Combination of Virtualdub filters when editing 8mm films

[avz10]

I am in the process to transfer 8mm films to AVI and I have started to use Virtualdub to improve the quality. I am experimenting with all the filters and need some advice to get a good combination of filters from people who have done it. What are the combination of the common filters to use and what are the settings?
I will need the following:
• Deflickering (If I use the default setting, the picture appears dark for a few seconds sometimes)
• Do I need to deinterlace, because in the preview the horizontal streaks are very obvious). I downloaded the deinterlacer.
• Noise reduction- I downloaded MSU Denoiser
• Sharpening- should one use the sharpen filter and at what setting, or the MSU Smart sharpen filter?
• A filter to improve colour

Hope someone can help

Thanks!

[redwudz]

If you are planning to put the final product on a DVD, don't deinterlace. What you see on your computer monitor is not how it will look on a TV. You can play it back with a program that properly handles interlaced video like PowerDVD if you want to see sort of how it will look.

Same with the other filters, less is usually better. Overfiltering can make a video worse. With 8MM conversion, you will likely need some filtering, though. The White Balance filter is good for that. Noise reduction - maybe. There is also a 'Hot spot' filter available if the lighting in the MM frame is uneven during transfer.

[avz10]

Thanks

Any comments about sharpening? I have read that the Unsharp mask filter is good.

[guns1inger]

I have had success with the unsharp mask filter. Use version 1.4, which has been optimised. I did find it way to strong on the default settings, and found I had to crank it down a bit - I believe the default setting is 5, whereas 3 was a lot better.

This filter also has settings to border the edges all around. This is useful is your film frame is less than your full frame, as the filter will halo the straight edges.

If you decide to look at avisynth as an alternative (and it will be faster in most cases, sometimes 200% faster), asharp is a good sharpening filter.