what software tools might help this video capture?

[robroth]

I captured an old VHS tape and I'm wondering what I can do to clean it up. I understand a better VHS deck and TBC would certainly help with the switching noise and occasional sync problems, but I'm wondering about the other things seen in this quick clip.

I'm using a Panny PV-1730 thru a DV camcorder into firewire and capturing with Premier Pro 1.5.

Unfortunately the 20 second example below is about 85 meg, I wasn't sure how I could shrink the size without introducing issues that might be related to compression. Thanks for any ideas (and for taking the time to look at such a large file).

(it's still uploading, give it 30 minutes or so)
http://www.nema.com/junk/fragment.avi

[Soopafresh]

If you save in XVID at a high enough bit rate ( ~3500), the artifacts will be minimal, and it'll be much easier for a greater number of folks to analyze your source.

[robroth]

thanks, i'll convert it and repost

[robroth]

reuploaded in xvid, it's just under 12 meg now.

[Soopafresh]

Your actual transfer is fine. The image is pretty stable. The difficult part is trying to pull out any details from the scene. You've got a very dark image and a lot of noise in the color channels. Bringing up the brightness will expose all of the noise, as you can see here: (BTW, most of your noise is in the blue channel)



Trying to reduce that much noise introduces a new set of problems - namely smearing, as noted below.



And even when the brightness levels have been brought up, the cleaning still doesn't look very good.

[robroth]

thanks for taking a look. i did notice all the blue in the bottom picture especially around the drums when watching the video. sounds like from your post there isn't much i can do?

[Soopafresh]

Absolutely, you should try cleaning this stuff up on your own. You'll learn a lot. You can try some VirtualDub filters. A suggested one:

http://www.compression.ru/video/smart_contrast/index_en.html

[robroth]

I have been playing around with virtualdub (and convolution 3d), i just wasnt sure which filters might be appropriate for the type of noise we're looking at.

[robroth]

this tool looks like magic in the example it gives, too bad it didn't produce similar results after playing around with various settings

http://www.compression.ru/video/denoising/index_en.html

[robroth]

i've just tried a combo of jim casabury's 2d cleaner first then his temporal cleaner 2nd. the results are very interesting. the picture is MUCH cleaner, but there are now stationary figments. almost like you're watching the video through a dirty window, but it's only bad when there is a camera pan. it's distracting... but the video is SO much cleaner... did i mention that?

new file is here, it's a little under 5 meg this time. am i heading in the right direction? any idea on how to 'wash my window'?

http://www.nema.com/junk/fragment2.avi

[robroth]

just replaced the sample i mentioned above, i think i'm about as close as i'm capable of at this point. i've played with contract and brightness as well and i haven't resulted in anything that looks better than the dark original.

[teeg]

You may also want to consider an AviSynth filter to help compensate for any dropouts (small white lines). I always find the dropouts particularly distracting. DeSpot may help http://www.avisynth.org/fizick/despot/despot.html but you'd have to play around with the settings and code.