Restoring VHS (Tracking and Scan Lines) Random Pulses

[poisondeathray]

I agree with that, the best solution (for long length videos) would be to use avisynth with low-mid settings to get rid of the "invisible" (hard to detect by eye) defects as a 1st step.
The script you've posted here i've tried it the other day it's too strong (kills a lot of fine details) but does the job. So i'm gonna ask you if you can make one with low-mid settings.

Yes, that what I mentioned in the other thread - to improve the results, you would composite a lightly filtered version with a heavy filtered version. So things like faces, hair retain more detail. Things like blank wall it's less important of course. It's hard to do that with avisynth only

The "less" filtered version will not pick up all the defects, so you would have to composite it will the "strong version"

To start, you might reduce the 2nd part of the script, e.g. eliminate removedirtmc calls line completely. Or, you might use removedirtmc only with low/medium settings, instead of the 1st half.




PS . I would keep that discussion in that thread - because the problems are fundamentally different compared to the ones posted here with rolling scan lines. Slow rolling scan lines or persistent defects are very different than (almost) random drop outs - you couldn't use that script for these problems , because the difference in the defects between subsequent odd/even fields or consecutive frames are not large enough (there is too much overlap) so they are not "auto" detected.

It's the same problem when you have duplicate frames or fields. You have to decimate them before using dirt/dust/spot removal filters, because the same defect on 2 subsequent fields/frames won't be detected or categorized as a "defect"

[Deter]

Sanlyn,

I am not a professional shop, can do VCR repair work. Had to learn this cause nobody knew how to fix them. Just repaired a Panasonic AG-7355 deck an a AG-DS545. Actually still need 1 part for the AG-7355, it's just a nob on the front panel. Both these units are MINT !!

The first unit I worked on was a JVC MV1, blew the circuit board, messing around with changing the power supply. That is how you learn. Met a guy in a coffee shop and he said he could repair anything. He started taking apart my MV1 in the coffee shop (strange) and he didn't even have a TV to test it. This was a mistake, paid him $40, got home the unit didn't work, called him on the phone, he said it was the power supply. Tried to put a new one in an blew the deck. Than I went to another shop an took them my AG1980 unit. The guy told me the electronics were bad, which sounded weird, and he wanted $750 to fix the unit, and I paid him $75 dollars to just look at it. He also said the Video Drum was shot. Please understand I could never get a picture on this thing. Decided to not have the unit fixed, took it home, and openned it up. Said to myself, I have rebuild a computer before why can't I do a VCR. Than just started taking the thing apart. Was like oh crap, what the hell did I just do. Tested the unit, and I got a picture, the video drum was fine, nothing wrong with it, so called the repair guy and yelled at him for lying. Took 3 more units to a different guy, paid him about $500, and everytime I got the units back, they didn't work right, take them back, and 3 months later same problem. Needed to learn on my own how to fix these things.

From that point, can now repair almost any AG unit. If it is something that I don't understand or need to send out, I have two others who help, one is an Army Tech who did circuit work on defense systems, and the other guy is electronic tech who owns a shop. Anyway......

The goal is simple to get the best possible results out of old outdated VHS & Betamax tapes. Every tape is going to have some kind of issues, all I want is to get a stable picture. If you have to use Neat Video to clean some it that is fine. Yea I have used the software before, have an older copy of it. Like to use low settings, something like the pic below, it just depends on the video.

Not trying to start a fight here, just trying to find out how to mask out and fix some of these tracking errors. Video work has been a nightmare and I am not saying my methods are the best, they are just what I had to invent, to fix these problems.

I do not know how to fix tracking lines in the video using scripts. If you have one, would test it out for sure.

Poisondeathray, as far as that 94 Masters video having tons of problems besides those two tears. It actually looks fine on the TV, it is a 15 year old betamax recording recorded from crappy cable TV in Mississippi. Have seen worse for sure. Overall, not spending a year to fix it. Just want a stable picture with little to no tears, and be done with it. May only watch the video 1 or 2 times over the rest of my life. That is pretty much the goal on all the videos. Best possible picture, best possible sound, with as little picture errors as possible.

Yes I know that those frames are deinterlaced, sometimes that fixes the damage or random pulse. Just kind of figured that 1 frame out of 30, you couldn't tell that it wasn't a full field. Yes you are correct, what I am doing is wrong. Like I said before, it is tested out and if doesn't work or look correct, it is changed. Have screwed up many videos.

Here is one other problem with removedirtmc with these golf videos, it will sometimes remove the golf ball from the frame. That is not really a major problem cause you just go back in an replace that frame with the orginal.

Have 20,000 hours of old video on tape, if you guys think you can do some good work and restore some of them, I would gladly pay you for the service. Can get in hundreds of hours of PAL video, hundreds of crapy VHS to DVD copies done totally the wrong way, it is out of control, old film, the work is endless, getting ready to retire after 4 years....Not sending them to any VHS to DVD shops for sure......

[themaster1]

Perhaps i will bring up the obvious but have you tried a full frame tbc ?

note:
These neat videos settings are complety wrong imo assuming you have a good noise profile ~60% accuracy

[sanlyn]

Oops, no fighting intended, Deter. Didn't mean it to come off that way. Anyway, I admire anyone who can figure how to do as much as remove the top from a VCR without ruining it, which is my limit in such things. I figured you might want to look at more detail in workflow, monitors, and processing in a different way. You've obviously used Avisynth scripts in the past. But, for example, pdr does make a point: when you replace an image or part of one with BMP, you introduce non-interlace elements into interlaced video. I did watch the golf clip many times in VLC player and played it repeatedly at several speeds in VirtualdDub; there are problems other than occasional "ribbons" (that's what I've heard the bad lines called), but I guess we can stick to that. There are Avisynth filters that can usually handle all or most of those frames, but they don't work well on interlaced video. But one can always temporary deinterlace or separate fields, then reassemble fields and frames within the script. Just haven't had time to address it -- I'm still trying to get poisondeathray's earlier sample script into my head before I try fiddling with it.

BTW, I'm not a pro shop either, but -- wow -- I'd love to have the $$$ to put one together .

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[Deter]

The Golf recording above was done on a 1985 Betamax machine, that was a life time ago. Everything was also recorded in Mono.

Yea, have a few different TBC's.

It doesn't matter if it is my own recorded tapes or something that somebody sends me, the errors across the board are pretty much the same. It really depends, some recordings are better than others. Today, was copying a store purchased VHS tape, and it had some errors.

Professional JVC decks tend to blend out the errors the best, however in some cases the NR filter on those units blur the hell out of the video. On the Panasonic AG-S840P, tends to be the best, on those problems, you will just get a small line, and the picture doesn't rip as much. However this unit can only play SP recorded tape. It is a pretty nice VCR.

These little baby rips like the video above, seem to be more in the betamax recordings. The betamax recording in general have a lot more of the oxide dropouts or white/black specs in the video.

PAL VHS recording vs NTSC VHS recording, overall the picture quality to me looks better on the PAL tapes. Not really sure why....

Have tried to clean a tape before, using a VCR that I don't use, running cleaner over the tape, who knows if it worked, tried baking a tape before.

This is the next thing on the list. Called them up, the guy said it more than likely wouldn't help, may rent this unit, should have purchase one last year, found a good deal, but whatever, kind of a big investment on a chance that it would work.

http://www.datadev.com/tape-duplicator-cleaner-tapechek-460-computer-vhs-video-tape-analyzer.html

My lastest method is still in development, so far it has given me much better results. Once it is perfected and I can visually see a major difference will explain, it is kind of the same idea of tape baking, taken in a totally different direction.

Back to neat video, honestly just sit and mess with the settings if it looks over processed, than just lower them. Can send u some DVD examples to look at, it seems to do the job, a few times had to re-do the video, which takes forever, however having extra computers does help.

Those settings were used on a digital recording recorded to the computer back in 2005, it was recorded on a Sony VAIO using GIGA Pockets or whatever the hell it was called.

Here are three more settings that I used, save most of the ones that I feel worked the best...Anything really high looks plastic...Like to just sprinkle the recordings, don't mind a little bit of grain in the video.

If I could go back to 1995 and get a SVHS player and record everything SP mode on SVHS tape, I would...You have no idea, always purchased what I thought were the best VHS tapes, recorded most of the stuff in LP mode, some SLP and very few SP. When you are 14 years old you don't really have any money to invest in good VCR equipment either.....

[sanlyn]

Have tried to clean a tape before, using a VCR that I don't use, running cleaner over the tape, who knows if it worked, tried baking a tape before.

This is the next thing on the list. Called them up, the guy said it more than likely wouldn't help, may rent this unit, should have purchase one last year, found a good deal, but whatever, kind of a big investment on a chance that it would work.

http://www.datadev.com/tape-duplicator-cleaner-tapechek-460-computer-vhs-video-tape-analyzer.html

I don't know, Deter, I've seen nothjing but bad rep about those machines. As far as I can tell, they literally attempt to scrape the tape clean. An odd technique for a device that retails for $6000-plus. A retired video broadcast tech told me some time ago that tape cleaners of this type (or any type) were forbidden in many studios. But that's just my take. I'd audition a tape you don't care about.

Now that you've given a little more detail and history: the rip lines or "ribbons" are exactly the effect I saw on every tape played on my high-end JVC's. I threw out the last JVC in 2006. But those tapes have unplayable damage now.

[Deter]

The video calibration feature set to on will sometimes cause video tape damage. The problem is every time you unplug these units it will revert to being set to on. You than have to remember to turn it off.

I do recall, hitting the fast forward button on my Sony VCR or a quick rewind, would also do damage that section of the tape.

Right now I am working on videos 24/7 for the next 6 weeks, than I am done for a while.

Here is some more info. This is some of my research, over the last 4 years.

Feeding this in to these forums to try to help others.

These tracking errors have been an obsession to figure out, the cause of them, and how to fix or reduce them.

(Any tape that has massive oxide shedding or complete white picture, could wreck your VCR, put those off to the side and don't use them)

One of the recordings that I just did, was totally damaged, by what don't know. (source VCR, bad storage, bad VHS tape) Like 2 years ago, used a few VCR's to do this, but fast forwarded & rewound every tape 5 times. Next stored the tapes horizontal, up & down rather that flat.

It also seems that the Maxell VHS tapes are the worst, usually skip those tapes. Just did a recording from an XP Super Pro Super VHS tape (TDK) and the recording turned out really good. Did another recording from 1995 from a TDK EHG extra high grade tape, overall that recording was pretty good.

Back to the damaged tape (was recorded on a MGM VHS tape in SLP mode, no other details)
**may have been a tape that was recorded over**

Again don't want to explain the method in full detail, cause it is not proven, and don't want people to going around wrecking their VCR tapes. (Got the idea from tape baking)

Took the damaged tape, put it under my treatment plan for 1 month.
(It is basically chemistry, changing the state of the properties of the magnetic tape inside the VHS case)

Took the tape and did the 5x rewind/fast forward thing. Next took a spoon and tighten the tape itself. The 1st part of the recording (20minutes) was still wrecked, however the rest of the recording played really well. This recording was done using the Professional JVC deck. The recording has been saved !!!

Had another tape from 1993, again could never get this to play back correct, now on the final stages of putting that recording together. It still has some damage, but it is 85% better than before.

Cleaning the VCR's is now something I do a lot, sometimes will go in to the machines and remove dust, sometimes will do the cleaning backwards in slow-motion, to get some of the stuff off the heads. (The $40 coffee shop repair guy told me he can clean any head with a dollar bill, never tried this and never will)

The pinch rollers inside these machine can also cause problems to the tapes, kind of hard for the avg. person. Need to find a trusted repair guy that knows VCR's to do a full cleaning & maintenance every once in a while.

Had a tape the other day that was completely white, was like oh no. The tape snapped. Used to sell out of print VHS titles, since I still have a lot of them, use the casing from a CBS/FOX title, they stable cases and tight. Transplanted the tape, it added some good tension. Repaired the tape, tested it out, it looked better than ever.

(It just seems that SLP recorded tapes can sometimes look really loose on the TV, when this happens you tend to get more errors in the video, if the tape has some good tension it seems to play better)

**If you tighten the tape too much, you will snap it***

Have a tape recorded in SP mode, it was from 1998, the plastic shell around the tape was broken for years. Finally in 2010, got around to looking at this tape, transplanted it to another case. This tape was one of the worst one for tracking lines and video tape damage. The reason why, the entire tape was exposed to the elements for years, humidity, temperature changes, dust, the entire program.

Tapes that have also been recorded over and over tends to have more problems than normal.

In general the tracking problem or damage is grained in to the video tape itself, so no matter what deck you use, those errors will still show up, however depending on the unit, the errors will display different. Sometimes replaying the tape and changing the tracking will remove the error from that segment, not always.

Have an AG1980 unit that has a weird alignment, the unit will track tapes that no other machine will track, the unit doesn't have as good of picture as some of my other AG1980 units, however this machine is priceless.

The worst damage to tapes is normally at the start or the end of the recording.

Once in a blew moon will have a tape that has a video tear that lasts a few minutes, it is a straight line through the video. On one of the recordings it was in the middle of the tape, and by rewinding, pulling the tape out, changing the tracking, was able to remove that line, however on the tape were it was grained in the start, was never able to get rid of that.

Betamax
These machines are weird, by this, if you play a tape over or a segment over in a short period of time, the errors in general will be the same. If you record the tape this week and try it again next week, you will get a totally different recording (meaning errors).

The oxide dropouts or streaks, if on the video tape will still happen.

[sanlyn]

Working on your golf clip, Deter, but I have a PC customer to meet in 20 minutes. Back in a couple of hours.

[Deter]

Take a look at this video, just wondering, in your guys professional opinion what is wrong with it. Don't think it has any tracking problems. Did 40 second clip on this video to show more. Honestly don't think you get much better quality out of a video tape, could be wrong. Want to know what you guys think?

Guess you can now upload bigger files to this site, which is nice, cause you kind of need it on a Video Help site.

[NJRoadfan]

Betamax
These machines are weird, by this, if you play a tape over or a segment over in a short period of time, the errors in general will be the same. If you record the tape this week and try it again next week, you will get a totally different recording (meaning errors).

The oxide dropouts or streaks, if on the video tape will still happen.

Sony Betamax decks use a "U" loading system. It puts less tension on the tape then the "M" load VHS uses. The problem is these decks are very sensitive to tape tension (always re-tension your tapes), and sometimes need adjustment. The other problem is they don't wrap the tape against the drum as tight as VHS machines, so any physical defect (creases, crinkles) causes the tape to bounce off of the video heads causing more static. Beta folks may deride Sanyo machines, but their loading system wraps the tape tighter around the video head and is great for tracking "problem" tapes.

[sanlyn]

Here is the entire clip, basically the source betamax recording.

I saw two rips in the picture one being the bunker and the other is right at the end of this short video.

Tom Kite on 12.mpg

There are 3. The "rip" at the bunker IMHO is ripple and judder from unstable playback. This video needs of a line-level tbc. There's no good fix for the ripple and line sync problems except to recapture, but I managed to clear up most of the flutter and bristling, twisted trees by restoring the video to TFF. Sorry, this is probably the 3rd encode for this dude, each one loses a little more detail. I fixed some rips, but stayed away from heavy mvtools: the video is getting too soft at this point. But I'll look for other ways to get the same results. Motion and overall flow much better now, but I'd recapture with a tbc pass-thru:

[sanlyn]

Take a look at this video, just wondering, in your guys professional opinion what is wrong with it. Don't think it has any tracking problems. Did 40 second clip on this video to show more. Honestly don't think you get much better quality out of a video tape, could be wrong. Want to know what you guys think?

Phil Simms.mpg

Well, I don't know if I qualify as "professional" . I'm just picky, like you.

Pretty good effort, deter. Some nice cleanup. Only major note I'd have, overall the clip looks soft, a little washed out / undersaturated. Luma peak values tend to hover around a rather high point, so the images lack some of that good ole Monday Night Football 'snap'. Flesh tones look either too green or too blue at times. I played with color a little (frame 330, below). There's an obvious blue cast. The yellow flag in ref 101's pants pocket looks green, I couldn't fix it, but maybe it's supposed to be -- they get kinda soiled. Color is subjective, viewer by viewer, but IMHO there's too much blue.


[Attachment 11089 - Click to enlarge]

For the above correction I set the white points with curves in Photoshop and copied the profile to VirtualDub's gradation curve filter.

The histogram shows one reason why the images seem a bit thin. The luma and color peaks creep rightward into the lower midtones. It wouldn't take much of an adjustment in the area around RGB 64 and slightly below to bring the picture closer to earth, so to speak.


[Attachment 11090 - Click to enlarge]

[Deter]

The Phil Simms video is being used as "Fair Use", to look at different apects with in video tape itself. It just an example and a study in to the problems with video taped recordings.

The video above was shot by CBS sports in 1987 and I am guessing was stored on betacam. The video work done by NFL films.

One of the things I picked up, when the video went to instant replay, the quality of the replay was not as good as the source. Have no idea how they edit a replay in to a live broadcast. Wanted to show a live picture & a replay in the same video. Of course now, 25 years later, they are far from being live....

This is what I wanted to see.

With out going insane on trying to fix up old videos, we have to understand you are going to have problems with the picture. We are dealing with stuff from our past. VHS & Betamax only have 240 lines of res. This betacam tape maybe had 340 lines.

With some of the networks back in the day, just the picture looked different being played back on two different networks. For example I will use the US Masters. The early rounds were broadcasted on USA, than the weekends rounds on CBS. Just between the two different networks, the color and picture was totally different.

With some of these older recordings, yes it is possible for now the home consumer to fix some of the problems. I think you just have to cut yourself off at a specific point.


Personally have tons of video tape from the last 30 years or so, the goal is pretty simple to try to get the best quality out of the film, and remove most of the defects (tracking, streaks, drop outs, bad frames and ect.) Sometimes they made need a color adjustment, noise reduction, and video & sound restoration. If you can get a stable picture through most of the video you have done well. Sometimes you have to edit these things in order to do so.

Back to the 1994 Masters clip, for me the goal is to remove the bad tracking in the bunker. The video did have a lot more errors than that. What I would do, is not render the video, just replace the segment, so we don't have a re-coding problem.

That video was completed yesterday, it is done and whatever.....

The videos that I deal with, normally have pauses, cuts and edit done on the VHS; the videos do need to be edited. A start and stop on a Betamax tape, creates a random sound in the video, when you do a final copy this needs to be edited out. Sometimes older machines you get a rainbow effect, that needs to be edited it, somewhat. Details are very important, in the end a stable picture with low amounts of tear, rips and damage is worth watching. Something that is destroyed or hindered by these problems are not.

If there is Script that can fix those scrolling tracking damage to the video, would for sure use it or test it out..

In the end may need that PFclean software or DaVinci Resolve or wait a few years and you can get the software to fix everything at Walmart....LOL

[sanlyn]

Oh, I see. You're not actually intending to work these clips. That's different.

[Deter]

Update: Just watched the 1981 US Open - Mcenroe vs Borg, (TV re-broadcast on Classic Sports)

Since I knew this was recorded from video tape, wanted to watch and look for video tape errors.

This was PROFESSIONALY RECORDED and who ever owns the recording has the MASTER tapes.

Who knows when they transferred it to digital.

Can't really pick up what the source recording was. However it looks to be on the lines of a Betamax recording rather than VHS. VHS has a different kind of chroma noise.

After watching the recording, found many of these problems which are stated above. Damaged frames, picture tearing, random picture cuts / pulses, kind of like the Masters video above with the bunker rips.You also get a little bit of frame jumping...

Just guessing as of right now these problems can't be fixed, unless you have super expensive video restoration software, or repainting the damaged frames.

Kind of back at square one......

Also did some tests using the $7,000 Panasonic VCR, it plays over the errors different than lets say the AG1980 or Pro-Line JVC decks. Sometimes it fixes them or leaves less damage.