Questions concerning archive project/restoring DVD-R made from VHS

[Touch_A_Mountain]

Hello all,

I have done some reading up in the forums using the search tool and the provided stickys. They were both helpful and overwhelming. I'm a bit perplexed by the sheer amount of software and hardware there is available. It's not discouraging to me, but being somewhat of a perfectionist, knowing that it's possible to get better results is a little thorn in the side sometimes.

Currently, I am working on and off again on a archiving project near and dear to me; getting all my Beavis and Butthead tapes (recorded off various broadcasts) to DVD-R.

I have been using a TOSHIBA DVR 620 to make the transfers (always using the highest quality setting). However, after reading up on a few things here, I am wondering if I should use a different route? Perhaps getting a JVC prosumer VCR with built in TBC or something of the like??

The tapes are not the best quality to begin with, with VHS being lossy and the occasional analog artifacts inherent in over the air broadcasts. Below is a screen shot taken off one of the DVD-R transfers I made. The original VHS was made on a 4 head RCA Hifi VCR (model number is a mystery to me) in EP mode some time in the mid 2000s from a satellite broadcast. I am unable to get a capture of the actual VHS on to my computer at the moment since I don't have the means of doing so, so I'm not certain if there is any further degradation of the picture inherent in the new DVD-R transfer I made. I compared the two back to back on my TV, and surprisingly, the DVD-R seemed to retain the same quality of the original VHS.

However, the Toshiba unit does not have any sort of filtering or sharpening mechanisms for the VCR playback and more of the "quick and dirty" type. Would it be better to try another VCR to act as the playback machine or is it possible that I can simply rip the DVD-R transfer to my computer and clean it up using a type of software?

Sorry if my questions come off as "noob-ish" to some of the more polished experts. I guess you have to start somewhere. Any help is appreciated!

Here's the screen cap as promised. As you can see, there's various degrees of blurring and halos along with some analog 'noise'. What particular software and/or fixes would some of you suggest?

[Touch_A_Mountain]

Here's another screen shot from the same segment as the previous one for posterity, this time of the non-animated portion.

[themaster1]

http://www.gemm.com/item/BEAVIS--AND--BUTT-d-HEAD---d---THE--MIKE--JUDGE--COLLECTION--...GML1003251694/

http://www.gemm.com/item/BEAVIS--AND--BUTTHEAD/VOLUME--2/GML1009680642/

http://www.gemm.com/item/BEAVIS--AND--BUTTHEAD/MIKE--JUDGE--COLLECT/GML790781108/


http://www.sekaimon.com/i260803555030

[Touch_A_Mountain]

Yes, I own all three of those, as well as the Time-Life, Sony/MTV, and History Of DVD sets. Trouble is, they are edited and incomplete. There's supposedly a set of complete episodes for free on certain torrent sites, but I don't want to bother when I have most of the material on my tapes.

[jagabo]

Aren't they all available on DVD? That will be much better quality than you'll get from VHS.

[Touch_A_Mountain]

Aren't they all available on DVD? That will be much better quality than you'll get from VHS.

See my above post. None of the DVD sets released have full episodes with music videos included. The Mike Judge Collections include a handful of videos on a bonus features disc, but they include nowhere near the amount that actually aired back in the day. Not to mention, many episodes on the first and third volumes have been hacked up and censored.

[jagabo]

You can get better quality if you want to spend a lot of money on hardware and don't mind spending a lot of time learning. An SVHS deck with a line time base corrector, a full frame time base corrector, and an analog proc amp. Then capture draw YUY2 with a lossless codec like HuffYUV. And finally some advanced filtering with AviSynth.

Post some samples of your current caps. Someone will probably give you some filtering options. DgIndex is a good choice. Open one of your VOB files, mark a short section, then Save Project and Demux video. Post the M2V file. Cartoons are especially amenable to cleanup.

[mazinz]

Touch_A_Mountain,
For your own knowledge, the set that is free online (dvd format) is a whopper 18 disc set known as the "king turd collection ver 2 (note to be aware of the ver 2, if you see ver 1 skip it). That set has all eps uncut, all liquid television shorts and a slew of other banned or what have you extras.

Just passing along the info should you go that route instead of the tape conversion

[sanlyn]

Judging from the images, you won't get the quality you're looking for by recording directly to DVD. VHS almost always needs more help than you can get from filters on a DVD recorder. Your best bet is to capture to YUY2 AVI onto a PC's drive, and learn to use VirtualDub and and/or AviSynth and a good MPEG decoder. A lot of the software you need is absolutely free.

I wouldn't recommend a JVC with onboard TBC. Legacy VCR's at this late date are mostly in poor repair. Parts support for the better VCR's from the 1990's is nonexistent. A full-frame outboard TBC could be useful, but a line-level TBC is almost essential for VHS. You can get a Panasonic or Toshiba DVD recorder (used is OK) and use their built-in TBC's as a pass-thru device -- that is, connect your VCR's output to the recorder, but instead of recording you send the recorder's output directly to your capture device. If you're using a Panasonic machine, their TBC is active only on Line 1. IMHO Toshiba gives the best results, to the point where often I don't need my full-frame TBC in the circuit at all except for really scroungy tapes.

A proc amp isn't absolutely essential (I love my SignVideo PA-1), but a good one is pricey. Never go for cheap $100 proc amps you see in big box stores; you can do better work on your own with free software.

I don't know if you've seen the popular digitalfaq website yet, but try some of the guides in the left-hand index on this site: http://www.digitalfaq.com/ . Many in this forum got started there. If some of the tools mentioned seem a bit dated, remember that many people still own and use them. Topics are frequently updated.

One remark about sharpening during capture sent a shiver up my back. Don't sharpen VHS until you've denoised it. If you sharpen during capture, most of what you sharpen will be noise; getting rid of it won't be at all easy.

[Touch_A_Mountain]

Your best bet is to capture to YUY2 AVI onto a PC's drive, and learn to use VirtualDub and and/or AviSynth and a good MPEG decoder. A lot of the software you need is absolutely free.

Is there a guide for this process on the Video Help site? I tried looking in the how to capture guide but couldn't find the exact one you describe.
EDIT: Nevermind, I found it!

You can get a Panasonic or Toshiba DVD recorder (used is OK) and use their built-in TBC's as a pass-thru device -- that is, connect your VCR's output to the recorder, but instead of recording you send the recorder's output directly to your capture device. If you're using a Panasonic machine, their TBC is active only on Line 1. IMHO Toshiba gives the best results, to the point where often I don't need my full-frame TBC in the circuit at all except for really scroungy tapes.

Would my current model, the TOSHIBA DVR 620, work well as a TBC pass-thru device?

Thanks for your help.

[sanlyn]

[QUOTE=Touch_A_Mountain;2087806]
Is there a guide for this process on the Video Help site? I tried looking in the how to capture guide but couldn't find the exact one you describe.
EDIT: Nevermind, I found it!

There are several guides around. The one that helped me most was at doom9:
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/start.html
For starters, scroll down the table of contents and try "6.2 Capturing with VirtualDub". Doom9 also lists a guide to processing the video you capture. If you have a weekend to spare, go thru the whole Doom9 guide. Be prepared for some heady stuff. You can adapt doom 9's info for most sources. The site leans toward DivX formats and anime. But they cover just about everything.

Someone once suggested this site for HD stuff. I haven't seen word on how good this site is, but neuron2 is a reliable source for VirtualDub and AviSynth filters:
"High Resolution Capture with VirtualDub" http://neuron2.net/LVG/highrescapvdub.html

Would my current model, the TOSHIBA DVR 620, work well as a TBC pass-thru device?

First, note that the tape players in combo units have never been very good. Period. I know people who proudly proclaim they used these devices to record old tapes to DVD. It works, but what I saw on their TV wasn't what I'd like to see on mine. The recorder might be OK, but the built-in players are quite cheap.

As for TBC. . .given the price point, I'd hazard two educated guesses: (a) If a TBC is in there, it's not of the quality you'd get with the recorders mentioned earlier, which cost more as recorders-only (sometimes lots more) than the 620 does. But you might get lucky. The 620 does have a y/c input filter -- works on composite input only, but it does help composite video. (b) It might work only thru the player's tape playback circuits, not on the line inputs.

That said, you can always give it a try. Test with a retail tape. Home recordings tend to have wiggly verticals anyway, because they were recorded that way. Most TBC's can't do much in that case, but they can help. Get a retail tape that has some verticals (stairways, door or window frames, lamp posts, fences, edges of buildings, etc.). If you can find another cheapo VCR, or any other VCR for that matter, play the same tape directly to a TV to compare. I'd say the chances that the 620 can work as pass-thru are 50/50. The old Toshiba RD-X2 recorder of 2002 or so was their lowest-priced recorder, about $200 USD at that time, and it had an effective TBC for pass-thru. There's a good chance your 620 can do it.

[jagabo]

I had a Toshiba 620 on loan for a few days a while back. I have a few test recordings from it archived. It does have a TBC that can stabilize VHS horizontal jitter. I don't know if it will work in pass through mode though.

[Touch_A_Mountain]

I do notice that when switching back and forth between the VCR and DVD front panel switch on the DVD Recorder that the DVD feed is a second or two behind the VCR. Could this be the TBC causing this or is that just caused by some sort of A/D converter?

[sanlyn]

I do notice that when switching back and forth between the VCR and DVD front panel switch on the DVD Recorder that the DVD feed is a second or two behind the VCR. Could this be the TBC causing this or is that just caused by some sort of A/D converter?

Digital is slower than analog.

[jagabo]

A second or two behind? That's a lot more than I would expect from just a TBC. It sounds to me like the video is being encoded to MPEG 2, many frames buffered, then played back at the output port. Look for MPEG artifacts in the output.

[Touch_A_Mountain]

Oddly enough, I don't notice any added artifacts in DVD mode. In fact, to my eyes the picture seems a little 'dirtier' in VCR mode.

[sanlyn]

A second or two behind? That's a lot more than I would expect from just a TBC. It sounds to me like the video is being encoded to MPEG 2, many frames buffered, then played back at the output port. Look for MPEG artifacts in the output.

Could be the TV, not the player? My SONY LCD does the same thing. I didn't have that happen when I was still using my now deceased (sniffle) CRT.

[jagabo]

A second or two behind? That's a lot more than I would expect from just a TBC. It sounds to me like the video is being encoded to MPEG 2, many frames buffered, then played back at the output port. Look for MPEG artifacts in the output.

Could be the TV, not the player?

That's easy enough t test. Bypass the DVD recorder.

[sanlyn]

I do notice that when switching back and forth between the VCR and DVD front panel switch on the DVD Recorder that the DVD feed is a second or two behind the VCR. Could this be the TBC causing this or is that just caused by some sort of A/D converter?

Wait a minute. I keep re-reading this, and I'm still not sure what you're asking. Are you playing a tape and a DVD at the same time, using the same output cable from your recorder for both sources? A TBC takes a little time to reorganize things, but as jagabo noted it doesn't take 1 or 2 seconds.

[Touch_A_Mountain]

I do notice that when switching back and forth between the VCR and DVD front panel switch on the DVD Recorder that the DVD feed is a second or two behind the VCR. Could this be the TBC causing this or is that just caused by some sort of A/D converter?

Wait a minute. I keep re-reading this, and I'm still not sure what you're asking. Are you playing a tape and a DVD at the same time, using the same output cable from your recorder for both sources? A TBC takes a little time to reorganize things, but as jagabo noted it doesn't take 1 or 2 seconds.

Not playing anything. Just viewing whatever is hooked up to the input jacks. There's a button on the front panel to switch between VCR recording and DVD recording. The output in VCR mode is a second or two ahead of the DVD mode.

[sanlyn]

Oh. I still say digital is slower than analog in most operations, but . . . those both are in "recording" modes. Are you actually recording, or just monitoring what's going into each section of the recorder?

[Touch_A_Mountain]

Oh. I still say digital is slower than analog in most operations, but . . . those both are in "recording" modes. Are you actually recording, or just monitoring what's going into each section of the recorder?

Simply monitoring. As far as I can tell, the switch is disabled while recording to prevent interruption.

[sanlyn]

Simply monitoring. As far as I can tell, the switch is disabled while recording to prevent interruption.

Makes sense. According to jagabo, this recorder has a TBC inside, somewhere. Whether it works only thru tape-to-DVD, or on any input (Line 1 is usually the best bet, if you have more than 1 input for external sources) is another matter. It wouldn't make much sense to have a TBC operating only when you want to record from the internal tape player to DVD. I'd monitor from DVD instead of VCR when using external sources. I don't recall exactly how that unit is set up regarding inputs, but your best bet is to set it up so that your input is set to record to DVD, not to tape. The only way to see if it's working as pass-thru is to try the test mentioned earlier. I don't see why it couldn't work.