6 hour VHS video

[buddycat]

I belong to a hobbyist organization with a small budget. We maintain an archive of home videos that we're trying to convert to digital for safekeeping. I have one tape that has the usual issues of a 6 hour recording but is also at least 2nd generation because it has several shows from different sources on it. I would probably not even bother with it, except that the official archivist thought we should try to salvage it since it's the only record we have of the venues on tape.

My situation is that I don't know that we can spend a whole lot of money on equipment - mainly, use what I have on hand. What I have is a standard VCR - nothing fancy, the ATI All in Wonder card, and Tmpgenc and virtualdub.
Posted is one of the worst examples on the first 45 minutes or so I attribute to being the beginning of the tape, because I don't see it later on. At otehr times, you just see the garbage along the bottom of the picture. It seems to roll up and down every so often.

The rest of it is just a matter of cleaning up the signal and audio. I saw a post for neatvideo - I might be able to convince the folks in charge to buy it, if it could be justified. For one video - probably not. But if we get more of these, maybe so.

I would welcome any recommendations that I could do relatively easily, given what I have. I did seen some of the filters that could be used in VD, but I'm not sure I can capture with another codec other than the one that comes with my card. I saw the bit about gold cables. Probably worth the investment.

[buddycat]

Here's another pic from later in the tape. If you'd like me to post pics from the other sources of the tape, I can do that.

[SatStorm]

Unfortunatelly, you won't be able to do much with a typical set up.
You need 3 things: A better VCR, a TBC unit and a DVD Recorder

That way, you gonna be able to transfer ver desent your 6 hours on 3 DVD-Rs.

[guns1inger]

If these are second or third generation then there is a good chance that some of these issues are not the result of the current VCR, but one of the previous VCRs, in which case a TBC will have no effect as these problems are now part of the video signal itself, and not flaws as such. This makes them very difficult to fix. You might be able to reduce noise, improve the brightness and colour etc. with avisynth or vdub, but you may have to live with some of the other issues.

[lordsmurf]

Pay somebody to do it for you, somebody that specializes in transferring and restoring problematic VHS tapes.

Just remember that while it can be improved upon, but it will still look subpar at the end of the day, regardless of the amount of restoration done.

[SCDVD]

Pay somebody to do it for you, somebody that specializes in transferring and restoring problematic VHS tapes.

Just remember that while it can be improved upon, but it will still look subpar at the end of the day, regardless of the amount of restoration done.

I'm curious, do you sometimes find that people who pay for a restoration expect too much? There is only so much that can be done. But most people don't have any idea of what is involved in a restoration. Have you ever encountered people who expected a miracle because they "paid for it"?

[lordsmurf]

People I deal with are consulted upfront and everything explained to them. A follow-up is done once a tape is in my hands, because images/clips that are sent and a person's written description are not always the same as the true problem on the tape.

Most people are thrilled to get any kind of improvement at all. They have usually already tried to fix it themselves, only to fail miserably because they lack the hardware, software and experience needed to do anything worthwhile.

[SCDVD]

Sounds like you are doing it the right way. I imagine the problems occur when the limitations aren't explained up front.

[buddycat]

I was afraid that was probably the answer, but -- how much do you think it costs to have something like this restored?

[Marvingj]

Theres not to much you can do with that tape. It has a lot of issues. You can make it a little cleaner but not that much. It looks like a 2nd or 3rd generation. Boy, Boy Boy....You can improve certain aspects using avisynth or vdub but its not going to be very signficant.

[lordsmurf]

I sent you a PM buddycat.