What's wrong with this picture?

[Dominik78]

It's a frame from a VHS capture I did. I'm a total noob at this, so all I'm really looking for is for someone to point me in the right direction as to what I should be researching/learning about to address what seems to be an issue or two with my capture.

Hardware used:
NTSC Tape--> Panasonic NV-SD540--> ADVC110 (via RCA cables) --> WINDV

As a lay person there are two things that I find bothersome. Firstly, the bottom of the frame. I've tested with two very different tapes and it happens with both so it might be the VCR. Secondly is the jaggedness on the edges of the flowers and collar etc (i don't know enough about interlacing to call it that). But it's very pronounced in many parts of the video.
I'm using VLC to play back the file (not sure if that's a factor or if it would look different in another program).

At this point I would like to know what else I would need in terms of hardware or knowledge to get myself a better capture. Like many here, once I have the process down, I want to convert all our old analog media for posterity.

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

[mike20021969]

It's definitely interlaced. VLC has 10 deinterlace options (found under Tools>Preferences>Video).
Deinterlaces choices: On, Automatic or Off.
Choose a deinterlace option which suits your taste. (I chose Bob).

The bottom of the image seems common to many VHS captures. I'm not sure what the technical name is.

[jagabo]

Head switching noise at the bottom. Interlacing is normal for VHS. It's the native state of video.

[Dominik78]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I did try the deinterlace options in VLC, but they did not seem to make a big difference, specially in scenes with a lot of movement. Next I'll search the webs and this forum to learn more about interlacing and ways to possibly clean this up a little (it's very obvious when the video is playing not just in stills).

I'm assuming PAL captures will be a bit different?

[smrpix]

I'm assuming PAL captures will be a bit different?

PAL will have different dimensions and a different frame rate, but head switching and interlacing will appear on any correctly recorded PAL VHS.

[2Bdecided]

VLC right click menu when playing a video: deinterlacing mode = linear AND deinterlacing = on will make a huge difference. However, it will reset to off each time you play a video. To make it stay on, dig deeper into the option menus to set the defaults.

You do not need to "clean it up" - you just need a player that deinterlaces. Nothing you can do to avoid the head switching noise at the bottom. Just paste black over it to hide it if it bothers you.

No relevant PAL/NTSC issue here - both are interlaced, both will have head switching noise.

Cheers,
David.

[jagabo]

VLC's deinterlacing options don't work with DV AVI on my computer either. Use another player. Windows Media Player will deinterlace DV AVI when using Windows' built in DV decoder (Quartz.dll).

[2Bdecided]

Oh yes, good point - VLC often assumes the wrong field order for DV.

I use Media Player Classic (Home Cinema Edition - though I don't think that's required) for DV-AVI. It deinterlaces automatically and has the added advantage that if you hit the button "9" on the numeric keypad a couple of times you can zoom in and lose the head switching noise. "5" to reset, "1" to zoom out. That said, some amounts of zoom mess up the deinterlacing!

Cheers,
David.

[jagabo]

Oh yes, good point - VLC often assumes the wrong field order for DV.

It's not a matter of field order. It just doesn't deinterlace at all.

[2Bdecided]

Oh yes, good point - VLC often assumes the wrong field order for DV.

It's not a matter of field order. It just doesn't deinterlace at all.

Oh, OK. I've just checked and it's working perfectly here today - but when it didn't, it was the field order. It also picks up the aspect ratio correctly now - it never used to.

Cheers,
David.

[jagabo]

I've just checked and it's working perfectly here today

What version are you using? VLC isn't my main player so I don't often update it. I currently have "2.0.4 Twoflower". It's only DV AVI that has the problem. Deinterlacing works fine for interlaced MPEG 2 and h.264.

[2Bdecided]

2.0.5 Twoflower, though it keeps nagging me to update.

[jagabo]

I updated to 2.0.7 and still have the same problem. Although while fiddling with the settings I was once able to get it to deinterlace DV AVI properly. But I'm not able to reproduce that.