Remove white lines in old video (UmaticSP tape)

[mark23]

Hi. I have some old videos from a cable station that are UmaticSP 3/4" master tapes. When i play them back, most of them have white lines going through the picture, almost looks like very thick de-interlacing. When i bring the video into Final Cut Pro, the only way to take them out completely is to run a de-interlace filter on it a few times to get them all out. Is this the answer? Does de-interlacing decrease the quality? Any other ideas to solve the issue with the best picture quality. The tapes and player are slowly deteriorating so I would like to get the best copy to archive to either hard drive or DVD or as a file before the quality gets worse.

Thanks
Mark

[Video Head]

Are you using a TBC?

[Chris K]

This shows up on analog recordings only. It's some kind of overshoot at high contrast cross-points
in the horizontal direction and has to do with the quality of the used tape.
It also showed up with old Hi-8 recordings when a inferior brand of tape was used.
Deinterlacing isn't really a good solution.
Perhaps there is a dedicated Avisynth filter for it or a spot remove filter with the right settings
could do something about it.

[mark23]

Just thought id post a pic of the issue im having. I do not know if a TBC will correct the problem, but hope something will since a lot of tapes suffer from it, either that or the player is adding it. However, most of them are atleast 10 years old and were not stored properly so anything to solve the issue would be great, preserving as much of the original quality as possible. As i said before, i have tried correcting this with de-interlaced filters a few times but it blurs the heck out of it.

Also, is there a name for this kind of condition?

The capture process is usually UmaticSP player - ADVC-300 - mac pro. Sometimes i have used the umatic player into a dvd recorder with the same result.

Any/all help is appreciated.
Thanks
Mark






sample1.jpg

[Video Head]

What Umatic SP player do you have?

[mark23]

Actually i have a pair of Sony BUV-870 UmaticSP Editors. I also have access to a Sony VP-9000 Player. None of these are connected to a TBC, and are either connected directly to an ADVC-300 or a dvd recorder.

Mark

[2Bdecided]

The ADVC-300 has a line TBC built-in, and some DVD recorders do too.

I wouldn't expect a TBC to help with this.

It almost looks like some kind of electrical interference that is causing the luma level to bounce up and down every couple of lines.

If you can't fix it at source, it might be possible to use one of the frequency domain filters in AVIsynth to remove the problem. Try asking on the doom9 forum, AVIsynth section.

Cheers,
David.

[filmboss80]

I've seen this before (though it's been a long time), and I'm pretty sure (not 100% positive) I know what it is. The old tape is likely going bad. The compensation circuitry in the U-matic player is basically showing one field (every other resolution line) of the video frame, because it is having trouble making a stable picture out of both fields. You definitely need a TBC, but even that may not resolve the issue completely. De-interlacing will do you no good, since it is not giving you both fields.

[Chris K]

Just thought id post a pic of the issue im having.

No, this is not the symptom I meant.
That are white lines, mostly starting on the left and fading out at arbitrary horizontal positions.

[Epicurus8a]

Also, is there a name for this kind of condition?

Your description sounds like "over-deviation" or "bearding." It is likely related to the quality of the tape. (Perhaps a bad batch.) I'm not aware of any way to eliminate this, unless you want to tackle it frame-by-frame.

Good Luck!

[2Bdecided]

I've seen this before (though it's been a long time), and I'm pretty sure (not 100% positive) I know what it is. The old tape is likely going bad. The compensation circuitry in the U-matic player is basically showing one field (every other resolution line) of the video frame, because it is having trouble making a stable picture out of both fields.

I though that at first, and tried dumping every other line from his jpg. Result: it's not that! The visible lines probably have nothing to do with interlacing or dropped fields because they're not paired. The artefact stretches over 2.5-3 lines - whereas if it was interlaced or field related, it should act on line pairs exactly.

Still, if there's some additional processing involved which has hidden or changed this (scaling? capturing card gain bouncing?) then you could be 100% correct!

Cheers,
David.

[mark23]

Thanks for all your help guys. I seem to have remedied the problem with virtualdub (what can that program not do). I used the 2d cleaner at varying levels, that and the temporal cleaner made a very acceptable fix.

Just wish there was a mac version of virtualdub so i wouldn't need bootcamp or parallels just for that program.

Mark

[nikolas]

Hi to all of you guys,
1st of all that shouldnt be a reply but as i saw Mark having an issue
with the umatic player i took the courage to ask a few questions too if you
dont mind.

My father owned a umatic sony VP9000 player with a serious amound of
tapes that now are passed on me (about 60) the player is in excellent condition
well stored etc. the only problem is that he doesnt got the required cables to
connect it either to a tv or anything else.

Since now i got only the functioning umatic player. can you please
help me on what cables I need to capture these tapes to dvd
format?

As i was reading on Marks replies i think i read somewhere that he could connect it directly
to a dvd recorder ?

Here is a link from an image of the back of the player
[http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/568/dsc00001lg2.jpg

Thanks in advance

Nikolas

[edDV]

Just thought id post a pic of the issue im having. I do not know if a TBC will correct the problem, but hope something will since a lot of tapes suffer from it, either that or the player is adding it. However, most of them are atleast 10 years old and were not stored properly so anything to solve the issue would be great, preserving as much of the original quality as possible. As i said before, i have tried correcting this with de-interlaced filters a few times but it blurs the heck out of it.

Also, is there a name for this kind of condition?

The capture process is usually UmaticSP player - ADVC-300 - mac pro. Sometimes i have used the umatic player into a dvd recorder with the same result.

Any/all help is appreciated.
Thanks
Mark

How are you monitoring this? I suspect the U-Matic Player. Do any of your tapes play correctly?

Take one tape to a dub house with a well maintained U-Matic deck and have them dub to DV tape. Use this as a comparison.


PS: A high action scene would be more helpful for a sample. How did you frame cap this? It looks like a single
field. The small streaks on right edge of vertical lines indicate moderate head wear or over enhancement.

[Spiny Norman]

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/568/dsc00001lg2.jpg

Yes, they certainly made it interesting. Surely, the "video out" may still be possible to get if you take a better picture and show it in an parts store.