How to enhance the quality of video and upscale it to 4K

[satimis]

Hi all,

I have old video captured on Sony V8 tape about 30 years ago. A week ago I sent the V8 tape to a profession shop here ripping the video on DVD. Yesterday I collected the DVD disc from the shop. There are 5 video on the DVD of VOB format. I played them on VLC. The quality is not too bad but the color not bright. I ripped the DVD on computer as .mp4 running OpenShot. The quality of the .mp4 video are similar to that of VOB format.

Please advise is there any way to enhance the quality of the video and upscale it to 4K? Thanks

Regards

[Sharc]

Hi all,

I have old video captured on Sony V8 tape about 30 years ago. A week ago I sent the V8 tape to a profession shop here ripping the video on DVD. Yesterday I collected the DVD disc from the shop. There are 5 video on the DVD of VOB format. I played them on VLC. The quality is not too bad but the color not bright. I ripped the DVD on computer as .mp4 running OpenShot. The quality of the .mp4 video are similar to that of VOB format.

Please advise is there any way to enhance the quality of the video and upscale it to 4K? Thanks

Regards

Just ripping the DVD into an .mp4 container does not improve the quality. The video quality is in best case the same as for the .VOB, or worse if you recompressed it in OpenShot. However you might be able to tweak the colors in an NLE like OpenShop or similar. Upscaling to 4k is usually pointless as it does not add any useful real details.
Most important is the quality of the original, uncompressed V8 capture, to begin with.

[satimis]

Hi all,

I have old video captured on Sony V8 tape about 30 years ago. A week ago I sent the V8 tape to a profession shop here ripping the video on DVD. Yesterday I collected the DVD disc from the shop. There are 5 video on the DVD of VOB format. I played them on VLC. The quality is not too bad but the color not bright. I ripped the DVD on computer as .mp4 running OpenShot. The quality of the .mp4 video are similar to that of VOB format.

Please advise is there any way to enhance the quality of the video and upscale it to 4K? Thanks

Regards

Just ripping the DVD into an .mp4 container does not improve the quality. The video quality is in best case the same as for the .VOB, or worse if you recompressed it in OpenShot. However you might be able to tweak the colors in an NLE like OpenShop or similar. Upscaling to 4k is usually pointless as it does not add any useful real details.
Most important is the quality of the original, uncompressed V8 capture, to begin with.

Hi,

Thanks for your advice.

Could you please explain in more detail of "original, uncompressed V8 capture" ? The profession shop ripped the V8 tape to .VOB files which are uncompressed. I convert them to .mp4 files running OpenShot using its export feature.

I can run ffmpeg to enhance its quality using filter. My headache is no idea what will be the filter values to use. It can only be found by testing.

I have tried using the filter on Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra mobile phone to edit its .mp4 file upload. It works but also reeding testing. It is not so simple straightforward as working on a photo.

Could you please shed me some idea to test. Thanks.

I have no problem upscale .mp4 file to 4K running ffmpeg

Regards

[Sharc]

Could you please explain in more detail of "original, uncompressed V8 capture" ? The profession shop ripped the V8 tape to .VOB files which are uncompressed. I convert them to .mp4 files running OpenShot using its export feature.

V8 is a tape with analog video which must in a first step be "captured" = converted to a digital lossless (or visually lossless) format using a capture device and lossless codec like Huffyuv or Lagarith for example. For digitizing your V8 tapes you would however more likely use a videocam as a digitizer as you may not have a V8 player at hand. Search this forum for posts which discuss this capture process. I remember we discussed the V8 digitization and suitable camera models some time ago with you.
As you wrote your shop gave you DVDs with .vob files rather than lossless captures. So no, your .VOBs from the shop are not uncompressed. It is compressed mpeg2 video. And what you eventually got with your exported .mp4 depends on your OpenShot settings. You can inspect it with MediaInfo.

I can run ffmpeg to enhance its quality using filter. My headache is no idea what will be the filter values to use.

You can try with the ffmpeg filter eq but you should know what you are doing. If you only want to tweak color/brightness/contrast etc. of your .VOBs you can do this much more easily with the color grading tools in OpenShot (or another NLE), and then reencode and export it to .mp4.

It is not so simple straightforward as working on a photo.

Correct.

[satimis]

V8 is a tape with analog video which must in a first step be "captured" = converted to a digital lossless (or visually lossless) format using a capture device and lossless codec like Huffyuv or Lagarith for example. For digitizing your V8 tapes you would however more likely use a videocam as a digitizer as you may not have a V8 player at hand. Search this forum for posts which discuss this capture process. I remember we discussed the V8 digitization and suitable camera models some time ago with you.
As you wrote your shop gave you DVDs with .vob files rather than lossless captures. So no, your .VOBs from the shop are not uncompressed. It is compressed mpeg2 video. And what you eventually got with your exported .mp4 depends on your OpenShot settings. You can inspect it with MediaInfo.

It is beyond my control, difficult to instruct the profession shop.

I have knowledge ripping V8 on computer, (I think I still have the digitizer device on shelves) but I don't have the device to do the job. I have been searching 2nd hand camcorder here. It was a serious headache particularly the PAL system therefore I gave up and sent my V8 tape to the profession shop to do the job for me.

I'm now building a website, my footprints on the Earth, on my old photos and old video. I have more than a thousand old photos and >100 old video, captured worldwide, to treat. It was a bilingual website, English and Chinese, some tri-lingual, English, German and Chinese. Photos are built on slideshows. All video and slideshows are narrated on words and speech.

I use the FREE online AI TEXT to SPEECH service converting;
English text to English speech
Chinese text to Chinese speech
German text to German speeth.

Although I can install the respective software on my computer to do the job.

It is really a hard work for me. The website is NOT for business.

There are following pages on the website;
1. North America
Countries: Canada and USA, including Hawaii
2. Europe
Countries: England, Sweden, Holland, Italy, Swiss, Austria ...
3. China
4. South East Asia
Countries: Malaysia, Philippines
etc.
Not yet finished. It is just a beginning. More countries and cities will be added

All cities are shown on the page as a small icons embedded with links to YouTube video . Otherwise they would be lengthy pages. The icons can be magnified to read with mouse-pointer over them.

I need an easy way to enhance the ripped video in order to minimize my work.

I can do it with filters on my old Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra mobile phone. But there are many filters there and I have to testing them to find out which will be the suitable filter to use. Also it looks to me not ONE filter suitable for the complete video.

I have connected the mobile phone to my Linux PC using remote desktop. So I only work my my computer.

I can run ffmpeg to enhance its quality using filter. My headache is no idea what will be the filter values to use.

You can try with the ffmpeg filter eq but you should know what you are doing. If you only want to tweak color/brightness/contrast etc. of your .VOBs you can do this much more easily with the color grading tools in OpenShot (or another NLE), and then reencode and export it to .mp4.

I can run following commands on Terminal to do following jobs:-

1)
Adjusting Brightness and Contrast
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "eq=brightness=0.06:contrast=1.5" output.mp4

2)
Correcting Color Balance
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "colorbalance=rs=0.05:gs=-0.05:bs=0.05" output.mp4

3)
Adding a Vignette Effect
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "vignette=angle=PI/4" output.mp4
etc.

What will be the correct value to be use?
eq=brightness=0.06:contrast=1.5
0.06/0.07/0.08 ....
1.5/1.6/1.7/1.8 .....
I have no idea. I must test them.

I have considered trimming a section of the video to test but the test result could not represent the complete video

That is really my headache

Any suggestion? What will be the ffmpeg command on Terminal for filters?

Thanks

Regards

[Sharc]

It is beyond my control, difficult to instruct the profession shop.

I have knowledge ripping V8 on computer, (I think I still have the digitizer device on shelves) but I don't have the device to do the job. I have been searching 2nd hand camcorder here. It was a serious headache particularly the PAL system therefore I gave up and sent my V8 tape to the profession shop to do the job for me.

ok, understood.

I need an easy way to enhance the ripped video in order to minimize my work.

I can do it with filters on my old Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra mobile phone. But there are many filters there and I have to testing them to find out which will be the suitable filter to use. Also it looks to me not ONE filter suitable for the complete video.

I have connected the mobile phone to my Linux PC using remote desktop. So I only work my my computer.

I can't help you with "enhancing" your .VOB/.mp4 using your mobile phone's video tweaking tools. I would use an NLE for this, like DaVinci or similar

I can run following commands on Terminal to do following jobs:-

1)
Adjusting Brightness and Contrast
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "eq=brightness=0.06:contrast=1.5" output.mp4

2)
Correcting Color Balance
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "colorbalance=rs=0.05:gs=-0.05:bs=0.05" output.mp4

3)
Adding a Vignette Effect
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "vignette=angle=PI/4" output.mp4
etc.

What will be the correct value to be use?
eq=brightness=0.06:contrast=1.5
0.06/0.07/0.08 ....
1.5/1.6/1.7/1.8 .....
I have no idea. I must test them.

Nobody can tell you the filters settings. Your eyes decide. An NLE with its color tools would probably be more convenient than tampering with ffmpeg or using your mobile phone's wizard.

That is really my headache

Any suggestion?

Pills against headaches?

[satimis]

[QUOTE=Sharc;2770283]

I can't help you with "enhancing" your .VOB/.mp4 using your mobile phone's video tweaking tools. I would use an NLE for this, like DaVinci or similar

What is NLE package?

I can't find it on Ubuntu 24.04 REPO here?

I know DaVinci Resolve. I have run it before.

Add install DaVinci Resolve role on;
https://github.com/leinardi/JDInstaller.git

Regards

[Sharc]

[QUOTE=satimis;2770289]

I can't help you with "enhancing" your .VOB/.mp4 using your mobile phone's video tweaking tools. I would use an NLE for this, like DaVinci or similar

What is NLE package?

NLE = Non Linear Editor, like DaVinci Resolve, SONY Vegas/Magix, Premier Pro, KdenLive, OpenShot, Shotcut ......

https://www.videohelp.com/software/sections/video-editors-advanced

[satimis]

[QUOTE=Sharc;2770301]

I can't help you with "enhancing" your .VOB/.mp4 using your mobile phone's video tweaking tools. I would use an NLE for this, like DaVinci or similar

What is NLE package?

NLE = Non Linear Editor, like DaVinci Resolve, SONY Vegas/the Magix, Premier Pro, KdenLive, OpenShot, Shotcut ......

https://www.videohelp.com/software/sections/video-editors-advanced

I got it. Thank.

I have OpenShot and Shotcut running here. I'll test video on them first.

What will be the terminology on searching?
To enhance video quality on OpenShot?

[davexnet]

To enhance video quality on OpenShot?

It depends what's wrong/what you intend to do.

OpenShot only has the most basic filters. Shotcut has some more advanced types

[satimis]

To enhance video quality on OpenShot?

It depends what's wrong/what you intend to do.

OpenShot only has the most basic filters. Shotcut has some more advanced types

Thanks.

I'm now testing Shotcut. Experience gained throughout testings is very important. There is ONE set of settings applied to all old video

[satimis]

Hi all,

I just finished testing an old video on Shotcut, running following filters:-
Brightness
Color Grading
Contrast
Sharpen

one on top of another continuously on an old video. The test result is quite good. I'll upscale the video to 4K later.

The old video was captured by me 34 years ago in Milan, Italy (Milano, Italia) on Sony V8 tape. One week ago I sent the tape to a profession shop ripping it on DVD as VOB format.

I'll continue test another old video on the same DVD. The video was also captured by me 34 years ago in Maastricht, Netherlands. I'll apple the same filters, but in one go, i.e. simultaneously (not one by one)

Regards