What filters to use to improve this video

[Dr_Layne]

I'm working on archiving some vhs tapes. They have what I would call "comets" that seem to appear at random all over the image. I need advice on what filters to use in Virtual Dub to reduce the "comets". I have a 17MB clip at www.pigs-on-the-wing.com/scene0002.mpg captured at 720x480 but encoded to mpeg at 352x480 4000bps CBR. I will only have the clip up for a day or two as I do not want to overload the bandwidth of the person hosting the clip for me.


Steve

[BJ_M]

downloading it now

[steveryan]

The yellow bits are the "comets".

[SatStorm]

Is this MTV USA from the mid 80s?

I have plenty VHS tapes from 88 - 90, that looks exactly like this. But they are from MTV Europe.
Those "comets" you see. are analogue satellite noise.
Not much to do. Try "temporal filtering" at a high value. But that way, you won't be able to frameserve! Also the motion gonna be a bit ghosty, so better use a chain like: deinterlace (unfold) - temporal smooth ( 5 - 6 ) - Deinterlace (fold).

At the same chain, try also the "frame merger" filter. But as a secondary filter only and don't set it more than value " 2 ".

You need also some sharpening there. Try MSU_Sharpen filter. Excellent but slow.

What kind of music videos you have? I'm an 80s video collector myself, from the same period!

[BJ_M]

it is history of pink floyd

[Dr_Layne]

BJ_M is correct. It's a history of pink floyd from MTV.

SatStorm may be right. It looks like interference. And the video tape is from Europe I believe. I will try your suggestions and see how that works out.

Also I am using a digital PAL to NTSC converter called the Comm World CMD 850. The image looks dark on the computer, but on the TV it looks normal. Any idea's why?

Steve

[BJ_M]

that is normal

see here

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=238602&highlight=

[Dr_Layne]

Strange thing is if I take the CMD 850 out of the equation, the image on the computer will be brighter.

[Dr_Layne]

Here''s the equipment lineage:

JVC SVHS VCR HR-S5980 (plays NTSC and PAL and ouputs in same format as tape)
TBC-1000
CMD850
DAC-100
I view the output thru the DAC-100 analog outputs to the tv.

[BJ_M]

sounds like you are clamping the video twice

[Dr_Layne]

clamping? I'm not sure what you mean.

[syeager]

Why do you say you cannot frameserve? I use virtualdubmod and the temporal filter (as high as 7) and I frameserve both to TMPGEnc and VisualStudio (with VFAPI). Seems to work well, if not a little slow.

[SatStorm]

I don't know about virtualdubmod. It might be different.

When I use temporal filters at virtualdub and virtualdub mpeg 2, I have lipsync issues if I frameserve to TMPGenc