Well, VHS capturing Mostly cartoons, having some questions:)

[manono]

is NV-HS 900 any good?

or does it have some denoising stuff going on?

I have one. It's very good. But it doesn't have a line TBC. As for DNR, there's no button for it as there is for my Panasonic NV-HS860, and the manual makes no mention of it. If there's any denoising going on it's doing it 'secretly'. But I don't know for sure one way or the other. I like the 860 a lot, and there are other PAL Panasonics also with separate TBC and DNR buttons.

[sanlyn]

Agreed, the '900' has no tbc that I know of. I've seen VHS caps made with it on doom9, they looked pretty clean and stable to me. That doesn't mean a tbc wouldn't be needed. I made some caps with a 1996 Panny that has very few "wiggles"; had it not been for other problems with the tapes, I wouldn't even have used my pass-thru tbc. The same tapes played on a 1998 Panny had terrible line timing problems, severe chroma shift, and you name it. That 1998 job is gone now, so I don't have a "bad" vcr to make a sample "bad" cap with! Maybe I can find a r5ally crappy tape that will have some bad wiggles and/or jitter, but my PV-4660 and PV-4662 insist on babying anything I feed them.

[sanlyn]

I've seen that script used, but recently in connection with using QTGMC in YUY2 instead of YV12 -- as was explained back in February in the QTGMC thread on doom9. Perhaps other members can explain the use of that script for usual YUY2->YV12 conversion and whatnot, but I haven't seen it used in the normal conversion process.

It's to eliminate hanover bars in PAL soures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanover_bars

Despite all my searching, re-searching, and digging, I learn something new from jagabo every time, despite myself.

[zerowalker]

The ghosting was Santiag, and as you said, it can surely be made more sharp and such, but i don´t know how.

Oh, is that what you meant with unsmooth playback, i thought you meant, like stuttering or something, like a bad DVD or something.
But isn´t that just the None-TBC doing?
I can´t really see that it will change anything if i fast-forward/rewind it 1-3 times, thought i haven´t tried it, but isn´t VHS something that will get worse the more you play, though i don´t think 1-10 playbacks even matters though.

Oh yeah, remember those, but those were a bit "extreme" on the top and such, so couldn´t compare it against the wiggling lines i have all over the place.
But will look at the clips

[sanlyn]

Oh, is that what you meant with unsmooth playback, i thought you meant, like stuttering or something, like a bad DVD or something.
But isn´t that just the None-TBC doing?
I can´t really see that it will change anything if i fast-forward/rewind it 1-3 times, thought i haven´t tried it, but isn´t VHS something that will get worse the more you play, though i don´t think 1-10 playbacks even matters though.

You don't play the tape, you fast-forward and fast-rewind without playing and without pause. Repacking will help make feed-thru and playback more steady. It won't cure everything, but it helps minimize wiggles and jitter.

Oh yeah, remember those, but those were a bit "extreme" on the top and such, so couldn´t compare it against the wiggling lines i have all over the place.
But will look at the clips

You know, when I made those captures I assumed I'd see the same wiggles and other problems I'd seen a few years ago with two other of my VCR's, but the playback with the VCR I used was far more steady. Still, the samples show how various other problems (macrovision, bad tape, etc.) can be fixed with a line tbc pass-thru. If a decent line tbc can stabilize output to the point where it repairs extreme defects, it can certainly handle most wiggles and jitter. Jagabo posted links to short before/after videos of wiggles fixed with line-tbc. Those uneven motions are the same thing that's happening in your videos. The major cause is unsteady tape transports, uneven tape feed, uneven vertical and horizontal tape movement thru the playback path, old/damaged/wrinkled tape, as well the very nature of VHS tape itself.

Wiggles and jitter aren't the only thing to watch for in damage samples. The effect of using the tbc was to give an overall smoother, less noisy impression during playback, and even fixes some of the ragged-edge and dropped-frame problems.

[zerowalker]

Yeah i meant rewind and fast forward, but i read in another post you made that you shouldn´t do it with Rapid-rewind, i am not sure what i got, but it´s going fast atleast, if i stop and rewind or fast forward. sounds like it´s going so fast that it will burn or something.

Well it´s really nice that it can fix more than it´s original purpose.
And yeah i know, i got those lines, and wiggling all over the place, it´s sick in some places, really awful.
But never knew it was thanks to that, i don´t think these tapes has been played many times at all, maybe 2-3 times, so i thought everything was fine.
But i do get this with every tape i think, so guess i should take a random tape, record, see if it´s awful wiggling, do the trick, then record again?

But i need to know if i have rapid fast-forward or not, how can i check that?

[jagabo]

It's to eliminate hanover bars in PAL soures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanover_bars

Despite all my searching, re-searching, and digging, I learn something new from jagabo every time, despite myself.

I just learned about hanover bars a few months ago. So it's pretty new to me too. I did a lot of experimenting and found that Blur(0, 1.0) looked about the best for blending the two lines together. A Sharpen(0, 0.7) after that should sharpen the colors without restoring the hanover bars. I've been meaning to go back and take another look.

[sanlyn]

But i need to know if i have rapid fast-forward or not, how can i check that?

You should have a manual for the VCR. If not, the maker's website has manuals for their products. Big-name companies have them going back for a number of years (I've downloaded Panasonic manuals from as far back as 1992). If not, there is a fast-forward button or icon that's usually a right arrow (left for rewind). These are used when the tape is not playing. During play, hitting fast forward/reverse simply plays faster on many machines; that's not what you want.

For some years, VCR's used fast rewind mechanisms. I have an old one that takes forever to rewind a tape, often it's what I use just for winding (its audio hasn't worked for years, so I don't use it for playing. It has an dim, terrible image during play). One tip: never use those cheap tape rewind-only machines. They destroy tapes. The fast-wind VCR types do make some whining noise, but they slow down as they reach the end of the tape. My earlier remarks about fast-rewind machines were simply to state my preference for slower winders, but it really doesn't make that much difference. However -- if you hear loud repeated clatter or banging during fast rewind, the player has a real problem and should be serviced or replaced anyway.

A little surprising that you never heard of the repacking tip. People have been doing it for years.
short repacking video: http://www.ehow.com/video_2369717_preparing-vhs-tapes-capture.html

[zerowalker]

I will look up, i have a manual in pdf format to the vcr i currently use, will check it out.
And saw the video, short but he said what was needed to say, but i wonder one thing though.

When vhs was the main thing, i always screw on the 2 white things on the vhs to tighten the tape, don´t know why, but i think i learned that it
was the way to go, as if it was loosy it just didn´t seem right.

Is that good in anyway, i mean isn´t that supposed to do the repacking?
Or aren´t they meant for use, and merely there for the vcr(never really thought about it).


But weird that i never heard of it, but haven´t really researched much on the VHS part of this, just the vcr and the capture, so it´s nice to learn something.


If i can get it to work, i will try a random movie tape, capture it, then rewind and fastforward it few times, and then recapture.

But wasn´t the tape supposed to rest after that, i think you mentioned that in the post i read before?
Like, "let the tape rest a day", or something.

Thanks

[jagabo]

Repacking the VHS tape does two things. It smooths out the windings* on the source reel and unsticks any parts of the tape are stuck together.

* If you look at a tape that's been played a little and rewound several times you'll see that the tape on the reel is wound very unevenly. That uneven winding increases friction between the tape and the inner lining of the case, causing more drag.

[zerowalker]

I am starting to wonder how i really can have missed this part, as it seems very important, as it can both stabilize the tape somewhat, and save the tape.
I will must try it out, and hope for, atleast some difference, as i have so much wiggling, though i know that tbc is what i truly neeed.


But is this the right fast-forward, as my manual just says this.

FAST FORWARDING/REWINDING A VIDEO TAPE
1. Press STOP ( ) to stop the video tape.
2. Press FAST FORWARD () /REWIND ( ) on the remote control or rotate the
shuttle dial clockwise for Fast Forward and counter clockwise for Rewind then release.
3. To stop fast forward/rewind, press STOP ().

I guess it should say Rapid if it was Rapid?
I got the 2x play thing too, but that isn´t what i want right?

EDIT:

Here are too clips, one where i did 2 fast-forwards and rewinds, and one before i did it.

Though i think this clip is pretty stable compared to the previous one.
And i don´t see any difference really, they are a bit different, but there is always difference in analogue capture, so i don´t think this tape had any unsmooth playback from the start.

But if you see any difference or improved condition in the rewinded, please tell me

[sanlyn]

It would be helpful if we knew the brand and model number of your VCR. IF it's not on the front of the player somewhere, it will be on a label on the back of the machine.

I don't know if the instructions you posted are quoted directly from the manual (it looks as if they are). But to anyone who doesn't understand the difference between playing tape and winding/rewinding tape, the instructions could be confusing. Whether or not the rewind is advertised as Rapid or not, on many VCR's it's not adjust5able. Some VCR's actually do have a different control for "slow" rewind and "rapid" rewind (I once owned an old SONY that had such controls), which is even more confusing for those who don't understand the basic concept of how tape moves inside a vcr or audio tape player.

"2X" is for playing at a faster speed. It's a convenience feature that should carry a warning: it's often the way many owners permanently damage their tapes.

[zerowalker]

This should be it:

Sharp VC-FH 30

A VCR which can play S-VHS (but doesn´t have s-video, and can´t record S-vhs).
It´s PAL also for that matter.
And has SUPER P which makes the picture better, or so it´s advertised atleast. I think it´s more sharp so i keep it on.


Here is the Manual

http://esupport.sharp.de/html/om/index.php?StartRec=0&ListLimit=10&Lang=%25&ProdLine=1...ng=se&iStart=0


It should be the SM model, not sure if there is any difference between GM and SM, maybe NTSC and PAL.

[sanlyn]

sorry - double post

[zerowalker]

Ah well that´s nice, that it does something even on these milder situations.

And yes, first i kind of failed, i played the tape for like 2 min till i found batteries for the remote.
Then i rewinded back (non-stop version).
Then forwarded, and rewinded, but i didn´t let it rewind automaticly, i rewindend when i heard that it stopped.

Then when it was back the tape went out, i put it back in, stopped so it never played, then FF it, and let it rewind automaticly,
then i played it.


Hopefully i did right at the end, not sure if it really matter when i did it manual before.

But this is a more high quality tape i guess, as it´s a movie, think it´s from 2000 atleast, so it´s not Very old.
But will try it out on the more extreme cases, i just need to make sure that my VCR does the right kind of rewind and ff, as i don´t want to ruin the tapes.

EDIT:

The movie was released 2003, so somewhere along there, so it´s not to old*

[jagabo]

Repacking isn't necessarily going to help. For example, if you just watch the the tape all the way to the end, then rewound it, you just repacked it. So repacking again with FF/RW won't make any difference. It's only in cases where the winding is very uneven or the tape is stuck to itself that repacking will help.

Another method of smoothing the winding is to whack the flat side of the cassette against your leg or some other soft-ish object. I wouldn't whack it against a table or other hard object, you might crack the cassette or damage the table. Your leg is good because it will hurt if you whack too hard!

Just for your information:

VHS jitter happens because the spinning drum with the read/write heads doesn't spin at exactly the same speed all the time. It is continuously being adjusted by a phase locked loop. If it is spinning too fast less voltage is sent to the motor to slow it down, if it is too slow more voltage is sent to the motor to speed it up. Different decks have different abilities to keep the speed constant. This problem occurs both during recording and during playback. The problem is common to all helical scan recorders.

This variable drum speed causes the length of each scan line to vary. When the drum is spinning too fast the scan lines are too short, when the drum is spinning too slow the scan lines are too long. A line TBC looks at the time (distance) between consecutive horizontal sync pulses and evens them out. It lines up the sync pulses and stretches or shrinks each scan line so that they all line up and are the same length (duration).

When the video is captured by the computer the sync pulse is no longer in the signal. So the time base errors cannot be fixed after capturing. There have been some attempts to correct jitter after capturing by using the black bars at the left and right edges of the frame as a guide. But if the picture doesn't have those black bars, or if the picture is as dark as the bars at the edges of the frame, that technique can't work.

[sanlyn]

Good explanation, jagabo. I agree, repacking is a minor aid, not a solution. It can help somewhat, especially with crinkled/wrinkled tape, but it's definitely limited. A difference can be seen but it's minor, often very subtle. Certainly no substitute for a machine with better tracking and some form of tbc, built-in or pass-thru.

[zerowalker]

Yeah i understand that aswell, a TBC is idd what i need in one form or the other, but it would be nice if i could get the best out of the tapes with my current equipment, and this aid will probably help a bit with the old recordings, as i haven´t played them through, or well now i have with the one i uploaded some clips of, so will be able to compare it if i rerun it later.

[zerowalker]

I just got a Dscaler driver to work, so i can change a bit of everything now, WhiteCrush for example, and the Comb Filter.
As i never have been able to do this, i am not sure what to do to improve anything really, if any of you have been working with this settings and know, please tell me if you have any suggestions

I also got Composite over S-video to work now, not sure if it´s better or worse, but we will see.

[jagabo]

You might try the trick of merging several caps together as a poor man's line TBC and noise reduction.

v1 = AviSource("cap1.avi") # may need to Trim() each to sync caps
v2 = AviSource("cap2.avi")
v3 = AviSource("cap3.avi")
v4 = AviSource("cap4.avi")
Merge(Merge(v1,v2), Merge(v3,v4))

[zerowalker]

You mean i should capture the movie 4 times, and merge them?
Won´t that, blur much, as nothing is indentical?


And does anyone know how to calibrate the colors and brightness, i know about the histogram, but it doesn´t help me that much.

[themaster1]

Upload the other scene zerowalker (2nd time)

[sanlyn]

I echo that request from themaster1, you should submit a few unprocessed seconds of that last video.

You mean i should capture the movie 4 times, and merge them?
Won´t that, blur much, as nothing is indentical?

Browse through the links that jagabo posted about merging multiple passes. You'll find other discussions in this forum as well. You would edit the multiple clips so that each contains the same frames, the same number of frames, and no dropped frames. Don't even try to start by processing an entire capture this way; start with a short sequence to get a feel for this sort of thing.

And does anyone know how to calibrate the colors and brightness, i know about the histogram, but it doesn´t help me that much.

Learning to use histograms is essential. There are several types of histograms and vectorscopes for working in both YUV and RGB; they all have their use. It's also essential that you learn to use a handy tool found in all high-end video processing software, which is a tool to sample pixel values in your video. Many color problems can be analyzed with a pixel reader, as trying to do many things by eyeball alone is seriously limited.

If you say that a histogram "doesn't help", you don't know what the histogram is telling you. Approaching color and level correction seems intimidating. At first glance, most people make it look more difficult than it really is. A caution, though: the color area is a world apart from capture, though each affects the other. Some of the first concepts you would have to be familiar with are common standards for contrast and color ranges, the concepts of midtones, darks, and brights (not in general terms, because there are more precise definitions for those words). An understanding of three basic colors: black, gray, and white, along with black levels, gamma, and white balance. So, I would approach those areas gradually. Don't expect results overnight. You'd start by simply fiddling with color filters in Avisynth and/or VirtuaLDub and using histograms and other types of graphic readers to find out what those filters do. Reading about all this is one thing, but actually using it is something else.

[zerowalker]

Oh, didn´t think you wanted it, as i complained over a thing i created myself.
But sure, will upload it, there is much chroma leak and such, so it will probably be quite good material.


Yeah i know, it would be meaningless if it wasn´t the same frames, but i just can´t see that it will work well, but i will try it out.

And with the Histogram, it´s indeed that i don´t know how to read it correctly.
But what i want isn´t correct color afterwards here, i meant to calibrate the Capture Card.
As i don´t know what brightness,contrast,hue or anything should be on, and with Dscalers new driver i have more to play with.
And it can calibrate automaticly, but i don´t have the neccesery calibration patterns for PAL, so can´t try it out.

But with the new driver, i can use PAL60, which is pretty nice, though NTSC is far less noiser.
But i do have a problem that Dscaler can just crash randomly, it just exits.
I use the newest, as it´s the only one that has this driver it seems, it´s the Alpha version released in April i think.

[themaster1]

It's an indoor low light scene so i'd say this scene qualifies for hdragc see picture attached
script:

AVISource("C:\Users\lin\Desktop\Requested, Leak - Chroma.avi")
assumetff()
separatefields()
ConverttoRGB32(matrix="rec601",interlaced=false)
#### CCD COLOR DENOISING :
LoadVirtualDubPlugin("E:\Program Files\VirtualDub-1.9.8\plugins\Camcorder_Color_Denoise_sse2.vdf","C CD",1)
CCD(30,1) #
ConverttoYV12(matrix="Rec601",interlaced=false)
hdragc()
# Desoising:
fft3dgpu(bt=2,sigma=4.9,sigma2=2.4,sigma3=1.2,sigm a4=1.0,bw=32,bh=32,ow=16,oh=16,sharpen=0,plane=0,m ode=1,precision=2,interlaced=false,oldfft=false) fft3dfilter(sigma=2.0,sigma2=2,sigma3=2,sigma4=2, bt=3, bw=64, bh=64, ow=16, oh=16,plane=3, sharpen=0.0,interlaced=false,dehalo=0.0) # UV
weave()

This would be a good beginning imo

[sanlyn]

hdragc would likely be a good idea, even if there's nothing that will help the burnout from the hot spot on the carpet (the camera did that). However. . . apply some denoisers and look at the carper area under that bedside table by the bed. Then, watch the table and the bed shift position every few frames. Edge wiggles aren't the only problem. The top 1/3 of the tape is not tracking properly.

Methinks its time to hook up the line tbc.

[sanlyn]

Rather than try to fight the mix of over- and under-exposure from the original camera, I tried to work a bit with color bleed and shift with FlaXen's VHS, though I've yet to find a chroma bleed cleaner that really works. AGC filters tend to wreck histograms and white balance, and the baby as captured is already too blue. I tried ColorYUV and QTGMC. Instead of a strong temporal smoother I used two weaker ones. The original camera work shows the usual mistakes, not to mention mixed lighting, and the capture is too contrasty. So I added tweaks with VirtualDub filters after running this avs script:

AviSource(vpath+"Leak - Chroma.avi")

ColorYUV(off_y=8,cont_y=-10,gamma_y=-5)
ColorYUV(gain_v=5,cont_u=-25)
ColorYUV(cont_u=-55,gain_u=-5)
TemporalSoften(4,4,8,15,2)

AssumeTFF()
Mergechroma(SeparateFields().Blur(0,1).Weave())
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)
QTGMC(preset="medium")
Bifrost(interlaced=false)
TTempSmooth()
DeHalo_alpha()
LSFMod()
SeparateFields().SelectEvery(4,0,3).Weave()
a1=last
a2=a1

a2=a1.RemoveSpots()
ReplaceFramesSimple(a1,a2,mappings="12 13")

a2
ConvertToRGB32(matrix="Rec601",interlaced=true)
Crop(0,0,0,-10).AddBorders(0,5,0,5)

return last

The VirtualDub filters used were FaXen's VHS, the Camcorder Noise filter, and gradation curves.


[Attachment 12728 - Click to enlarge]

A vcf file for the three VirtualDub filters is attached. Some edge halo is still a problem.

[themaster1]

Me i have worked with rgbeq a bit more, see attached files

[Gavino]

...
a1=last
a2=a1

a2=a1.RemoveSpots()
ReplaceFramesSimple(a1,a2,mappings="12 13")

a2
ConvertToRGB32(matrix="Rec601",interlaced=true)
Crop(0,0,0,-10).AddBorders(0,5,0,5)

return last

I'm not sure what you intended here, but by adding 'a2' here, you are throwing away the result of ReplaceFramesSimple() and applying the remaining filters to a2 instead. (You probably just want to remove that 'a2' line.)

[sanlyn]

...
a1=last
a2=a1

a2=a1.RemoveSpots()
ReplaceFramesSimple(a1,a2,mappings="12 13")

a2
ConvertToRGB32(matrix="Rec601",interlaced=true)
Crop(0,0,0,-10).AddBorders(0,5,0,5)

return last

I'm not sure what you intended here, but by adding 'a2' here, you are throwing away the result of ReplaceFramesSimple() and applying the remaining filters to a2 instead. (You probably just want to remove that 'a2' line.)

How right you are! I should not post copies of code at 2:00 AM, especially when each revision of the script has a filename that differs from others by only 1 letter. In clip a1, I wanted to keep all the filtered frames except the two replacements from a2. Must be dozens of ways to write that, but the lines from my final script should read:

a1=last

a2=a1.RemoveSpots()
a3=ReplaceFramesSimple(a1,a2,mappings="12 13")

a3
ConvertToRGB32(matrix="Rec601",interlaced=true)
Crop(0,0,0,-10).AddBorders(0,5,0,5)

I'll edit the original post. Thanks for spotting that one. I have to go sit on the dunce stool in the corner now.