapes)
- A Proc Amp (fine tune brightness/contrast,sat,hue, levels in real time)> sign video proc amp or other
- best digitizer box you can afford: canopus advc etc...