red / green color shift VHS

[DaveS]

Any suggestions for correcting a red / green color shift when capturing an old VHS tape? Not sure if this is 'fixable'

I guess I'm not sure what exactly causes it (more specifically than the tape being old) so I can't tell how to best deal w/ it.

I could post a picture later tonight if it helps - the picutre is unusually red / green in different places...I checked around but couldn't seem to find any posts dealing w/ this although I thought there were some out there

TIA - any suggestions are greatly appreciated...

[satviewer2000]

Sounds like a macrovision effect. You could try one of the "video stabilizers" on the tape if it's a commercial tape with Macrovision protection.

[presto]

Doesn't sound like macrovision to me. Sounds like color shift. Almost all old VHS tapes exhibit a color shift.

I have several programs that capture and they all have settings to adjust the hue and saturation. What are you using to capture?

I pretty much always turn down the red a little and turn down the saturation a little more.

[fmctm1sw]

There a filter out there for virtualdub (I believe) called flaxen's VHS filter that is supposed to be able to fix color shifts.

[DaveS]

guys - thanks...it's not macrovision as it's someone's home video tape and the tbc-1000 would kill the macrovision anyway...I can adjust the colors / tint on the Sima SCC, but no matter what I've tried, it hasn't been ideal...I guess I am going to have to learn vdub...I've been holding off b/c of the learning curve but maybe that's the only thing I can do...not sure yet...

[jdw]

Here are a couple of guides I've used to get started on VDub. The postprocessing part in paragraph 4 of the first link has a section and gives a link about correcting chroma shift with the flaxen's VHS filter.

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/start.html

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/virtualdub_procedures.htm

[DaveS]

thanks so far - got vdub installed, installed the panasonic vfw codec, found the flaxen filter & now fooling w/ it...an example of the problem I'm trying to correct is below...doesn't look like a simple horizontal shift that seem to be in the guides...also installed the chroma noise reduction filter from some french web site...can try to fool w/ that one too...if anyone recognizes the problem & wants to suggest some corrections, I am more than happy to get some advice! TIA again...

[lordsmurf]

You're going to need a JVC TBC for this, and some prayer.

Only real way to "fix" this is to hide it. Desaturate the color a bit to make it not as noticeable.

It's caused from being old, on a cheap tape, and being a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy etc. Most likely it saw a 2-head VCR at some point in there too, or a dual-deck VCR. That's my guess.

You may have to crop in to the image and shave off the top and a small amount of other edges.

That kind of error is embedded in the signal, and your only hope is the DNR TBC on a JVC to correct at the source (may fail). I don't think any combo of filters can fix this. Best you can do is hide it, and then live with the results (but it'll still be better than what we see here).

[DaveS]

lordsmurf - thanks for looking...I did try the DNR on/off on the JVC but I don't think it had an impact...I'll go fool w/ it some more ... desaturating the colors is easy so maybe I'll just do that and call it a day but probably won't give up the fight w/o trying for a while..thanks alot - will post if anything seems to fix it...thanks for the help