Suggestions on filters and adjustments on captured VHS Video

[Xmetalfanx]

Hello, I am trying to clean up/convert some VHS recordings to DVD and am curious about the filtering to use. I have no problems “Playing around”, though I figured any advice people who have successfully done this before can give, would be appreciated.


A) Not counting a goof-up with my Phillips DVR (which apparently everyone who owns one seems to have the same issue with recording being @90% done (a few hours of recording), then the power goes out (on the unit only) and then the disc is messed up. THIS is not the point of this post... I have fixed this (I say that losely) by extracting at least SOME of the recorded video to VOB on the HDD via ISOBUSTER... but again, this is not the point. The videos are (just say for now) IN AVI format on the hdd with a VCR as the source. (To give advisers a reference point of where I am at and they dont have to bother with “how to get it on your PC in the first place”)


B) I KNOW that it will never be perfectly DVD “quality”. I hope to fix some of the issues, though I am just happy they are the exact same quality on DVD and I can “search chapters” (..etc etc) and go to any point in the reording I want ...again etc etc …


C) Some videos have “black lines” scrolling in various directions when I viewed them (I could view them as I “converted them via a DVR” on the TV. I am not sure if this a “non-issue” (I am still messing with the videos at the moment). The “black lines” are the sort of thing you may see on a CRT when viewed on certain TV Programs.... not “black bars” across the screen.. just “scrolling lines” in the video, that sometimes (when a scene changes) changes direction from top left to bottom right, and visa-versa ….


D) I have run across a decent add-on … in theory that … crashes VirtualDub (only add-on that does this) every time I use it or try to “Test it” anyway. It is called MSUColorEnhancement 1.0b. It does do some color corrections and contrast adjustments I could do manually but it does them (again I have not even been able to test this add-on on videos yet) “all in one shot” instead of adding a few separate filters manually, I (if this works) could add just this one.


E) I am playing around with Sharpness and that “un-detailed” look of the VHS Videos. (I KNOW they are FROM a VCR and not going to be DVD quality... ) I mean I am just messing around with different sharpness filters to see if I can improve the video's “clarity”. I have found that resizing it up a bit seems to help.


Thank you all for your input, in advance

-Xmetalfanx



PS - after posting this I will be searching the forums and looking for more "how to's" online"

[manono]

You've already ruined them so why bother? If you cared about quality you would never have used a DVD recorder to transfer them from VHS. And then you converted them to AVI? What kind of AVI? Surely not XviD or DivX? DV AVI or some lossless AVI codec?

So, my first suggestion if you care about quality and not just taking the easy way out, is to do a proper capture to the computer using a real capture card and a decent VCR with a TBC.

Barring that, how about a short sample that shows the problems?

[sanlyn]

I'm sorry to echo manono's advice, but he's dead right. Besides doing things the hard way with numerous recompression and (probably) destructive colorspace stages, direct-to-lossy compression is the worst way to capture analog video. However I just noticed in your profile that your PC has a 40GB HDD (?). So it's no wonder you're going direct to your DVD recorder, as 40GB isn't enough drive space for a single capture much less a lot of filtering work. I assume you have a larger external hard drive for the VirtualDub work you describe. If you are using VirtualDub to process compressed video, you're definitely making things worse.

The MSU ColorEnhancement plugin is a specialized filter. In fact, it's a "special effects" filter. Don't use it for routine work. I also note that you're "resizing" your captures. How? And why?