Avisynth function to TBC old VHS video?

[Asterra]

Yeah, yeah. I've searched around. There's an old "TBC" script that seems to be undocumented, and Dejitter, which doesn't seem to be able to detect the "jitter" in the footage I've got.

What I have is a 704x480 uncompressed YUV2 video, captured as 720x480 @ 29.97fps, from a VHS tape, over svideo. This leaves convenient black bars on the left and right which reveal exactly how much the ostensibly solid border is misaligned. I'm hoping there's a plugin or script which is able to recognize this kind of slight yet consistent inaccuracy and do a decent job of correcting it.

I also wonder whether it would be a good idea to do a pulldown on the video (it was originally a film) before letting a TBC-like plugin take a crack at it. I plan on doing this eventually anyway, since the final result is going to be a 23.976fps DVD, but I'd like to do these things in the correct order.

Thanks as always!

[poisondeathray]

I've never seen software TBC even remotely close to working well

"jmac698" over at doom9 has a few versions that he is working on but I don't think they work very well, at least not yet

Good luck

[Asterra]

Bah. If I planned to convert a lot of VHS tapes, I'd fork over for a real TBC. But this is quite probably the last time I'll ever press play on a VCR, so it's tough to justify.

It see that jmac698 teased a supposedly nicely-working software TBC just two weeks ago. It sounds like a release might be imminent. Too bad I plan to have this project wrapped up by Monday. ;p

[sanlyn]

Yeah, yeah. I've searched around. There's an old "TBC" script that seems to be undocumented, and Dejitter, which doesn't seem to be able to detect the "jitter" in the footage I've got.

What I have is a 704x480 uncompressed YUV2 video, captured as 720x480 @ 29.97fps, from a VHS tape, over svideo. This leaves convenient black bars on the left and right which reveal exactly how much the ostensibly solid border is misaligned.

I have yet to find an anti-jitter plugin that works with anything other than anime. As for software TBC, poisondeathray is right-on: they exist, but they don't work. Think about it: the kind of TBC to which you apparently refer works on the level of output-lines-within-frames; they do their work on the timing of each line or group of lines. The reason VHS looks geometrically distorted (along with motion artifacts, etc.,) is because without the TBC the output lines aren't exactly "on time" with each other -- a situation that the line-level TBC is designed to correct. Once that analog signal gets permanently digitized, there's no difference in the timing of any single frame line. That being the case, how would a "software" TBC know which lines are out of whack? No way.

Investing in an external frame-level (aka full-frame) TBC won't solve the problem. frame level TBC's work on frames, not lines. What you can do is find a Panasonic or Toshiba DVD recorder and use their built-in line-level TBC's as pass-thru devices between your source and your capture device. You do this by connecting your source to your DVD recorder input (be sure to use Line 1 input on Panasonics), then connect the recorder's output to your capture device. The TBC's in these DVD recorders are no replacement for $5000 studio TBC's, but you'd be surprised at how much they can help. It generally cleans up crooked angles and wiggles, some motion noise, and often works on some levels of jitter.

I've also found that NeatVideo apparently does a little motion-vector work of its own and often improves on some "no-TBC" defects; but don't expect miracles with spatio-temporal software, and NeatVideo has a bit of a learning curve to avoid introducing new problems. Anyway, your best bet is a line-level TBC of some kind.

[lordsmurf]

Bah. If I planned to convert a lot of VHS tapes, I'd fork over for a real TBC. But this is quite probably the last time I'll ever press play on a VCR, so it's tough to justify.

Buy, use, re-sell. The end. You'll get most of your $$$ back.

Honestly, you sound too impatient, and also expect software to do magic.
That would be nice, but it's not realistic.

jmac has a problem where finding a solution to one issue unlocks 2-3 new issues. He's tackling an impossible project. But we're all still pulling for him. So far, nothing has come of it, and I doubt anything will come of it for a long time. Video processing of that magnitude often takes years of development, even for big-budget companies that specialize in video processing. (For the record, they've not had much success either.)