Tweaking VHS captures

[themaster1]

i recall reading about this technique on doom9 but if you can share your script, that'd be awesome

[jagabo]

The basic idea is:

vid1 = WhateverSource("file1.ext")
vid2 = WhateverSource("file2.ext")
Merge (vid1, vid2)

Of course, two analog caps will never start with exactly the same frame so you have to trim one of them:

vid1 = WhateverSource("file1.ext").Trim(57,0)
vid2 = WhateverSource("file2.ext")
Merge (vid1, vid2)

In that case vid1 started 57 frames before vid2.

[Cherbette]

That would be interesting to see some before and after examples for clips I have that aren't as great quality later down the road.

[jmac698]

Here ya go
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/84390
I know it's not perfect but it's an improvement - no other filtering except my multi-cap technique.

ps if you wanna try it on your commercial, I'll do it just for a challenge (since it's short). You'll have to carefully cap it 5 times for me in yuy2 and huffy is fine.

Btw, to line up a few captures to the same start point, it can be automated with matchclips
http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-86691.html

[sanlyn]

So if you wanna know about working with crushing darks...

I thought I saw this earlier in histograms. You know, that RGB 0 stuff on the horse? Cher4Raw Frame 268:


[Attachment 8962 - Click to enlarge]

The color and levels in these shots from Half Breed are a joke. Cher's video didn't look like this. The horse wasn't black, either. It was reddish-brown and white, I think what horse fans would call an American Paint. Forget setting color or restoring detail here (what there is of it). Half the horse's color and detail went bye-bye, and won't come back.

Cher4Raw Frame 268, considerably brightened with ColorYUV:


[Attachment 8963 - Click to enlarge]

You can try making Old Paint its original brown if you want. I brightened it quite a bit:


[Attachment 8964 - Click to enlarge]

The waveform tells the story, even with the overly bright image above:


[Attachment 8965 - Click to enlarge]

[jmac698]

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/84395/picture:0
#1 off: original on: average of 2
#2 off: original on: median of 3
#3 off: original on: median of 5
#4 off: original on: median of 9

[jagabo]

The color and levels in these shots from Half Breed are a joke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxoWto09Oyg

Looks like the pink and blue stains in the corners are in the original.

[sanlyn]

The color and levels in these shots from Half Breed are a joke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxoWto09Oyg

Looks like the pink and blue stains in the corners are in the original.

Yes. It looked like discoloring at first, until you lower excess green and see smokey pink and blue sky appear.

The brown's and whites of the horse are some of the same colors in Cher's getup. The latter looked greenish at first, as well. I dunno, but it looks as if the original broadcast program might have had bad levels. Hard to say.

[themaster1]

It's like the filter coulourlike in a way but even more simple, i've just tried it with a vhs/dvd source the vhs source looks way better now (very close to the dvd colors). Problem is the pixels must coincide and adjusting that with an interlaced video that's a challenge; i guess i'll deinterlace both sources.

[Cherbette]

It's like the filter coulourlike in a way but even more simple, i've just tried it with a vhs/dvd source the vhs source looks way better now (very close to the dvd colors). Problem is the pixels must coincide and adjusting that with an interlaced video that's a challenge; i guess i'll deinterlace both sources.

So you blended a DVD rip and a VHS rip together?? That could be interesting as well. You got any before/after?

[Cherbette]

Also I wanted to note to sanlyn that I believe the horse is black and white. Always has been every time I've seen it. Maybe you got confused with this: http://www.technodisco.net/img/tracks/c/cher/2717900-cher-half-breed.jpg

But I don't believe it's the same horse: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/Half-Breed_%28song%29_video.jpg

[jagabo]

ColorLike() adjusts the RGB historgrams of one video to match the historgrams of another video.

This script fairly closely matches the brighter areas in your raw video to the youtube video (the bright white shots):

ColorYUV(gain_y=35, off_y=8) # adjust levels (brightness/contrast)
ColorYUV(off_u=11) #adjust chroma U offset -- white balance the background
ColorYUV(cont_u=10, cont_v=10) #increase saturation a bit

youtube:


raw video adjusted:


It leaves the horse blackish. If you want the horse browner, pull down the dark blues.

[Cherbette]

I believe the horse is black. I'm almost certain...either that or he's extremely dark brown. I think I have this clip on DVD from the all too brief set they put out a few years back of the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour/Sonny and Cher Shows. If it would help to have it in higher quality than youtube I could rip it from the DVD. That's interesting...I didn't know you could do the "colorlike" trick. Avisynth really seems to be quite the little tool. I mean is there anything it CAN'T do? lol Well except apparently TBC but I took care of that...and to jagabo thank you so much for putting the "#" descriptions in next to each step. Things like that are helping me to learn Avisynth and do things on my own.

[jagabo]

I changed the comments in the script a bit. Be sure to reference the AviSynth docs too.

ColorLike() is a little tricky to use with videos whose framing doesn't match. I took frames 125 from your raw video, and frame 1400 from the youtube video, then cropped and resized them. I built ColorLike histograms from those. Then applied them to the raw video. The framing still didn't match exactly but here's what I got.

ColorLike to make raw match youtube mp4:


I didn't bother to clean up the borders for this sample image.

[Cherbette]

I think maybe this latest example looks a bit more natural than the previous example posted. I don't know though..they're pretty close to my naked eye.

[jagabo]

Here are the two sample frames I used as references for ColorLike:

raw.png:


yt.png:


The script to build the histogram files:

p1=ImageSource("raw.png").ConvertToYV12(interlaced =true)
p2=ImageSource("yt.png").ConvertToYV12(interlaced= true)
p1.WriteHistogram("raw.hist.txt", 1)
p2.WriteHistogram("yt.hist.txt", 1)

Then the script to process the raw video:

AviSource("StillCher4 raw transfer.avi")
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)
ColourLike("raw.hist.txt", "yt.hist.txt")

[sanlyn]

jagabo, I had to use ColorLike on the damn opera you might recall. Worked OK most of the time, until I hit a scene where the color/level differences were so dissimilar, I had to adjust one of the shots to more closely resemble the others. Otherwise, the whacko scene came out even more whacko.

The UTube video is too bright at the high end. I recall the original from years back. No, I don't think the horse was black, but it was darker than UTube. When I saw this on tape the headdress was wiped out; later on DVD, more intact. Apologies to cherbette if I'm wrong on that (won't be the first time).

Nice work by jagabo with the YUV scripts. I learn something every time he posts.

I worked on Cher4"Raw" a bit in RGB. Didn't have a lot of time, but... I prepared a quickie to illustrate that you can't use the same filters on every scene in VHS. I'm not satisfied with the MPEG linked below. Initial color fix would likely be better in YUV than RGB. Just didn't have time. In any case, Cher4Raw was split into 3 pieces, to correct the sofa chat scene and then insert it between the two shots from Half Breed.
MPEG2 6.2-MB: http://dc423.4shared.com/download/o6quYjNq/Cher4Raw_AB.mpg

Here's the RGB file I worked with. It's been thru NeatVideo, very light settings and not much of a setup at all, but I couldn't clean up the bristling noise in the sofa scene using AviSynth. Huff version for the RGB file is the one I always use, huffyuv 2.1.1 Patch 2.2. The 89--MB file will unzip into about 107-MB.
http://dc108.4shared.com/download/HLW5JHWm/Cher4Raw_RGBnv79h.zip

Attached is a .zip of two .vcf files. These are filter settings saved by VirtualDub. The "A" version is for the horse clip, B" is for the sofa shot. Open the RGB file in VirtualDub, then load a .vcf into VirtualDub one a time to see the effect on each shot. I believe Cherbette has all the plugins that the .vcf will ask for:
- curves plugin
- ColorTools
- levels
- ColorMill
If not, let me know.

Regardless of the horse's color, it looks like the production crew made a mess of it. Typical TV doc: slapped together in 20 minutes, then everyone leaves early for beers.

By the way: you can use .vcf's from another computer's VirtualDub, right? I do it with mine all the time.

[sanlyn]

But I don't believe it's the same horse: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/Half-Breed_%28song%29_video.jpg

Never saw that pic before, but I don't trust it. The horse is purple.

[Cherbette]

Let me make some screen caps from a few other sources I have of this same clip and we an compare. I have it on VHS from a TVLand broadcast and on the DVD set I mentioned...

[themaster1]

http://imageshack.us/f/3/horseg.png/

with msu old color (91 /8) and colormill

[Cherbette]

I believe this is from the same portion from the "Sonny & Cher Ultimate Collection" DVD set:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/402/snapshotdvd464820111002.png/

[Cherbette]

http://imageshack.us/f/3/horseg.png/

with msu old color (91 /8) and colormill

just figured i'd put it where it'd show up directly in the post...mine cap from the dvd was original a bmp and it wouldn't let me upload here directly then imageshack converted it to png upon upload anyway. go figure

[Cherbette]

jagabo, I had to use ColorLike on the damn opera you might recall. Worked OK most of the time, until I hit a scene where the color/level differences were so dissimilar, I had to adjust one of the shots to more closely resemble the others. Otherwise, the whacko scene came out even more whacko.

The UTube video is too bright at the high end. I recall the original from years back. No, I don't think the horse was black, but it was darker than UTube. When I saw this on tape the headdress was wiped out; later on DVD, more intact. Apologies to cherbette if I'm wrong on that (won't be the first time).

Nice work by jagabo with the YUV scripts. I learn something every time he posts.

I worked on Cher4"Raw" a bit in RGB. Didn't have a lot of time, but... I prepared a quickie to illustrate that you can't use the same filters on every scene in VHS. I'm not satisfied with the MPEG linked below. Initial color fix would likely be better in YUV than RGB. Just didn't have time. In any case, Cher4Raw was split into 3 pieces, to correct the sofa chat scene and then insert it between the two shots from Half Breed.
MPEG2 6.2-MB: http://dc423.4shared.com/download/o6quYjNq/Cher4Raw_AB.mpg

Here's the RGB file I worked with. It's been thru NeatVideo, very light settings and not much of a setup at all, but I couldn't clean up the bristling noise in the sofa scene using AviSynth. Huff version for the RGB file is the one I always use, huffyuv 2.1.1 Patch 2.2. The 89--MB file will unzip into about 107-MB.
http://dc108.4shared.com/download/HLW5JHWm/Cher4Raw_RGBnv79h.zip
Ed: Might be good check to see if we're all really able to read the same AVI's.

Attached is a .zip of two .vcf files. These are filter settings saved by VirtualDub. The "A" version is for the horse clip, B" is for the sofa shot. Open the RGB file in VirtualDub, then load a .vcf into VirtualDub one a time to see the effect on each shot. I believe Cherbette has all the plugins that the .vcf will ask for:
- curves plugin
- ColorTools
- levels
- ColorMill
If not, let me know.

Regardless of the horse's color, it looks like the production crew made a mess of it. Typical TV doc: slapped together in 20 minutes, then everyone leaves early for beers.

By the way: you can use .vcf's from another computer's VirtualDub, right? I do it with mine all the time.

The MPG you posted looks MUCH better than the original to my eye. I still think that the cap jagabo posted using colourlike looks most natural to my eye but the one by "themaster1" is making it hard for me to decide.

[sanlyn]

The MPG you posted looks MUCH better than the original to my eye. I still think that the cap jagabo posted using colourlike looks most natural to my eye but the one by "themaster1" is making it hard for me to decide.

I didn't spend that much time on it and, as I said, the broadcast video is so off-color it would be better to make initial corrections in YUV, as jagabo did. Neither of the source clips being compared are that great -- the utube job has brights blown away, the Cher4 clip has darks blown away, etc. In both cases there are limits to what you can do, even with different tools. The utube is prob'ly closer to the original commercial video, but it still looks a mess.

For VHS with levels/color in horrible shape, most levels and color fixes are best done in YUV before you go to RGB (if you go there). I think it's more tricky in YUV, but from what I've seen you getter results that way with screwed up video.

[sanlyn]

just figured i'd put it where it'd show up directly in the post...mine cap from the dvd was original a bmp and it wouldn't let me upload here directly then imageshack converted it to png upon upload anyway. go figure

The forum server doesn't like bmp. They can be so big they're hard to handle.

[sanlyn]

I'll agree with cherbette. learning avspmod is like learning AviSynth: without an M.I.T., degree, one is at a loss. I first tried avspmod a couple years back. I wrote a script, moved some sliders, hit F5. Nothing happened.

After spending 3 hours reading Help, same thing happened tonight: nothing. Back to running scripts the old way. Maybe later. Maybe.

[jmac698]

@sanlyn,
I'm sorry you had that experience. I've never had that problem, I'm at a loss to explain it. Of course, if it doesn't work for you don't waste time at it! Stick with what you know and is productive for you. However, for me as I mentioned before it works. I'm guess I'm just lucky

[jagabo]

I don't use avspmod often but it usually works properly when I do.

[Cherbette]

I've been toying around with it quite a bit and it always works for me. Helps me to "see" what I'm doing...and since I'm very much a visual/hands on learner it's quite beneficial.

[jagabo]

I tried out ColorLike() in RGB mode instead of YV12. The results were even better (in terms of matching the youtube video):

p1=ImageSource("raw.png", pixel_type="RGB32")
p2=ImageSource("yt.png", pixel_type="RGB32")
p1.WriteHistogram("raw.hist.txt", 1)
p2.WriteHistogram("yt.hist.txt", 1)

AviSource("StillCher4 raw transfer.avi")
ConvertToRGB32(interlaced=true)
ColourLike("raw.hist.txt", "yt.hist.txt")