VHS/S-VHS Capture / Intermediary / Deliver video files

[Stef01]

Hi all,

I'm planning to capture, archive, edit intermediary VHS / S-VHS video files and output the edited parts of it in a delivery format. I'm working on a Windows 10, Intel i7, 32GB RAM, SSD, HDDs etc. The plan is to edit it on Win 10 Premiere Pro and export edited VHS / S-VHS home and holiday videos as H264, to watch it on a modern TV or PC screen. I don't care for black bars left and right, don't want it stretchy. Just keeping the videos as they were shot in 4:3.

I already know about Line TBC, Frame TBC and TBC-ish passtrough.

I'm trying to find a workflow:

Capture in VirtualDub 1.9.11
HuffYUV 422 interlaced AVI file 720x576 (archival)

Intermediary file converted in Hybrid (in several steps)
1. Deinterlace
2. Crop
3. Denoise
4. Save in a specific format/container/codec for post editing in Premiere Pro? Dunno what's the best here?

Questions
1. What kind of video format, codec and container should I use as intermediary (and 2th archival file) for easy editing and encoding without quality loss in Premiere Pro (Windows 10)?
2. Lossless or lossy-lossless codec?
3. Keep the intermediary in YUV or convert it directly in Hybrid to RGB? I heard Premiere Pro instantly will convert it to RGB...
4. Keep the file in 720 (704) x 576, or upscale/resize it directly to 1040x1080 for editing?

How will the best intermediary video file for editing in Premiere Pro (Win10) look like?

Thanks

Stef

[Darryl In Canada]

ProRes 422 is considered a good virtually-lossless codec. So, export videos from Hybrid to the ProRes 422 codec and then import it into Premiere.

Not sure about YUV/RGB issue. I *think* that as long as your captured video following the rules about not clipping whites and darks, then the YUV/RGB thing may not have any meaningful impact.

I output from Hybrid at 1440 x 1080 (NTSC) whether or not I am doing more work on the file in Premiere or Resolve.

[Stef01]

Thanks for your reply Darryl,

So even for editing with Premiere Pro in a Windows 10 environment, you export the deinterlaced videos to the virtually lossless codec ProRes 422 ? So no issues with Premiere Pro rendering and exporting ProRes 422 to the delivery format H264, for watching on a TV?

Have you ever tried to edit lossless HuffYUV 422 files directly in Premiere Pro? Will that work smoothly? Because it looks like some people edit that way. Other people say ProRes422 is for editing in Premiere Pro on a Mac...

But I follow you in the ProRes 422 method.

[Brad]

Our resident expert on the topic of NLEs and their treatment of codecs regarding (silent/hidden) YUV / RGB conversions is poisondeathray.

Here is one thread where he commented about these issues: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/405415-What-is-the-best-lossless-codec-for-editing-in-Adobe-Premiere-Pro


Further info can be found by doing a forum search for posts by that username and keywords, for example "Premiere".

Hope this helps.

[Sharc]

Here is one thread where he commented about these issues: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/405415-What-is-the-best-lossless-codec-for-editing-in-Adobe-Premiere-Pro

This thread you linked to should be made a sticky as it addresses and explains many aspects of YUV<->RGB conversion, applicable beyond Premiere. Same/similar questions come up again and again.

[Stef01]

Thanks for your help guys!

@poisondeathray What do you think today is the best intermediary codec to work in Premiere Pro Windows10? Without losing YUV color by NLE clipping?

[Sharc]

Have you ever tried to edit lossless HuffYUV 422 files directly in Premiere Pro? Will that work smoothly?

Can be ~ok (8 bit integer realm) if your HuffYUV capture has no luma in the 0...15 and 236....255 range and no chroma in the 0...15 and 241...255 range. (The chroma is usually not the problem).
Either you have this under control during capturing (proc-amp adjustment), or you adjust the levels in post processing before opening it in PP.

[poisondeathray]

Absolute "Best" is v210 or packed 10bit 4:2:2 uncompressed. But the "negatives" of this are large filesizes, and you need lots of fast storage. Editing is "not easy" if your system or hardware is too slow, because you will have I/O bottlenecks - it will "feel" sluggish

"Near lossless" alternatives would be ProRes HQ or Cineform (filmscan 1 or 2 are very high quality) . Quality wise they are very high, and good enough for 99.9% of scenarios. You would need to zoom in on still frames to see differences. Prores works perfectly ok on modern PP versions on Windows, it's actually natively supported on windows versions of PP now . But Mac is much faster for Prores if you have HW support (M1/M2/M3 mac etc...)

I wouldn't upscale anything before editing, it will just make things slower for editing . Also, it's not very efficient to upscale everything, only to cut things out later

[Stef01]

Thank you for your answer @poisondeathray.

So the workflow will be:

Capture: VirtualDub with HuffYUV 4:2:2 - 720 x 576 PAL interlaced. (archival file)

Intermediary file: Hybrid: Deinterlace + convert to ProRes 422 HQ

NLE: Premiere Pro in Windows 10 - import the ProRes 422 HQ file and edit the video. Export as H264.

Questions:
1. Is this the workflow you suggest?
2. No need to convert the colors to RGB in Hybrid, if I choose ProRes 422 HQ?
3. Will Premiere Pro respect the YUV colors in the ProRes 422 HQ file? Or will some form of color clipping occur when importing into Premiere Pro?
4. If I want to upscale to 1440x1080, where in the steps would you do that?
5. For watching home videos on a modern 4K TV, (not for Youtube) is it important to upscale? Or just leave it to 720x576 and it will fill up the screen with black bars on the left and the right? Will that have the same visual quality?

Thanks in advance!

[poisondeathray]

Thank you for your answer @poisondeathray.

So the workflow will be:

Capture: VirtualDub with HuffYUV 4:2:2 - 720 x 576 PAL interlaced. (archival file)

Intermediary file: Hybrid: Deinterlace + convert to ProRes 422 HQ

NLE: Premiere Pro in Windows 10 - import the ProRes 422 HQ file and edit the video. Export as H264.

Questions:
1. Is this the workflow you suggest?
2. No need to convert the colors to RGB in Hybrid, if I choose ProRes 422 HQ?
3. Will Premiere Pro respect the YUV colors in the ProRes 422 HQ file? Or will some form of color clipping occur when importing into Premiere Pro?
4. If I want to upscale to 1440x1080, where in the steps would you do that?
5. For watching home videos on a modern 4K TV, (not for Youtube) is it important to upscale? Or just leave it to 720x576 and it will fill up the screen with black bars on the left and the right? Will that have the same visual quality?

Thanks in advance!

1) It's ok, but depending on what you are using Premiere for, I might not deinterlace before importing

When you edit something with the goal of a final version for viewing, often a lot of material gets edited out. It would be a waste of time/hdd space/energy to deinterlace everything just to cut out whatever % later


2) no
3) yes, no clipping with prores and if you use YUV filters, they work in YUV as a YUV timeline
4) At the end before final format encoding - for the same reason above because of cutting material out, and slower editing if you edit an upscaled version

5) not important to upscale, and most UHD TV's these days do a decent job.

You might consider upscaling if the TV does a terrible job at upscaling (some cheapo TV's have very poor upscalers), or if you have some method that provides significantly better upscaling (sometimes some machine learning methods can produce slighty better results)

[Stef01]

Thanks for your quick answer.

Okay, so you would eventually deinterlace after editing in Premiere Pro while saved as ProRes 422 HQ. And afterwards deinterlace the ProRes 422 HQ in Hybrid? Do I understand that right?

And a basic color correction in PP doesn't affect the YUV colors of the ProRes 422 HQ?

[poisondeathray]

Okay, so you would eventually deinterlace after editing in Premiere Pro while saved as ProRes 422 HQ. And afterwards deinterlace the ProRes 422 HQ in Hybrid? Do I understand that right?

It depends on what you need to do in PP . If a significant amount was being cut out, I might edit it interlaced and deinterlace afterwards (I would probably do it with a script, I don't use hybrid)

If most of the video material was staying in, not being cut out, I might deinterlace first before importing . I don't know the details of your project. Nobody want to see commericals (you might preserve them in an archival version for other reasons), or a camera pointed at the floor, or other junk material

For me, a viewing version doesn't need to be lossless, and Prores HQ is very high quality, and you're probably exporting a lower quality version anyways like h264/h265 (or how are you playing it on the TV ? )

And a basic color correction in PP doesn't affect the YUV colors of the ProRes 422 HQ?

color correction affects colors - that's the reason for "color correction"

But if you use the "YUV" labelled filters in PP, then then entire workflow is in YUV . It's inserting a RGB filter that causes potential clipping (same with other programs that use RGB filters, e.g. vdub, other editors)

[Stef01]

Okay, thanks!

I have to cut out the grey fade in/outs and bad shots in my home and holiday videos. In that time I used that feature on the VHS camera. And now I have these fade in/out mess...

Do you also convert the file that was edited from PAL 25p to 50p? I see a lot of people do that for a smoother video. Would you also do that after editing?

[poisondeathray]

Do you also convert the file that was edited from PAL 25p to 50p? I see a lot of people do that for a smoother video. Would you also do that after editing?

Is the 25p a typo?

If you 're deinterlacing, you double rate deinterlace from 25i to 50p

If you leave it interlaced, then the TV should double rate deinterlace to 50p. It will deinterlace in real time for display. The quality of the deinterlacing varies for TV's from very bad to good

If you have 25p material, then 50p would need to interpolated from 25p. You synthesize "in between" frames using optical flow, or machine learning algorithms like RIFE

[Stef01]

Yeah, sorry, it's a typo. It's 25 fps interlaced to 50fps progressive indeed. Okay, got it, thx.

Would QTGMC do a better job in deinterlacing than a modern Samsung 4K TV? If so, would you eventually only deinterlace the Prores 422 HQ file that was edited?

[poisondeathray]

Would QTGMC do a better job in deinterlacing than a modern Samsung 4K TV?

Depends on the TV model. But probably better in some areas, worse in others. Pros/Cons . You can do some tests on your specific materia

If so, would you eventually only deinterlace the Prores 422 HQ file that was edited?

Again , for me that mainly depends on how much was being edited out. You can deinterlace to 50p and import that into PP , but if you cut out half the material it's a big waste of time

[Stef01]

I understand, will do a test for that.
And yeah, indeed, it depends on the cutted part of the remaining tape.

Thank you very much Poisondeathray and all the others for the help, comments and suggestions. It helped me a lot!

[Sharc]

Would QTGMC do a better job in deinterlacing than a modern Samsung 4K TV? If so, would you eventually only deinterlace the Prores 422 HQ file that was edited?

With QTGMC you may open another can of worms when striving for the "best" . Not to discourage you from using it, but you may find this discussion useful and enlightening:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/404164-Why-is-QTGMC-so-destructive-and-why-do-so-m...l-recommend-it.

Last but not least, start with a quality capture process. It has its own pitfalls and what goes wrong in this very first step undermines any subsequent "best" procedures.

[Stef01]

ProRes 422 HQ = 1,6Gb/min = 96 GB/hour
ProRes 422 = 1GB/min = 60 GB/hour
ProRes 422 LT = 735 Mb/min = 44 GB/hour

Is it worth it for the quality of VHS and S-VHS / Hi8 to convert to 422 HQ? Is 422 or 422 LT also an option to keep the quality good enough? Or is that no good deal?

[Sharc]

ProRes 422 HQ = 1,6Gb/min = 96 GB/hour
ProRes 422 = 1GB/min = 60 GB/hour
ProRes 422 LT = 735 Mb/min = 44 GB/hour

Is it worth it for the quality of VHS and S-VHS / Hi8 to convert to 422 HQ? Is 422 or 422 LT also an option to keep the quality good enough? Or is that no good deal?

"Good enough" is subjective. I'd say yes (IMO) for subsequent final editing and compression and encoding to x264. How is the quality of your VHS tapes and of your captures? Didn't you want to keep your lossless 4:2:2 HuffYUV captures for archiving anyway?

[Stef01]

The S-VHS video's are still 'good' enough today, but of course, S-VHS is not comparable with 4K, as I'm used to now.

Yes, I will keep the lossless HuffYUV 4:2:2 interlaced files as an archive file. But I'm planning to keep the intermediary file ProRes 422 (HQ) interlaced or deinterlaced also for more future editing. In case I need some parts of a specific video. So that's why I'm asking if ProRes 422 or ProRes 422 LT is good enough for the low quality of VHS/S-VHS. Because I'm archiving two files (HuffYUV422 + a ProRes422) and I don't want too much absorbing the HDD. On the other hand I want the best quality as possible for the intermediate file in ProRes 422.

That's why I wanted to know if for example the ProRes 422 or the ProRes 422 LT could do the job, with enough detailed visual lossless quality. If not, I will of course use the ProRes 422 HQ as Poisondeathray suggested.

Thx guys

[Stef01]

Btw, nice discussion about QTGMC deinterlacing... Thx Sharc.

[Darryl In Canada]

Stef01, one can also trim videos in VirtualDub and output without reprocessing. And then one can recombine the clips in VirtualDub using the Append tool. This would replace using Premiere Pro to do the cuts. The process isn’t as convenient as the all in one timeline of Premiere Pro but the benefit is that one can keep the files in HuffYUV until one is ready to use Hybrid. The “edited” version file size will be much smaller than the comparable ProRes edited version after Premiere Pro.

In fact, I use this VirtualDub method to separate the, say, 6 events recorded on a typical Video8 home movie tape. It also allows me to clip out any extra blank screen that was accidentally saved during the analog to digital capture. Once all the segments are saved (without processing and in the original codec) I then delete the original capture file.

[Stef01]

Thanks Darryl In Canada.

I used to grey fade in and out at every shot, because the VHS camera had the 'feature' in that time.

Do you think I can trim every shot easily in VirtualDub? That would be great, I have to look it up how it works. Thx.

[Alwyn]

I have to look it up how it works.

Start to finish, in particular Timeline editing and Lossless editing.

[Stef01]

Thanks Alwyn, that looks a great tutorial!