AG-1980 Artifacts

[AdamJellicorse]

I've been trying to transfer some rare family footage and I've been doing a comparison between my newly refurbished Panasonic AG-1980 and a Panasonic DMR-EZ48V.

It seems that the AG-1980 footage has artifacts everywhere (take a look at the kid's mouth on the far right). Is there any reason for this? I'm using the built in TBC and also running it through my DataVideo TBC-1000 Full Frame 4:2:2. Any idea why this is happening?




[Attachment 70178 - Click to enlarge]


[Attachment 70179 - Click to enlarge]

[Bwaak]

You should use both fields for deinterlacing, not just one, although in case of motion you'll be using one field at a time, still a decent interpolating filter will smooth out the jaggies, and a smarter deinterlacer will use both fields for static areas.

[Sharc]

First off, you should capture lossless interlaced and compare the quality of the capture before applying some deinterlacer.

[AdamJellicorse]

First off, you should capture lossless interlaced and compare the quality of the capture before applying some deinterlacer.

The footage shown here is interlaced. It was captured in ProRes 444.

[Bwaak]

The footage shown here has no interlacing.

True. It has been damaged by incorrect deinterlacing. Look at all the diagonals, the stairstepping is especially noticeable on the second image.

[AdamJellicorse]

The footage shown here has no interlacing.

True. It has been damaged by incorrect deinterlacing. Look at all the diagonals, the stairstepping is especially noticeable on the second image.

Apologies, I mean to say that the source, to my knowledge, is interlaced. I feed my AG-1980 / TBC combo into a Panasonic DVD/VHS with HDMI out and output 480i on the machine and capture in 525i using Blackmagic Media Express and a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder.

[dellsam34]

AG-1980 picture looks far better than the other VCR, but both got butchered by whatever workflow you're using.

[lordsmurf]

What is the capture card, software, and settings here?
That looks to be the culprit.

[AdamJellicorse]

I feed my AG-1980 / TBC combo into a Panasonic DVD/VHS with HDMI out and output 480i on the machine and capture in 525i using Blackmagic Media Express and a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder. Encoded in ProRes 444, sample images are from Final Cut Pro.

[dellsam34]

In MediaExpress output 720x480i lossless AVI 8bit 4:2:2 and post short video samples, not processed pictures, There is no reason to output 4:4:4, hardware is limited to 4:2:2 natively. You can reduce the size using vdub2 and HuffYUV lossless compression either usingMediaExpress files or capture entirely with it.

[lordsmurf]

output 480i / capture in 525i = the problem

That's no proper capture technique.

Capture NTSC as NTSC. Convert later in software with proper scaling/interlace handling.

[AdamJellicorse]

output 480i / capture in 525i = the problem

That's no proper capture technique.

Capture NTSC as NTSC. Convert later in software with proper scaling/interlace handling.

525i is the only NTSC capture option in Blackmagic Media Express. Am I missing something?

[dellsam34]

Yes NTSC is referred to as 525i and PAL/SECAM as 625i, Though only 480 lines are the active video area for NTSC and 576 for PAL/SECAM, It got its name from TV days where 525 refers to the broadcast resolution including all the data.

[lordsmurf]

It was late.
Yep, 576 = PAL, not 525. And 525i is the analog reference for the 480i active pixels.

Still, something is amiss in the workflow.

[rrats]

AG-1980 picture looks far better than the other VCR, but both got butchered by whatever workflow you're using.

Imo it removes lots of details

[lollo]

AG-1980 picture looks far better than the other VCR, but both got butchered by whatever workflow you're using.

Far better? Based on what? I have the opposite impression looking to the provided pictures

Imo it removes lots of details

I agree. Picture from ES48V is better and more adequate for further restoration: https://imgsli.com/MTY4MTM0

But we are just judging a fixed screenshot, so no real conclusions are possible.

[dellsam34]

AG-1980 is better in terms of less chroma artifacts. Resolution, interlacing and loss of details is caused by his workflow, Unless he posts lossless unaltered samples it's hard to judges other than the obvious chroma artifacts that the ES48V has.