Restoring old washed out video tape

[allenz]

Hi
I got an old VHS video tape of a TV movie from 1972. It looks like the 100th copy of 100 copies!

Got it into my Vegas Video but I want to try to restore the video if I can.

Is there a way to restore or enhance the washed out look? Right now it looks like an old water color painting.

Thanks
Allen

[redwudz]

I'm not sure of Vegas Video, but several encoding programs like TMPGEnc encoder can adjust color saturation. Be warned, though, it may also increase noise and color bleeding.

[graemee]

Well I've used virtualdub and some of the filters to clean up and enhance old VHS rips. But they were animation and it's easier to run the filters with animation.

I used the FlaXen tools.


Look here.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/restoration/video/vdubavisynth.htm

[Marvingj]

After Effects can do wonders but its very expensive.

[gshelley61]

You might also try a video processor/enhancer like the Sima SCC Pro Color Corrector prior to capturing/encoding. It works surprisingly well.

[allenz]

Thanks. I appreciate the help.
Allen

[handyguy]

A Panasonic dvd recorder can do a great job of it. They have special filters.

VHS turns to fuzz around the fifteenth year.

[allenz]

Any specific Panasonic VHS recorder? I have 5 model PV-V4522's I use for dubbing and I don't notice any filtering choices on them.

Thanks
Allen

[allenz]

You might also try a video processor/enhancer like the Sima SCC Pro Color Corrector prior to capturing/encoding. It works surprisingly well.

Looking at this unit. B&H Photovideo has it for around $99.95. I have a Clarifier from FacetVideo.com but that only removes copy protection for backing up good tapes. Doesn't enhance any video.

Allen

[vhelp]

.
.
Because this is an old tape, I would give CBR a go instead of VBR.
Also, you might want to verify that this particular (recorded to your tape) is
true film - aka telecined from 23.976 fps, for better "quality" reproduction.

Since I don't know the "actual" quality (or grainness) of your tape, I would
just encode to 9000k (if you're outputing to DVD anyways) and assuming
that you can fit the whoe VHS tape on one DVD-R disk.

IMO, I would not bother with noise-reductio (NR) either, only because the
tape has aged quite a bit. Instead, keep as much of the "original" noise (or
fuz, as one put it ) and encode it as such. Keep as much of the original
as possible, and author it to DVD-R disk.

-vhelp

[gshelley61]

You might also try a video processor/enhancer like the Sima SCC Pro Color Corrector prior to capturing/encoding. It works surprisingly well.

Looking at this unit. B&H Photovideo has it for around $99.95. I have a Clarifier from FacetVideo.com but that only removes copy protection for backing up good tapes. Doesn't enhance any video.

Allen

Keep an eye open for one on eBay. You should be able to get one for maybe $40-$60. The newer digital model (SCC-2) replaced the SCC Pro, but I don't think there is any real performance difference between the two. The SCC-2 supposedly will defeat DVD copy protection, though.

[bugster]

.
.
Because this is an old tape, I would give CBR a go instead of VBR.

-vhelp

Why? care to explain your reasoning?

[vhelp]

.
.
Because this is an old tape, I would give CBR a go instead of VBR.

-vhelp

Why? care to explain your reasoning?

Sure

Because.. if you use VBR mode instead, and for a dirty (can I say that ? )
source, the quality will not be evenly distrbuted under certain scenary conditions
or fastmoments. The final quality (time-line 'wise) will be dependant upon
the encoders estimate bitrate matrix or algorithem.., at least in my experience
with working w/ poor quality VHS tapes, (and nowadays) and because the
projected project(s) are for DVD anyways, why "suffer" the bitrate w/ a
VBR mode encode (unless you are trying to fit too many hours onto a DVD) ??

IMO, I would just not bother w/ multi-pass VBR, and just go with the CBR
and not waist time testing best VBR. I've spent many years doing this, but
then again, it was for CDR/RW projects. Now that we have inexpensive
DVD devices, our endeavors can relax more. So, I suggested a CBR in a
given DVD project, unless you are trying to fit more hours/ per DVD :P

Other notes of OT ...

I'm just too exhausted in the VBR vs. CBR vs. CQ vs. whatever else is out
there testings that I've ben doing for so many years now. I'm tired. DVD
is out now, and cost reasonable to me. So, unless I'm gonna squeeze more
hours to a DVD, I'll stick with the easy, and go CBR all the way. And given the times we are in, why not
.
In fact, I'm also looking into Hardware MPEG-2 encoder devices. In fact,
I just picked up too devices today to test out. But I've got soo much to do
and I'm exhausted w/ everything.. every day life issues and tramas, and
my both my pc's up on the blinks, and add to that a dead mobo, and add
to that, a trillion battery of testings to get my firewire card working under
Windows 98 Gold, ..I think I've the last straw was pushed off my back,
and I feel like.. .. .. well, you get the picture.
.
Anyways. I'm not giving up my Encoding endeavors, just looking for some
luxuray in my video endeavors, if at all possible :P
And don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up my best encoding techniques.
.
I hope I didn't taint the time-line here

Thanks for reading my response,

-vhelp

[lgh529]

I thought the original post was to try to color enhance washed out video in Vegas. In my opinion, Vegas shines in this regard. I do this all the time with Vegas and it works very well. The only thing that I don't use Vegas for is some VHS cleaner filters using VirtualDub.

Check out BillyBoy Tutorials for a starting point.

I just converted a wedding video from a poorly shot VHS camera in 1982. The wedding dress was a greenish brown color and you couldn't tell what color the tuxes were at all. When I was done, the bride couldn't believe how good it was. I got the wedding dress white, the tuxes brown, etc.

Aside from Flaxens VHS filters for VHS, Vegas is all you need to do this.

[allenz]

Hello vhelp
"been-there-done-that" W98 is the problem! Now I got W2K, 2 Belkin Firewire cards, Abit BE7 mob. Intel 2.3gHz Hyperthreading chip among other stuff. and almost a terrabyte of HD space including 2 external maxtoe 1-touch Firewire HD's. And built it myself.

So now I can concentrate on video work instead of a trashed computer. Cheer up. It's not all that bad, my friend!
--------------------------------------------------------
lgh529

Thanks. But color correction is not really the problem. It's the washed out look. Instead of seeing leaves and branches on the trees, I'm looking at what I describe as a water color painting. No sharp detail.

So what I can gather is there's really no way to fix that. I can live with that if I have to. I can still follow the story line and there's some detail.

I could probably stream a small clip on my web site so you guys (gals) could see what I'm talking about.

Thanks
Allen

[handyguy]

"Any specific Panasonic VHS recorder?"

No, I meant a panasonic dvd recorder, e.g. an e55

[allenz]

handyguy

Oh! Thanks. Don't use them. Got an internal Sony DRU500A that works perfectly.

Allen

[lgh529]

...Instead of seeing leaves and branches on the trees, I'm looking at what I describe as a water color painting. No sharp detail...

You are correct. There is no way to do this satisfactorily. You could try the sharpen filters in Vegas, but only use it very sparingly, and you'll find that it isn't going to help much. Its just like trying to focus footage that was shot out of focus. There is just no good way to do this.

[SatStorm]

Post a couple of pics, so to see what we talking about.

[Rookie64]

Play around with the filters in vegas - you should at least end up with something better than the original.

I agree with SatStorm about posting a couple frames here.

BTW, what's the movie? It might be available on DVD or VHS.

[allenz]

I'll try to get a couple of screen shots up tonight. This series was never released on Video or DVD. It was Hec Ramsey from 1972-1974.

Allen

[allenz]

Here are some screen captures.




I think the color is fine. It's juse that "washed-out" look.
Allen

[Nilfennasion]

I think you'd be best off just leaving it go. For VHS, it doesn't look all that bad, and to expect it to get any better is unrealistic.

[iant]

Here's a longshot possibility for you.

I have a true cable connection in Australia and the video is regularly grainy and is often prone to a level of noise and interference that I don't find on satellite versions. This has had me looking for a good noise removal and enhancement system for years.

I've had some great results using the VP6 Video Codec (available on the Tools page...And it's freeware.) when it comes to cleaning up mediocre VHS captures.

This installs about four different versions of the codec. The latest version includes noise filtering and sharpness enhancement.

My standard approach is now to save my master capture out to this codec using a bitrate of around 4000 and set for realtime encoding. An average 50 minute show comes out around 2 gig this way. Recommend you also set frames between keyframes under 50 as well.

For a mediocre cable copy or old VHS, I set the noise reduction to 1 and the sharpness to 7.

This produces an excellent result when fed through whichever encoder you care to use. I use minimal, if any, extra filtering on the encoder as I have found this technique seldom needs any extra.

Reality is that you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear. But this, at least, makes the end result fairly watchable.

The main disadvantage to this method is that it is SLOW. On an Athlon 2600, the first AVI conversion to this codec is around 1.25 times the program time. It also slows down the encode as the decoding processing is moderately CPU intensive as well.

The overall time for filtering, conversion and 2 pass CCE encode is around three to four times the program running time.

But the end results, I find, even leave TMPEGs noise reduction well behind. ( Yep....very inflammatory statement. )

The sharpness enhance is fairly subtle and can probably go higher. Try a test run at different levels and see how it looks.

Have fun,
Ian

[junkmalle]

This isn't exactly what you were asking, but a little hue and saturation adjustment might help:

[allenz]

Thanks to all for the help and suggestions.

iant, I'm using Vegas editing softw3are and it has a noise/speckle removal filter.

This filter/codec you mention. Do I need to encode the avi file in vegas then using that VP6 Cideo codec? To what? MPEG-2 for DVD or back to another avi?

Thanks again
Allen

[allenz]

I went to ON2's web site to read about this VP6 Codec. Seems to me it's a proprietary thing that requires it's own player to view and I can't encode a video with it, then re-encode to MPEG2 for burning on a DVD-R.

So how would I use this VP6 codec then to "restore/enhance" the video?

Thanks
Allen

[Rookie64]

Allen,

Try adjusting contrast, brightness, color levels and saturation - there are so many things you can do in Vegas to improve the picture quality.

Masking will also help you to correct sections of a frame without affecting the rest of the frame.

My advice is to look up some tutorials on Vegas and experiment with it.

[iant]

Allen,

Yes, it's a proprietary codec but it's a free one. You can encode to MPEG2 from an AVI created with this codec. I do all of mine this way.

First off, install the codec.

Then open your AVI created with Vegas into VirtualDub or any other AVI editor that can select its output compression codec. ( Sorry but I don't know Vegas so I can't say whether it can or not. )

Select the V62 codec as your output video compression.

Configure VP6 with the settings from my earlier post.

You may want to do some other filtering. If using VirtualDub, I'd suggest some colour and contrast correction looking at your stills. I know this sounds unlikely but don't bother with other noise suppression filters until you see what the VP6 inbuilt filtering can do.

Save this out as an AVI.

Use this AVI as input to your MPEG encoder.

That's all.

I'd try converting a minute or so to an AVI as a test run as you can't preview how the filtered AVI will look until you've saved it. Once you're happy with the results, save the whole video.

Hope this helps,

Ian

[FKrueger]

You're lucky you had that much,my Away All Flags was pretty much white, could barely see what was going on. Dead tape.