Analog TV signal digitize best

[luckyo]

Hi

I have been digitizing/capturing an old TV signal (PAL CCIR Signal with 50Hz and 576 lines).
The quality of the capture is Ok (or as I expected) for the old signal, but not anywhere I would like it to be.
I capture with FCP and have used different codecs (Apple Pro Res, PAL DV etc).
But ghosting and grains are an issue in all of them.
I am sure the original source is the problem, but I am looking for the best possible way to digitize this signal.
My hope is that there are people specializing on digitizing and optimizing old TV footage
and maybe there are some tricks to increase the quality of the footage.
Not only with the codec, but maybe other settings in FCP I could tweak to get better results.
Or even in the way I capture. Or anything else that increases the signal.
Any help would be awesome.

Thanks so much for your time.

[pandy]

Try multipass capture - can be useful if your source is VCR.

[luckyo]

Thanks for the answer.
What exactly does multipass do ?
Where in FCP do I have to switch it on ?

Thanks again.

[pandy]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=100626
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=159780
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1331776#post1331776

[luckyo]

Ok I think I understand what you suggest.
Capture the same source multiple times and then average them (mix them together, I guess).
Is that what you are suggesting ?
My problem with this approach is that I am capturing this old TV signal "live" (what is happening there is only happening at that time) and I cannot capture multiple clips from the source (AJA IO HD only allows one source at a time).
I only have one clip.
Is there any way to optimize while capturing my one single clip ?
Is there a specific codec that is ideal for black and white signals ?
I don't have color and maybe some codec use e.g. the bit depth for a better signal.

Thanks again.

[pandy]

It was not very clear - if You ask about possibility to improve process of capturing You need to be very precise.

To capture grayscale (B/W is bitonal) You can use capture card with saturation set to minimum - then Cb and Cr data shall be without signal - null.
You can improve overall quality by higher quality of ADC (processing analog and further conversion to digital domain) however it is very difficult to say something about improving capture if source can be "But ghosting and grains are an issue in all of them" - i mean not sure what is quality of source itself - perhaps source is already ghosted and grainy then capture can't be improved.
Perhaps You need restore or improve quality in postprocessing. Perhaps You should consider use on of lossless codecs (Huffyuv etc.)

Maybe helpful can be to see clip fragment, sample snapshots to visualize "But ghosting and grains are an issue in all of them".

[hech54]

I'm sorry....what are you capturing and what are you using to play it? Is this VCR stuff we are talking about?

[luckyo]

Thanks for the answers.

"perhaps source is already ghosted and grainy then capture can't be improved."
Yes, I suspect that and that's why, I would like to improve the capture as good as it gets and if it is still grainy and ghosting than I can be sure that it is the signal.

As I have been told multiple times it is a regular old european TV signal. Nothing special about the signal from this point of view. No VCR stuff though.
Imagine it to be like an old live recording of something you watched on TV.

I capture on CVBS in (AJA IO HD) and wonder if there is better input or if I just record a lot of more data with no improvement.
Or if there is a codec/codec setting (e.g. Apple Pro Res Black and White), that is made for B/W and gives me a better signal.

I also look for better contrast and sharpness and therefore everything that enhances contrast and sharpness would also be cool.


Thanks again.

[intracube]

luckyo; where are you receiving this live tv signal from?

Germany stopped terrestrial/OTA analogue broadcasts years ago and analogue satellite a couple of months ago.

[pandy]

IMHO AJA IO HD is good enough, codec if lossless should be transparent, contrast and sharpness i prefers personally to adjust after capture not before. To judge source quality You need only to watch normal broadcast in TV - it is different than Your capture or not?

Please upload somewhere a short capture/clip fragment (less than 20MB) and/or snapshots (single frames), please give us link to those uploads then we can see or something is wrong or not.

Please also check cabling - i mean correct cables, correct load, correct grounding to avoid loops.