Filters for 2nd Generation VHS

[GMaq]

Hi Y'all
I've been archiving a bunch of music (blues) videos off some old VHS tapes that are about 15 years old, some of the source material was bounced once from an ancient mono pre-HQ VCR and the Video is pretty noisy, I am pretty well versed with the TMPGenc filters but am not crazy about the quadrupling of processing time it takes. My usage of Virtualdub has been limited to direct stream copies and basic commercial editing etc.
I have played around with the alparysoft de-interlacing and noise reduction filters but have noticed very apparent "crinkly" macroblocks on the finished product. I was wondering if any of you diehard .avi cappers could give me a little filtering advice preferably with the native virtualdub filters. I realize that video beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that everyone has different tolerances for what looks good. The source is 2nd generation VHS and I just want to clean it up a little, I'm not expecting anything miraculous. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[spiderman2k1]

For starter please say what capture card you have. One way I would say use a ATI AIW card you can get one for about $33.00 dollars radeon and use video soap to clean up the picture. or a high end vcr with noise reduction.

[GMaq]

Spiderman2k1,
I am doing .avi capture @ 720x480 with an ATI AIW 9700 I am using IUvcr as the capturing program, I'm not crazy about the MPEG capturing in ATI MMC. I am capping from a JVC 9911U s-vhs VCR with the TBC turned on using the S-VHS input on the AIW. Thanks for your reply.

[flaninacupboard]

I've had great results wth TMPGenc with some not too intensive settings. put the noise reduction on about 4 1 2. this doesn't make a huge difference to what you see, but makes a massive difference to the final encode. also doing multipass encoding will probably help a lot. TMPGenc will let you do 2 passes, for more you'll have to get CCE.

[GMaq]

flaninacupboard,
Thanks for your reply, I agree the TMPGenc noise red. can do amazing things, I was just wondering if there was more I could do at the .avi stage to either avoid leaning on the TMPGenc noise reduction or work in tandem with it to get a better result.

[spiderman2k1]

"GMaq" what version of MMC are you using? MMC 8.1 and up the MPEg 2 is good. You can use video soap and clean up the picture very fast I have use VB and MMC and i think MMC is better then VB with noise filter's. Video soap I really think is your best bet. There is a combo filter 1 and 2 for very bad tape's that are on EP or SLP use combo filter on medium. If the tape is on SP combo filter on heavy. There a small setting you have to change right to left on a scale. If you get a ghost picture when things are moving.

[GMaq]

spiderman2k1,
Once again I appreciate your reply, Thanks for the videosoap tips, I am running MMC 8.1, my problem with MMC is that it generates an .m2p file type for MPEG-2, my standalone player will not play back DVD's authored with this file type. Unfortunately I only have dial-up internet, I downloaded MMC 8.8 which took 3.5 hours and it immediately didn't like my original display drivers which is another 23 Meg download, also it has all this "EASYSHARE" bullshit which just opened another can of worms. This is why I have been doing .avi captures, I also still burn a lot of VCD's which seem to turn out better with a good .avi source. this is my 3rd ATI card and so far my experience has been if you can get your card and MMC working together don't mess with it! Perhaps I should just spend the ten bucks and order an updated install disc with the latest drivers and MMC 8.9. thanks for the advice!

[spiderman2k1]

"GMaq" If you use the newest version of TMPG DVD authore it will recode the audio to dolby digital stereo 2.0 so you can just capture with MMC with mpeg 2 and then use TMPG DVD author to fix the audio if you wish.

[GMaq]

spiderman2k1
Well I just said the hell with it today and while I was working I downloaded both the latest radeon drivers and MMC 8.9 it took almost all day, but it was worth it because you were absolutely right about the files being compatible now. I capped an hour of TV and burned a test disc on a RW and sure enough it played on my standalone just fine. I also did some messing around with the videosoap and the results look promising as well, this is going to save me a lot of time. thanks for hangin' in there with me spidey!!
P.S. If anyone else reading this thread cares my original version of MMC was 8.0.0. I've read in other posts that all MMC versions after 7.7 made good MPEG-2 files, I have to agree with my friendly neighborhood spiderman that it's a necessity to have at LEAST MMC 8.1 or later.

[spiderman2k1]

Spidey is always there to help it's the Super Hero's code!!!!!!!!

[Fred©]

Hi Y'all
I have played around with the alparysoft de-interlacing and noise reduction filters but have noticed very apparent "crinkly" macroblocks on the finished product. I was wondering if any of you diehard .avi cappers could give me a little filtering advice preferably with the native virtualdub filters. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Well, I capture VHS in 352x480 interlaced mode with PICVIDEO MJEPG compressor in VirtualDub. Also, it has an external, but free filter made for VHS tapes... it is FX VHS filter... I dont remember where I found it, but it seems that the virtualdub HP has a link to all known filters... probably was there...

The results are pretty good to me.

Good luck.

Fred©

[GMaq]

Fred (c)
Thanks a lot for the tip, sounds like what I was looking for in the first place, I still will do most of my VCD caps in .avi so the FX VHS filter sounds like a winner, I'll let you know if I find it or anything better for future ref. I've never used virtualdub for capping only because IUvcr is a little more user friendly and doesn't have a 2gig file size limit, but Vdub seems to be more tweakable. thanks again for your reply.

[Fred©]

Well, about 2gib limit, virtualdub can be setup to split files automatically... and it is really more tweakable... many others filters can be used at same time....

also, I can crop borders, because my VCR always sends a bottow line with flickers...

good job.

Fred©

P.S. I found Flaxen VHS filter at:

http://neuron2.net/flaxen/fxvhs.zip

[GMaq]

Fred(c)
Thanks for the info and the filter link, you were sure right about the Vdub home page, That smart smoother looks pretty interesting too, looks like I'm in for a few evenings of trial and error. Thanks Again! - GMaq