Improve Hauppauge USB-Live2 capture quality

[lollo]

No more gaps in the histogram (still some accumulation for dark levels):



I prefer the default values in term of general look, but is a personal taste. You can change the parameters/levels as you prefere in post-processing. Use the procamp only to stay inside the capturable range (and in a reasonable "good" overall look).



Now you should have all the elements for a good capture. Enjoy your captures!!!

[Sharc]

[Attachment 84627 - Click to enlarge]

Your darks are partially clipped. Clipped video can't be recovered in post. Perhaps increase the brightness a few notches (2...4 steps) for capturing.

Edit: oops, lollo has already commented.

[tko4]

[Attachment 84627 - Click to enlarge]

Your darks are partially clipped. Clipped video can't be recovered in post. Perhaps increase the brightness a few notches (2...4 steps) for capturing.

Edit: oops, lollo has already commented.

No more gaps in the histogram (still some accumulation for dark levels):


[Attachment 84625 - Click to enlarge]

I prefer the default values in term of general look, but is a personal taste. You can change the parameters/levels as you prefere in post-processing. Use the procamp only to stay inside the capturable range (and in a reasonable "good" overall look).


[Attachment 84626 - Click to enlarge]

Now you should have all the elements for a good capture. Enjoy your captures!!!

Thanks both for help! So far with every tape I’ve tried to capture, I see horizontal lines at the bottom regardless of the VCR I use. Is this normal?


[Attachment 84628 - Click to enlarge]

[Sharc]

Thanks both for help! So far with every tape I’ve tried to capture, I see horizontal lines at the bottom regardless of the VCR I use. Is this normal?


[Attachment 84628 - Click to enlarge]

Yes, this is normal for tape captures. It is called "head switching noise". If it annoys you can just crop it off in post. Same for the left an right small black pillars. Just take care to keep the aspect ratio intact when cropping and/or resizing.

[Alwyn]

Your darks are partially clipped. Clipped video can't be recovered in post. Perhaps increase the brightness a few notches (2...4 steps) for capturing.

@tk04, you can see the "too-dark" clipping on your VDub histogram in post #30. The Brightness (left end) is hard up against the limiter. Increase the brightness until the edge just starts to move right (in my experience, it's best to have just a slight bunch-up on the limit, not as much as yours). After you've done that, increase the contrast to move the right end further to the right. Don't go too far though, and also visually check really bright areas to make sure they are not being "whited-out".

[tko4]

Your darks are partially clipped. Clipped video can't be recovered in post. Perhaps increase the brightness a few notches (2...4 steps) for capturing.

@tk04, you can see the "too-dark" clipping on your VDub histogram in post #30. The Brightness (left end) is hard up against the limiter. Increase the brightness until the edge just starts to move right (in my experience, it's best to have just a slight bunch-up on the limit, not as much as yours). After you've done that, increase the contrast to move the right end further to the right. Don't go too far though, and also visually check really bright areas to make sure they are not being "whited-out".

I increased the brightness a few notches as @Sharc suggested and slightly increased the contrast.

Histogram:

[Attachment 84641 - Click to enlarge]

What I was using (129 Brightness is just after the red limit):

[Attachment 84644 - Click to enlarge]

Isn't the purpose to stay withing the Y=16? Sorry If I'm asking a dumb question I'm new into this.

[Alwyn]

Isn't the purpose to stay withing the Y=16?

Yes, but the numbers in the Proc Amp don't relate to the 16-235 limits as far am I am aware. They're just random values which change with every digitiser (as you can see from Lollo's version of the Live2).

In your last example, it looks too dark to me. The boy's shirt looks like it is white but it is quite dim. And I still don't like that vertical left edge. I reckon you could crank up the brightness more, as well as probably some more contrast. There is a yellow haze over the whole video, but I do think it's still a bit dark.

Are you into AVISynth? Because you could confirm the levels using an AVISynth histogram (as Lollo and Sharc have done above), or post a short sample of that last one for us to check.

[tko4]

Isn't the purpose to stay withing the Y=16?

Yes, but the numbers in the Proc Amp don't relate to the 16-235 limits as far am I am aware. They're just random values which change with every digitiser (as you can see from Lollo's version of the Live2).

In your last example, it looks too dark to me. The boy's shirt looks like it is white but it is quite dim. And I still don't like that vertical left edge. I reckon you could crank up the brightness more, as well as probably some more contrast. There is a yellow haze over the whole video, but I do think it's still a bit dark.

Are you into AVISynth? Because you could confirm the levels using an AVISynth histogram (as Lollo and Sharc have done above), or post a short sample of that last one for us to check.

I'm not an expert but it seems the histogram from AVISynth is pretty close.


[Attachment 84650 - Click to enlarge]


[Attachment 84651 - Click to enlarge]

[tko4]

No more gaps in the histogram (still some accumulation for dark levels)

Your darks are partially clipped. Clipped video can't be recovered in post. Perhaps increase the brightness a few notches (2...4 steps) for capturing.

Are gaps generally a bad thing? I increased the brightness a few notches to 135 but it moves slightly away from the limit.


[Attachment 84652 - Click to enlarge]

[dellsam34]

I wouldn't worry about histograms, Adjust levels for the most important part of the frame, If you are so anal about the overall frame just make sure there is no blowout on whites and no losing details in darks, I've never used histograms, though, I'm not advising against them.

[tko4]

I found something in VirtualDub2, I checked the 'Capture pin' and the compression quality was set to 1.000. After changing it to 0.000 the histogram no longer shows any gaps.

1.000:

[Attachment 84654 - Click to enlarge]

0.000:

[Attachment 84655 - Click to enlarge]

[Sharc]

You shouldn't arrange the waveform and the histogram stacked horizontally. The histogram will include the waveform picture in its statistics.
(You clearly see in the histogram the spike representing the brown vertical bars of the waveform monitor.)

For tape captures you need not worry much about gaps or spikes in the histogram. It would matter more for high quality sources where it may contribute to color banding in flat areas. When you do some denoising in post or add a tiny bit of grain the histogram will become smooth anyway.

P.S. I am wondering where the hard clipping of the darks originates from. Brightness or contrast procamp tweaks seems not to mitigate it. It is still there even after cropping off any borders. Maybe it's baked into the source or comes from the VCR or from the capture device (?). Just speculating.....

[Alwyn]

I like the histogram across the top, so you can see what part of the image is causing the blowouts or darkness; you can then decide to either ignore or make a correction.

TurnRight().Histogram().TurnLeft()#Puts histogram across top

[tko4]

I like the histogram across the top, so you can see what part of the image is causing the blowouts or darkness; you can then decide to either ignore or make a correction.

TurnRight().Histogram().TurnLeft()#Puts histogram across top

Thanks!

You shouldn't arrange the waveform and the histogram stacked horizontally. The histogram will include the waveform picture in its statistics.
(You clearly see in the histogram the spike representing the brown vertical bars of the waveform monitor.)

For tape captures you need not worry much about gaps or spikes in the histogram. It would matter more for high quality sources where it may contribute to color banding in flat areas. When you do some denoising in post or add a tiny bit of grain the histogram will become smooth anyway.

P.S. I am wondering where the hard clipping of the darks originates from. Brightness or contrast procamp tweaks seems not to mitigate it. It is still there even after cropping off any borders. Maybe it's baked into the source or comes from the VCR or from the capture device (?). Just speculating.....

Sample from a different tape:

[Attachment 84667 - Click to enlarge]

[Sharc]

^^^^
This looks fine.

[Name]

I suspect you do not use in edit mode and D3R off

Should "D3R" be on or off?

[lollo]

Off with edit mode, on if not in edit mode (because the image is smoothed and some small "enhancement" does not hurt).

First combination is preferable, but always experiment with your source.

[Name]

And if both are on, what would be the result? Or would they counteract each other?

[lollo]

Oversharpening (the noise) and enhanced halos

[Name]

Okay, so even when you started in one of your older threads "JVC S-VHS settings for capture (again)" that edit "off" was better, in the end the conclusion (for JVC) is:
> Edit on
> B.E.S.T on
> TBC/DNR on
> D3R off

[lollo]

Yes.

If you do not plan any restoration you can use
> Edit off
> B.E.S.T on
> TBC/DNR on
> D3R on
which gives a cleaner raw captured image (that was the sense of my old post) but suffers of higher ghosting at scene change.

[Name]

If you do not plan any restoration

Do you have a thread by any chance that covers the restoration process, or can you outline the steps you usually take?

I have to say, I usually prefer a more grainy image over a cleaned-up one. It gives me the feeling of more details present.
What I'm definitely interested in is how to balance the colors of a capture.

[lollo]

Do you have a thread by any chance that covers the restoration process, or can you outline the steps you usually take?

There are many in the forum; you can find some basic example also in my Youtube channel.

I have to say, I usually prefer a more grainy image over a cleaned-up one. It gives me the feeling of more details present.

Yes, it's always the same difficult balance between "clean" picture (denoise) and "natural look" picture (grain).

What I'm definitely interested in is how to balance the colors of a capture.

For serious color correction, a NLE like Davinci Resolve is more performant than AviSynth, but the last has its nice features.

[Aro]

Hello,
Hopefully the author of the topic will not mind me hijacking his thread - but I'm using exactly the same set-up, so Hauppauge USB-Live2, Amarec TV 3.10, Lagarith Codec and Windows 10.

When I try to start recording, I get a message:
"The frame rate of the video capture card does not suit a present value."
Neither recording nor a live function functions normally."

Then it seems to be recording correctly, but I only tried short clips for now.
Does anyone know what the issue could be and what it could result in? Thank You.

[lollo]

Never had that message. Inside menues AmarecTV -> "Recording" -> "Video File Setting" set "Frame rate" to 999 fps to let the Capture Card settings take control on it.

[Aro]

Never had that message. Inside menues AmarecTV -> "Recording" -> "Video File Setting" set "Frame rate" to 999 fps to let the Capture Card settings take control on it.

That's how it was set - I tried playing with it and had the same result each time... although despite that, everything seemed to be working fine.

Here's one short video which I captured today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0jdewb6JCU

Phillips VR1100, Hauppauge Card, AmarecTV + Lagarith.

PS: Thanks a lot for taking time to reply!

[lollo]

Post a sample of the raw capture, not a Youtube video.

[Aro]

[Attachment 85439 - Click to enlarge]

[Attachment 85440 - Click to enlarge]

Here's couple. Mind You, the tape I don't think was of the highest quality. It went for over 4 hours, so as I understand it was recorded in a long-play mode.

[lollo]

A video, not images!

I have seen that the rape is not one of the best, but we want to check the video architecture of the capture, its quality is what it is.

[Aro]

Allright, here it is - I got something in Italian for You :
https://mega.nz/file/aABxUDTD#iSn_MK-M4Y79MeiwsY4uVhXOdAuy_mlaGhixqGcyXFQ