Vhs/DVD clarity question

[Brad]

I don't see any reason to break it up.

[RWH]

Not sure about new thread. But it sure can't hurt to let this stuff marinade in your brain for a while. Definitely information overload.

[sanlyn]

There are longer threads than this one. One is still going now and then, started two years ago. I worked on a project in one thread for 17 months.

[jagabo]

RWH, here is the second clip with the TBC/NR turned back on. I tried to get as close to the same frames as possible.

The TBC is definitely working. It's especially noticeable at the black borders. The ghosting in the video isn't caused by the NR circuit. It's there whether or not the function is enabled. The NR isn't so aggressive that it removes all the low contrast detail. Unless some other settings were changed, the TBC/NR filter is also increasing the gain (brighter picture, more contrast) and crushing super blacks.

I'd probably leave the TBC/NR circuit on. Except maybe for very dark shots where you're trying to pull detail out of the shadows.

TBC/NR off:


TBC/NR on:

[Oldretiredguy]

I don't really see the difference you are talking about but again, I don't know what to look at or for.

R

[sanlyn]

While I'm playing with Hawaii #2, I keep getting the idea from these and other captures that these videos are 6-hour EP tapes. Or maybe I've just been watching this stuff for too long. Maybe I should watch reruns of Castle on TNT for an hour or two. A little time watching Stana Katic might enliven my eyesight.

BTW,why does Hawaii #2 have 577 frames but stops and freezes at frame 421 and doesn't move after that, even though it keeps "playing" ? ? Or is it just me?

[RWH]

Hawaii #2 freeze for me too.

[Oldretiredguy]

It's probably something I did wrong. I played it using Windows media player and it did the same thing for me too.


R

[Brad]

the TBC/NR filter is also increasing the gain (brighter picture, more contrast) and crushing super blacks.

Now this is odd. I've never seen this device capture superblacks before!

[sanlyn]

If you want, oldretiredguy, you should try it again. You might have closed VirtualDub before the file was finished being written. Whenever you encounter something strange like that, bring it up in the forum. Give it another try and see if it plays correctly.

Super blacks: I've seen plenty of crushed blacks in captures over the years. In this case, all of the uploads so far have that problem. It could be the player.

[Oldretiredguy]

I'll have to get to this either later or tomorrow. Tonight is our pool tournament night so I gotta go win some money.

R

[jagabo]

I don't really see the difference you are talking about

Here is the right edge of both videos side by side. On the left is the video without the TBC, on the right is the video with the TBC:



Notice how the black border on the image without TBC isn't straight up and down (it "leans" to the left), whereas border of the image with TBC is straight up and down. That difference is the TBC in action. There is also less wiggle (jitter) at the edge between the border and the picture. That is another function of the TBC.

You can also see that the picture with the TBC enabled (right) is slightly brighter than the other.

Here is a zoom into one of the palm trees from the video with the TBC enabled:



Notice those ghostly lines running parallel to the trunk of the tree? That's where the edge of the tree was in the frames before this one (the camera is panning). They are ghosts caused by a temporal noise reduction filter. But the capture made without the TBC/NR has the same ghosts so they weren't caused by the NR in the VCR.

Here is an enlargement of a dark portion of the image with the brightness brought up:



On the left is the video without TBC/NR, on the right is the video with TBC/NR. Notice how there is more detail visible on the left image (it's not very interesting detail in this particular image but it might be in other images). That's because the dark detail was "crushed" by the TBC/NR.

You should learn to read a waveform monitor graph:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/340804-colorspace-conversation-elaboration?p=212156...=1#post2121568

You can see that the very dark area in this image is too dark.



The darkest parts of the picture should not be in the super-black portion of the waveform graph (marked in yellow/brown in the Histogram() graph). The brightest parts of the image should not be in the super bright area of the graph (also marked in yellow/brown at the top of the graph).

[sanlyn]

The TBC is definitely working. It's especially noticeable at the black borders. The ghosting in the video isn't caused by the NR circuit. It's there whether or not the function is enabled. The NR isn't so aggressive that it removes all the low contrast detail. Unless some other settings were changed, the TBC/NR filter is also increasing the gain (brighter picture, more contrast) and crushing super blacks.

I'd probably leave the TBC/NR circuit on. Except maybe for very dark shots where you're trying to pull detail out of the shadows.

TBC/NR off:


TBC/NR on:

I don't really see the difference you are talking about but again, I don't know what to look at or for.

Ray, you can right-click on an image to see it full-size in the forum image viewer. Here is a small image of one of the pics in jagabo's post, with your post below it as it appears in the usual forum view:


[Attachment 22011 - Click to enlarge]

If you left-click on one of the images, it will display full-size in the image viewer. The pink arrow below shows where you can click "Prev", "Next", "First, "Last:", etc., if there are multiple images. That way, you can see the difference between images.


[Attachment 22012 - Click to enlarge]

If you're viewing images or videos on a laptop you won't be able to see some details, especially if they're dark. Typical laptop screens aren't so good for graphics work.

If you left-click an image in a post and nothing happens, the image is probably already displayed full size by default.

[Oldretiredguy]

My laptop screen is very good and clear. Not sure if I would recognize a better picture. My desktop screen is not as clear as my laptop. Old computer. Also, and this is getting into another area, how do you guys make all the graphics on the pictures that you post? It might come in handy for me later on when I want to start asking questions about particular areas or spots in the frames. I have always wondered how folks do that but never took the time to learn how.

Ray

[RWH]

Widows 7 paint. Shapes.

[Oldretiredguy]

Oh great, I feel another "learning curve" coming on. Something new to try to digest.

R

[RWH]

You can do some stuff with Windows 7 Snipping tool. Once you make a snip, there's a a pen tool and a highlighter tool. There's probably a way to do it avisynth (just kidding, but there probably is.

[RWH]

That's stuff I'm working on to get you set up to deinterlace a file, so you can more clearly see problems, especially when zoomed in. I won't get techie on ya. Just a few steps.

[sanlyn]

I think most people copy frames to the clipboard from VirtualDub, then open a new photo program, and paste from the clipboard. The photos are sometimes resized, combined into a single frame, or you can draw stuff on them, superimpose circles, arrows, or other stuff, using features in the photo app. Sometimes people make a screen capture of the entire screen using the "PrtScn" key on the keyboard (it's usually to the right of the F12 key), paste that into a photo app, then crop the results. The final photos are then saved at high-quality low-compression JPG or lossless PNG.

A frame can be copied to the clipboard in VirtualDub using "Video" -> "Copy source frame to clipboard", or "Video" -> "Copy output frame to clipboard". Some people use video editors to do the same thing, and some encoding and authoring apps let you do it. If you don't intend to do anything fancy with the captured frame, you can paste it into the free Windows Paint app and save it as PNG.

The photo apps I use are an ancient Photoshop Pro v5.5, plus a nifty utility called ImageComposer that was bundled with Microsoft FrontPage 2000, and the free Paint that comes with Windows, or sometimes GIMP (the free multi-featured photo app that many people call the "poor man's Photoshop Pro"), or a very old copy of Paint Shop Pro retail that I got just before Corel bought up the product line and ruined it. Many people spend big bucks for Photoshop Pro and use it the same way they would use free Microsoft PictureIt! or HP Photo Essentials. That would be a total waste of money.

The pics for post 283 and 284 were done in Photoshop Pro. The pics for 313, above, were screen captures processed in ye olde rationally-priced Paint Shop Pro v7. The pink arrows are from the Wingings3 Windows font. The major difference between the cheapie photo apps and the big guys is that with the big guys you have the opportunity to discover a great deal about graphics, including video.

[RWH]

Oldretiredguy

Windows 7 built-in free app Paint, is more than capable of adding arrows and text annotations.

[RWH]

Oldretiredguy

Right now either frame you zoom in on will show interlaced video. It's hard to tell what defects there are.

[RWH]

In Direct Stream Copy Mode You aren't able to use Filters.

Not only optioons but options as well.

[RWH]

In full processing mode Filters become available.

[RWH]

Select Filters. Click Add.

[RWH]

Double Click Deinterlace, or highlight it then click OK.

[RWH]

Click OK.

[RWH]

Click OK here but note the YUV. If yours doesn't say that. Holler. Now when you zoom in on the Output Video Pane it should appear smoother.

[sanlyn]

Mm. Never mind (I had to edit the first version of this post). I would advise against deinterlacing in the manner shown. We are jumping too far ahead anyway.

[Oldretiredguy]

Double posting.

[Oldretiredguy]

Sorry for being absent so long. I had a couple of things come up in my other life. I seem to forget that this is my second life. I just made another Hawaii capture but this time I got a lot of what I'll call noise for lack of a better word. Check it out and let me know what you all think.

R

oooops, for got to include the clip.