Panasonic NV-HS860 Desaturates Colours. How to fix it?

[Master Tape]

I've been capturing lots of my VHS tapes on the Panasonic NV-HS860 for some time now and on the whole i'm very happy with it in terms of picture quality, sound and tracking. But one thing i don't like is how it desaturates the colours and makes everything look more pale and muted, compared to other VCRs. What can be done to restore the original colours? I tried upping the Saturation in VirtualDub before capturing, but it just makes everyone's faces look red. Ditto when i try to boost Saturation in Avisynth. I use a Datavideo TBC-3000 during capture which has a built in proc-amp. Could that be a solution?

[Sharc]

Did you check the video levels with a waveform monitor, e.g. Histogram() in Avisynth?
Upload an unprocessed sample of the capture (few seconds).

[Master Tape]

Yes, i usually check the histogram and adjust the contrast and brightness if needed.

[Sharc]

Proc-amp settings may probably help.

Here some post processing in avisynth:
- Increase gamma
- re-adjust levels
- deinterlace
- denoise
- adjust colors (?)

The first 2 steps could be candidates for proc-amp settings.

Dos this look better to you?

[poisondeathray]

I tried upping the Saturation in VirtualDub before capturing, but it just makes everyone's faces look red. Ditto when i try to boost Saturation in Avisynth.

For software filters, there is also "vibrance" as opposed to "saturation" . It's like Adobe vibrance, which attempts to increase less saturated colors selectively, and prevents skin tones from becoming oversaturated (less red face effect)

In avs+ , a vibrance implementation is ex_vibrance in Dogway's GradePack
https://github.com/Dogway/Avisynth-Scripts

[Master Tape]

Proc-amp settings may probably help.

Here some post processing in avisynth:
- Increase gamma
- re-adjust levels
- deinterlace
- denoise
- adjust colors (?)

The first 2 steps could be candidates for proc-amp settings.

Dos this look better to you?

Yes that's a huge improvement! I've never been able to get my head around colour correction in Avisynth, so normally just boosted the saturation, though less is more.

Here's how my Proc-Amp looks from the front. Does Tint correspond to Gamma adjustment? And is Color just a Saturation setting?

[Attachment 74753 - Click to enlarge]

[Master Tape]

I tried upping the Saturation in VirtualDub before capturing, but it just makes everyone's faces look red. Ditto when i try to boost Saturation in Avisynth.

For software filters, there is also "vibrance" as opposed to "saturation" . It's like Adobe vibrance, which attempts to increase less saturated colors selectively, and prevents skin tones from becoming oversaturated (less red face effect)

In avs+ , a vibrance implementation is ex_vibrance in Dogway's GradePack
https://github.com/Dogway/Avisynth-Scripts

That's perfect! Just the thing i've been needing. Many thanks.

[Sharc]

Here's how my Proc-Amp looks from the front. Does Tint correspond to Gamma adjustment? And is Color just a Saturation setting?

I can't help you with this proc-amp. But Tint is definitely not gamma. Tint changes the color tone (reddish - greenish - blueish ....). Color probably is the same as saturation.
I would use the proc-amp settings of your capture device for adjusting the levels (via your capture software or via graphedit), or do everything in post processing.

Here the script I have been using:

AVISource("Sample.avi")
converttoYV16(interlaced=true)
assumeTFF()
QTGMC(preset="fast",lossless=2)
SmoothTweak(hue1=5, hue2=5, brightness=0,contrast=1.0,saturation=1.0) #for color tweaking
SmoothLevels(input_low=24, gamma=1.3, input_high=200, output_low=16, output_high=255) #levels and gamma adjustment
MCDegrainSharp(frames=2,ThSAD=400,bblur=0.5,csharp=0.5) #denoising, whatever filter you prefer
converttoYV12() #for final x264 4:2:0 encoding
#SeparateFields().SelectEvery(4,0,3).Weave()  #if you want to re-interlace to 25i

[jagabo]

FWIW, some heavy filtering:

LWLibavVideoSource("Sample.avi") 
AssumeTFF()
Crop(8,0,-8,-0)
ColorYUV(gain_y=50, off_y=-15, gamma_y=50, cont_u=25, cont_v=25)
QTGMC()
KNLMeansCL(d=0, a=2, h=6.0)
SMDegrain(thsad=1000, tr=3, prefilter=2)
MergeChroma(aWarpSharp2(depth=5), Spline36Resize(width/2, height/2).aWarpSharp2(depth=20).Spline36Resize(width, height))
ChromaSHiftSP(y=3)
Prefetch(12)