VHS Restoration

[themaster1]

There is something wrong with your drivers imo you should find better ones

[jagabo]

Virtualvcr tells me that the audio stream need to be delayed in 316 ms
So i change framerate in avirate to 25 fps, and open virtual and delays audio 316 ms, and now it is completly in sync... So jubiii

You can do all of it in VirtualDub. Open the cap file, select Video -> Direct Stream Copy, select Video -> Frame Rate..., in the top portion of the dialog enable Change Frame Rate To... and set it to 25, go to Audio -> Interleaving and set the Delay value, the File -> Save As AVI.

But really, the capture software should be capturing with the correct settings.

[Asesinato]

Yeah but i cant change that... Virtualdub wount allow me to....

[Asesinato]

masters > I have the newest drivers from hauppauge site... ?

[sanlyn]

sanlyn > I wrote about that longere up

Ive just run a commercial tape and the noise isnt there... So its on the tape

Oops. Sorry, I must have missed that one. Thank you.

[Asesinato]

Yeah but i cant change that... Virtualdub wount allow me to....

I mean VirtualVCR wount allow that

[Asesinato]

Ill upload a few samples from the capture when its finish

[Asesinato]

Now here is 3 clips of the capture of the movie, from various points in it...

So what can we do now to make it better?

[themaster1]

Have you tried my script on post #17 here (remove the autogain maybe and lower the saturation, tested on capture02 only

for the noise try neat

[Asesinato]

Havent try the script... Had neat in mind but dosnt it remove alot of details also?

[themaster1]

yeah kinda
remove normally on the mid frequecies and remove 0-50% on the high and low freqs, that should do it

[sanlyn]

First try with Capture1 from post #68. Not satisfied with this, but ran it in 4 stages. QTGMC was first; could stand some more damage repair in that step (I used defaults). Step 2 was noise reduction - had zero effect on the diagonals, and cost some detail, so more tweaks needed there. Step 3 and 4 was some motion-compensated smoothing and levels/color work. I think I'm on the right track, but need to get deeper into the plugins. Auto-exposure in the camera ruined this scene (as usual), wiping out low level detail. No way to get it back. Note that image trails on the candle flames is on the original (fault of the camera). The left border needs masking.

[DB83]

sanlyn,

With my poor eyes, your edit is a great improvement. I note that your final is in mpeg2 so you obviously did not use vdub to create that.

Yet I doubt if one can go much ferther with the source since it is IMHO a 'woolf in sheep's clothing' ie an mpeg2 dressed up as a lagarith unless vdub can do real magic and ignore the stream coming from the capture device

[Asesinato]

Sanlyn > You are diffently on the right track, looks great allready

[Asesinato]

DB83 it is capturet in vdub but vvcr

[Asesinato]

DB83 it is capturet in vdub but vvcr

isnt capturet in vdub but vvcr

[sanlyn]

I note that your final is in mpeg2 so you obviously did not use vdub to create that.

It is mpeg because it's just a sample, to save space and upload time and to test for DVD playback. The processed AVI from which the mpg was made is 136-MB. The MPG wouldn't be used for further processing.

Using the original AVI posted, I ran 4 steps: steps 1 and 2 in Avisynth YUV, steps 3 and 4 in VirtualDub (RGB24), then encoded to mpg in TMPGenc Plus 2.5. I needed some rather strong filters, so I broke the process into 4 stages to keep from freezing-up my poor little 2.4-GHz Athlon PC. As soon as I saw the "final" result I knew I'd be changing the scripts and filters several times, so no sense posting all that stuff right away. Every plugin needs more tweaking; it's easier with separate steps.

Sanlyn > You are diffently on the right track, looks great allready

Thank you, but there are many more adjustments to work on. The only plugin that worked on the diagonals and FM crosshatching was NeatVideo, which was the last step. But it might be better to call NeatVideo in Avisynth during an earlier deinterlace-reinterlace step. The NV noise sample I used is not that good; I borrowed it from another old video of mine that had similar (but somewhat different) herringbone.

Asesinato, I don't know if you have recaptured the scene shown below. It has shots that will make better noise samples. NeatVideo works best with noise from large clear areas like the open sky and the smooth areas of the side of the church shown in the sequence below. I took these images from your earlier "1.ts" post. It wasn't a good capture and has NO DETAIL. If you have recaptured this scene using the same process you used for the 3 captures posted above, is it possible to post a few frames from the original unfiltered AVI? The blue square in the images shows the kind of open areas that NeatVideo uses best. The shots from the old "ts" captures can't be used.

[sanlyn]

Havent try the script... Had neat in mind but dosnt it remove alot of details also?

It does if you don't learn how to use it -- just as with any complex denoiser, whether in VirtualDub or Avisynth. If you want to see detail do a fast disappearing act, try AVisynth's FFT3D filter at strong default settings. With NeatVideo, never use the defaults.

[DB83]

DB83 it is capturet in vdub but vvcr

isnt capturet in vdub but vvcr

OK. But you previously said that you could not do 25 fps with that.

I note that these clips, ok I only checked the first one, have no sound but I trust that the full capture does and now by capping at 25 fps solves the audio-sync issue you previously had.

I do not have the tools (avisynth goes right over my head) that sanlyn is using so I can not contribute to the restoration itself (I would still be happy to try some ts captures - a little longer than the ones posted - and run those through Vegas). I can not accept that by capping in Lagarith improves the capture over that of the Mpeg2. You might not lose any more quality in the edit satge but you are not gaining anything over the original Mpeg2 either.

[sanlyn]

I can not accept that by capping in Lagarith improves the capture over that of the Mpeg2. You might not lose any more quality in the edit satge but you are not gaining anything over the original Mpeg2 either.

DB83, you should accept it. The original source is not MPEG2. It's PAL VHS. Recording damaged, faded, noisy, discolored, improperly stored analog VHS directly to MPEG2 is one of the more damaging ways of trying to repair bad tape, and makes life very difficult. The captures we are working with are in lossless AVI/YUY2. Some of these problems can be fixed only in YUV or YCbCr AVI, and others can be fixed in RGB. By the time the problems are digitized into lossy MPEG, it's all over.

[mammo1789]

Havent try the script... Had neat in mind but dosnt it remove alot of details also?

Just my 2 cents i use neat a lot and the most "damaging" smoothing part of the filter is in the highs and y channels, you can go higher on the color channels try not to go to 100.

Although you can use scart to svideo converter for this, if the vcr has ( mine has ) its better to use the svideo out connector on the vcr to svideo directly in the card,maybe that was the cause of this "fm" strip noise lines, and use full scart to scart to the tv on the same time ( that way you can use the tv as full monitor during the process of capturing i use my 42 inch lcd that way).
Sanlyn did a great job ( as always ) keep up the good work guys.

If you want to go extreme if your card supports "component in"( don't confuse it with rgb ) there is a scheme of pin outs on internet, i will try to find the link( although not officially supported by scart standard ) that can make from scart ( component out ) to pc tv card component in and that will give you best possible connection available for analog. I tried that on my previous card ( that i returned ) that had component in and i can assure you that it gives the most stable picture much better than svideo or composite, unfortunately scart is only used in Europe

[2Bdecided]

I can not accept that by capping in Lagarith improves the capture over that of the Mpeg2. You might not lose any more quality in the edit satge but you are not gaining anything over the original Mpeg2 either.

DB83, you should accept it. The original source is not MPEG2. It's PAL VHS. Recording damaged, faded, noisy, discolored, improperly stored analog VHS directly to MPEG2 is one of the more damaging ways of trying to repair bad tape, and makes life very difficult.

I agree. There are tapes where MPEG-2 capture won't do enough damage for me to worry, but this isn't one of them!

It's an interesting test case for whether even DV is good enough. I might try that.

Cheers,
David.

[sanlyn]

[QUOTE=mammo1789;2155623]

Although you can use scart to svideo converter for this, if the vcr has ( mine has ) its better to use the svideo out connector on the vcr to svideo directly in the card,maybe that was the cause of this "fm" strip noise lines, and use full scart to scart to the tv on the same time ( that way you can use the tv as full monitor during the process of capturing i use my 42 inch lcd that way).
Sanlyn did a great job ( as always ) keep up the good work guys.

If you want to go extreme if your card supports "component in"( don't confuse it with rgb ) there is a scheme of pin outs on internet, i will try to find the link( although not officially supported by scart standard ) that can make from scart ( component out ) to pc tv card component in and that will give you best possible connection available for analog. I tried that on my previous card ( that i returned ) that had component in and i can assure you that it gives the most stable picture much better than svideo or composite, unfortunately scart is only used in Europe

Asesinato's WinTV card only has composite and svideo. Yes, component would be better.

Thanks for the compliment, mammo, but -- wow, I still have a lot to learn. It's a wide learning curve.

[DB83]

I can not accept that by capping in Lagarith improves the capture over that of the Mpeg2. You might not lose any more quality in the edit satge but you are not gaining anything over the original Mpeg2 either.

DB83, you should accept it. The original source is not MPEG2. It's PAL VHS. Recording damaged, faded, noisy, discolored, improperly stored analog VHS directly to MPEG2 is one of the more damaging ways of trying to repair bad tape, and makes life very difficult. The captures we are working with are in lossless AVI/YUY2. Some of these problems can be fixed only in YUV or YCbCr AVI, and others can be fixed in RGB. By the time the problems are digitized into lossy MPEG, it's all over. Asesinato made a good effort at getting his captures into a workable format. I couldn't help much there, as I'm using capture gear all based on ATI AGP cards, and had to build two XP PC's to work with them. So I haven't had the problems he encountered.

Agreed, Avisynth is no easy trip. I avoided getting deeply into it for several years, but recent projects made it mandatory. I'm still learning. Hopefully more knowledgeable members can drop in and help with some sophisticated plugins once we get going.

Once more, and for the last time, the 'source' in the literal sense, may be VHS but the 'source' in the digital sense is Mpeg2, That is what the OP's card is spitting out and that is what is being transcoded. By your own words, in the other topics, and all these are inter-related, it is a waste to re-encode/transodes - call it what you will - to lagarith. What you get is an avi with the bit-rate of lagarith and the compression of Mpeg2 - lossless version of a lossy intermediate. Am I wrong or am I wrong ?

The real improvement has zilch to do with the lagarith 'compression'. The improvement has come about since the OP has invested in a better VCR. He could equally go all the way and get a better capture card.

[jagabo]

Am I wrong or am I wrong ?

Yes, you are wrong. The OP's card is capable of capturing raw YUV video. Ie, without any MPEG compression. This has already been discussed.

[sanlyn]

Once more, and for the last time, the 'source' in the literal sense, may be VHS but the 'source' in the digital sense is Mpeg2, That is what the OP's card is spitting out and that is what is being transcoded. By your own words, in the other topics, and all these are inter-related, it is a waste to re-encode/transodes - call it what you will - to lagarith. What you get is an avi with the bit-rate of lagarith and the compression of Mpeg2 - lossless version of a lossy intermediate. Am I wrong or am I wrong ?

Even if the card is outputting MPEG2 and it's being converted in vdub or virtualVCR to AVI, Lagarith is lossless. If we were working with an MPEG2 source such as DVD, it would still have to be decompressed and worked in lossless AVI. Whether we use Lagarith or huffyuv, both are lossless. Should we work with uncompressed AVI? (it amounts to the same thing during processing).

I'm not sure what your objection is to working in full-frame lossless AVI and YUV or YCbCr. How does Lagarith or huffyuv change the "bitrate" of the signal? Those compressors are a storage convenience; during processing the clip is fully decompressed.

The real improvement has zilch to do with the lagarith 'compression'. The improvement has come about since the OP has invested in a better VCR. He could equally go all the way and get a better capture card.

Agreed, Lagarith has nothing to do with the quality but it does prevent added data loss and compression artifacts. Agreed, it would be good if the owner could get a better card, but it's not that easy and it might not be affordable. That's why we ask the owner not to discard the tapes, even if we get a decent video out of this project. It would also have been nice if the original camera had been better, but nothing can be done about that now.

Lagarith is not a transcoder. It's a compressor/decompressor. But none of this is to say one can't use other methods. Starting with the PAL VHS tape, how would you get it into a computer, what format and colorspace would you use, how would you repair the combing artifacts, block noise, posterization, aliasing, edge ringing, bad frames, border stains, discoloration, motion smearing, crushed details, and the rest of it? We're open to suggestion, as this tape is in pretty bad shape.

[DB83]

Am I wrong or am I wrong ?

Yes, you are wrong. The OP's card is capable of capturing raw YUV video. Ie, without any MPEG compression. This has already been discussed.

I recall some brief discussion on the theory.

I do not recall any discussion of how this was to be achieved ie how the internal compression of the card was bi-passed.

[jagabo]

Am I wrong or am I wrong ?

Yes, you are wrong. The OP's card is capable of capturing raw YUV video. Ie, without any MPEG compression. This has already been discussed.

I recall some brief discussion on the theory.

I do not recall any discussion of how this was to be achieved ie how the internal compression of the card was bi-passed.

All you have to do is look at the caps. It's obvious.

[DB83]

jagabo,

I am more than happy to take your word for it. I do not have 20/20 vision so can not make the appropiate distinction.

I was simply recalling a topic several moons ago where it was mentioned that with a hardware Mpeg2 capture card all one could get out of it was Mpeg2. I could probably dig that topic up since I did contribute to it but there is little point. I will accept your expert opinion.

[mammo1789]

I was simply recalling a topic several moons ago where it was mentioned that with a hardware Mpeg2 capture card all one could get out of it was Mpeg2. I could probably dig that topic up since I did contribute to it but there is little point. I will accept your expert opinion.

Although maybe harder then on pure software card it is not impossible to do it and get raw yuv ( because as I sad previous the mpeg2 chip is just post process one, all the other components are the same ).

I prefer going to lagarith even if the source is lossy one, because even if you cant gain any new data you are preserving the existing one when filtering

Asesinato's WinTV card only has composite and svideo. Yes, component would be better.

Ops i saw the picture that i posted on other tread and yes it doesn't have component to bad i don't think it is cheap card