My Vhs capture results - What next?

[JAYEDIN]

I have been doing some VHS tape capture trials to find an satisfactory technique to
transfer my collection to DVD.
My tapes ( 180 & 240 min length) range from 6-16 years of age in varying quality.

The one used for this was about 15 years old 180 minute Tape so quality was not great.

Method 1)
Used the following equipment:-
JVC-HR8965 SVHS vcr(TBC ON) ->[connected via S Video sockets]
JVC DR-M100S dvd recorder(used the FR180 recording mode).
Played back via a DVD player on a Sony 32"TV.

The resulting DVD was passable but suffers from snow/speckle type noise.
Also another occasionally noticeable effect is there are regular occurances
of placeback where the action speeds up/skips - which I think may be due to
the action of the TBC synchronisation on the Tape deck.

For more recent tapes I have had good capture results using this setup.

Method2)
Used the following equipment:-
JVC-HR8965 SVHS vcr(TBC ON) ->
Hauppauge PVR150 card in PC.

The resulting mpeg2 file had similar problems as above and as the bundled
Ulead MovieFactory authoring had a problem with converting the file to
a DVD format I could only playback the captured file on the PC CRT.

So the main annoyance is the snow type noise similar to what one
sees on old cine films.
I have been looking at what my options are to
clean up the VHS tape noise , and list so far is :-

A) Canopus ADVC50 (£125) capture card would allow the basic capture and then use
noise filtering options via encoding sw ( ie. Tmpgenc).

B) ADS do varius analog capture boxes e.g. InstantDVD+MP3 (£169)
(which have incorporated Hardware video preprocessing filters ( temporal and spatial).
Seems like it uses the Connexant CX23416 type encoder.


Option A is the most flexible option and which from what I have read in these
forums will do the job of cleaning up the video noise albeit more time consuming.

Option B I am not sure how effective it is in cleaning up VHS noise
so I would like to hear from people who have tried such capture Hw?

[victoriabears]

Oh....I've been at this for 2 years or more, tangled and frsutrating hobby.

Now...my tapes are on the whole very good and although I am in Canada, most of my archive is PAL as I lived in the UK until 2000.

I use an 8965 thru a tbc 1000 to a jvc m100 as well, snap !
The high end vcr's can sometimes bring out too much detail on old recordings, what were they recorded on?,,or try another vcr.

Software filtering is hard work, most would say go the virtual dub mode and capture in avi then convert, I have not been convinced of the effort=reward aspect of this.

http://www.avtoolbox.co.uk/avt8710.shtml

I am so impressed by this I have 3 working between my various vcr's and dvd recorders, the simple adjustments can really clean up a cloudy image.

Good luck and the main decision you have to make is time available to reach the end result.

[BruceSD]

I have a JVC HR9911, and many, many of my tapes (not newer commerical tapes) have the same problem with the JVC's TBC enabled. Old tapes, newer tapes, they suffer from those same "speckles" or "horizontal line snow" with it on but not with it off (a shame, the TBC really makes colors more vibrant and lifelike.) I seldom use the TBC anymore, though for some commercial tapes it makes a good quality tape even better. It may not happen for most people, I suspect I was using wonky VCRs for many many years (I was using Panasonic Omnivision 4h hifi VCRs for over a decade.)

Maybe you should try it without the TBC on. If you have DNR on your set-top, you may want to turn it off, I have a Panasonic E55 and it, on noisy/snowy/poor reception tapes it can increase macroblocking and the "speckled" effect.

[Wile_E]

Those speckles or "horizontal line snow" could be one of two things. Poor TV signal while the image was captured or the magnetic particles on the tape have degraded and are missing in those areas. If so, the information is lost forever. I use the AVISynth filters... Despot, DePan and Convolution3D filters to take care of this problem. It slows down the encoding process, but I find it worth the wait.

[JAYEDIN]

Thanks all,

I havn't tried capturing with the TBC off so I'll try that next ( although watching the VCR playback on TV without TBC the picture is worse).
Also I looked at my current TV card PVR150 mpeg encoding chipset - and its actually a Connexant CX23416 so its has some inbuilt noise filtering - but there it has no fine control of the noise filtering that I am aware off - so I'll need to try the SHS forum if this is possible.
The "AVerMedia UltraTV Media Center PCI 500" looks like a very interesting card:-
http://www.aver.com/products/tvtuner_UltraTV_pci_500.shtml
as it has a TBC built in , but its not available in the UK.

[jagabo]

Also I looked at my current TV card PVR150 mpeg encoding chipset - and its actually a Connexant CX23416 so its has some inbuilt noise filtering - but there it has no fine control of the noise filtering that I am aware of...

Not sure about the 150 but these work on the 250.

Temporal noise filter:

http://www.shspvr.com/download/hcwpp2ut.zip

Also reduce the sharpness setting for VHS capture. VHS is so low bandwidth the sharpening only enhances the noise:

http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/pvr_reg.html#_Improve_Sharpness

See other "tips and tricks":

http://www.cask-of-amontillado.com/htpc.html

[BruceSD]

In my case, the speckles or "horizontal snow" only appear when the TBC is enabled on my JVC 9911. However, many of the tapes, when I recorded them, were recording a poor TV signal off an old, and generally insufficient aerial antenna.

Interesting. If a tape is recorded like that, with a poor off-air TV signal but no visible speckles or "horizontal snow", can a TBC then cause them to appear? Most were recorded in SLP as well (I had no idea I would want these tapes 15 years later)

The tapes could be shedding, and may be a bit, but the speckles and "horizontal snow" are not visible with the JVC TBC off. Unless the TBC may make those visible also? (I don't think that is possible?)

[davideck]

In my case, the speckles or "horizontal snow" only appear when the TBC is enabled on my JVC 9911.

Are you sure that they are not there AT ALL without the TBC/DNR? Could they still be there but lower in amplitude?

It could be that the temporal DNR filtering is causing this and not the TBC. Perhaps these speckles reinforce themselves at some temporal rate through this filtering...

[royphil345]

Should have no problems at all with captures from the PVR-150 being DVD compatible. That's pretty much the whole point of the card capturing in MPEG2. Can even capture at standard DVD quality. I'd probably try to capture at the highest quality and use software to convert for best possible quality. Though, I often record TV at DVD or even DVD long-play quality and get decent results. I believe I've noticed that changes made to the picture settings are visable on recordings, so you could try playing with those. Captures made with the PVR-150 often look better after being transferred to DVD and viewed on a DVD player / TV. Software MPEG decoding used for playback of MPEG 2 files on the computer isn't the greatest. A capture that looks noisy or choppy when played back on the computer (particularly in full-screen mode) may not really look that bad when played on a DVD player / TV.

Did you go to the Hauppauge site and get all the newest drivers and updates for the included DVD software? I remember that there were some. Don't try to use the included MPEG2 editor. It sucks bigtime and creates files that don't seem compatible with anything, even the included Ulead software. I use Video ReDo Plus for editing. Nero for DVD creation and burning. Ulead DVD MovieFactory can be easier to use, but is "quirky" and doesn't play well with some other video software.

I'd probably try to make the PVR-150 work. It does work well, even though some of the included software is crap. Spending more money on other capture cards probably won't get you better quality unless you spend ALOT.

Are the tapes standard VHS or Super VHS? If standard, your SVHS player may be doing some conversion to output the signal from the S-video jack. Standard VCRs usually just use a RCA output for video. Try playing standard VHS tapes in a standard player or at least using the RCA video output on your SVHS player.

Are the tapes commercial and protected by Macrovision? If so, one of these devices may help quite a bit... http://www.dimax.com.ua/common/products.shtml Thinking maybe since you mentioned problems with the picture "stuttering"... That's NEVER happened on captures using my PVR-150. Maybe just a very slightly choppy picture when capturing at lower qualities.

VHS was a pretty poor format for picture quality and there's always some loss re-recording an analog format. VHS to VHS copies never looked great. Recording VHS to consumer-grade digital will never look great. Recording on pro-grade equipment at very high bit rates and converting to DVD using the highest quality conversion and filters would be necessary for good results... though even the original VHS is nowhere near broadcast quality itself...

[JAYEDIN]

royphil,

All my tapes are standard VHS tapes.

I have got a bit further with the comparison between the JVC-DRM100 and the PVR150 captures.
I managed to convert the pvr150 captured mpeg2 file to DVD using the TMPGENC Dvd Author.

So I have now been able to compare the 2 on my TV:-

a) JVC-DRM100 recording are much better with more detail on faces and a slight edge on picture quality and colours over the pvr150. Only unexplained problem is the regular speedup motion type effect I am seeing rather than a smooth playback. I have seen this same effect from dvds I have made from recording terrestial broadcasts - so I think its something in the conversion to dvd that is producing this effect.

b) PVR150 recordings produce an acceptable picture and video motion is smooth throughout the playback.

Both methods have visible noise in the recording.

I have got a hold of the Haupp Tweaker so I am going to try experimenting with the temporal and spatial video filters to see how much the noise can be reduced in the pvr150 option - but it looks like a viable option.