Need tips to restore video image in very bad shape!

[DrJOnes666]

Hi,
I use Prmeiere Pro.
I captured a 3 minutes segment from a VHS tape using ADVC-100. The source is terrible: it is very dark and contains a lot of visual noise. I adjusted the levels (needed a LOT of brightening) in Premiere and did some color correction, but I am left with a LOT of visual noise. When I encode it to be transfered on DVD and then try it on my 43" projection TV, it looks absolutely horrible.

Any TIPS on restoring that piece of video would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

DrJOnes666

Here's an example of the BEFORE and AFTER:

[spiderman2k1]

Your tape look's very bad and I mean bad. There are some thing to try TMPG with filter's. ATI AIW card with videosoap to help clean the video. Also a high end new JVC VCR. Also try

http://www.lordsmurf.com/

for some guide's

[DrJOnes666]

Yeah, tell me about it! I know it's in bad shape...

Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.

DrJOnes666

[housepig]

check this link as well -

http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/vdub-filters2.htm

some thorough guides on cleaning / improving footage - and I think it uses most if not all Virtualdub and freeware filters.

[lordsmurf]

There's almost nothing you can do to solve low-light problems.

What you have is alright. Most that can be done is to blur out noise and maybe remove a small portion of it.

Maybe a JVC S-VHS unit to clear out some of that red/blue signal distortion.

My restore guides aren't up yet (this week should be the week for the restoration guides), but that's what it would say for that situation.

[DrJOnes666]

Thanks LordSmurf, I appreciate the info. I look forward to your restore guides indeed.

For the record, I did find another page that gave good restoration information: http://www.arstechnica.com/guide/audio-visual/video-cleanup/cleaning-5.html . I followed their instruction and was able to achieve better restoration results than the example shown above. It is still noisy, but so muh less that I can live with the new resuts. At least, it is watchable now.

DrjOnes666

[housepig]

I followed their instruction and was able to achieve better restoration results than the example shown above. It is still noisy, but so muh less that I can live with the new resuts. At least, it is watchable now.

can you post a screenshot of the cleaned version, and a description of your technique?

[DrJOnes666]

Here's the 3rd cleaned version (not exactly the same frame as above, but close). Although it is a bit more blurry than the other version posted above in the thread, it is much more acceptable visually on the tv set. As you'll notice, the color saturation is also a lot lower, which was a personal decision to set it this way.

I restored it this way this time:

- Loaded the original source in Virtualdub
-Used the following filters, in that order:
deinterlace (mix both fields)
levels (played with it until acceptable levels)
dynamic Noise Reduction MMX (set to Noise Treshold 31 (max))
2Dcleaner (set to treshold 200 and radius 2 (radius 1 would be less blury))
chroma noise reduction (default settting)
hue/saturation/intensity (adjusted the color saturation)

Here's an excellent page for video restoration:
http://www.arstechnica.com/guide/audio-visual/video-cleanup/cleaning-5.html
and another for Virtualdub filters:
http://www.videoxone.de/vdfilters/cgi-bin/filterlist_e.pl

Good luck.

DrJOnes666

[SLICK RICK]

Thats not too bad compared to the other 2 screenshots.

SLICK RICK

[BJ_M]

if you are playing it on a tv - you may want to leave it interlaced..

only other thing I can add is that the FlaXen VHS noise reduction filter for v-dub works very well ..

[DrJOnes666]

Will it be able to play on a normal tv set even though it is not interlaced? I didn't try it... Only tried it on my projection screen which supports progressive playback.

DrJOnes666