Editing Software for color repair

[Pam]

I am new to video editing and am trying to figure out exactly what equipment would be best for me. My main objective is to put all my old video (analog) onto DVDs or VCD. I really have no need for fancy special effects and it seems that most editing software allows you to cut and join video. What I do need is something which will enhance or adjust older video which has faded or suffered some color changes over the years. Is there any software which specializes more or less in this area? I work a lot with old photos and have used Adobe's Photoshop LE which does a wonderful job in that field. Is there something akin to that in the video field? Thank you for any help/suggestions.

[BJ_M]

TMPGenc has very good color/gamma/brightness/contrast and a bunch of other adjustments and you don't even have to encode to mpeg to use it ..

[BJ_M]

v-dub also i forgot to mention has built in filters for this and also some other plug-ins you can download for free

[Pam]

Thank you so much for the quick reply! And the price is definitely right.

[BJ_M]

you will also need to apply a noise filter --- both of the above apps have this.. get the best capture card you can and key to good quality is good source material (well as best as you can get).

[Pam]

Thank you again. I think I've pretty much decided on getting the Canopus ADVC 100 capture device. It seems to get good reviews and I've not heard anything unfavorable about it. Alternatively I've also been looking at the Canopus ADVC 1394. I'm not sure of the exact differences or whether one would be better than the other. The 1394 has an add-on which would put the jacks in the front of the computer.

[BJ_M]

they are basicly about the same except where its located .. they would be my suggestion also in a consumer capture card (device).


the Canopus ADVC 100 requires an additional firewire card .. the ads pyro is a good choice as really the best and less than 80$ ..

if i were to buy one -- i would go for the Canopus ADVC 100 and a firewire card .. just so i can put the box closer to the source for better quality and shorter cables in the analog domain

[Pam]

Thanks again. I'm also leaning toward the 100. I had looked at the Adaptec FireConnect 4300 but will also look at the ads pyro you mentioned. I'm narrowing down my Christmas list. Although I'm getting anxious to start and don't know if I want to wait that long.

[Deisel Weisel]

Regarding colour correction and the ADVC's...

I'm currently weighing up wether to purchase the ADVC-100 or ADVC-1394. Up to this point I've transferred my VHS to Mini-DV using a JVC SVHS/MiniDV VCR. I've experienced colour fade with about 5% of VHS, meaning it's actually lost colour in the capture from VHS to Mini-DV (not that the tapes were colour faded). This might be a problem with the VCR and the fact that they are old tapes, but it's a problem I want to avoid when doing it by computer.

The impression I've formed is that it's easiest to correct colour on capture rather than later in the process (and I know TMPGenc can be very slow at most things).

Now that's one difference between the ADVC-100 and ADVC-1394. The 100 comes with no software, but the 1394 comes with three.. Vegas Video 3 LE, WinProducer and a capture control program which controls the capture process regarding Hue, Contrast, Brightness, Saturation, Sharpness ..not entirely sure what all these mean, but I'm presuming they'll enable colour correction (correct me if I'm wrong someone). Also, like the ADVC-100, audio is locked on the 1394, but, unlike the 100, you can adjust the audio capture volume on the 1394. If you read the user reviews on this site, that's the only criticism SOME ppl make of the 100 - audio level is too low.

There are other differences between 100 and 1394, most major being no analogue out on 1394.

[BJ_M]

you cant color correct on the fly on a dv transfer because its a digital file (would require uncompression and re-compress) .. tmpgenc does it very quickly to re-save as avi .. or not really to bad on encoding straight to mpeg (a better idea anyway) ...

you can correct on the fly on a analog capture of course ..

the inclusion of vegas video light is a good bonus though .. great program

[Pam]

That's an interesting point regarding the color correction possible in transfer with the 1394. I won't miss the analog out because I plan on my output being digital (the whole purpose of all this). The brightness, contrast, saturation, etc. should help the color problems somewhat. It certainly won't hurt. Guess I'll do a little more digging before making a decision. I think the two options wind up being about the same since with the 1394 I won't need a separate firewire card (I think that's correct).