Advice needed for converting family VHS tapes to digital

[LMotlow]

ES10 settings, near the end of the AVI video: "Video -> Line-IN NR" is set to "Automatic". It should be set to OFF.

So, that's cool, we know it's not the card. Now all we need is another tape.

[EDIT] Oops, jagabo got here first (previous post).

[jadoggin]

Thanks for the advice Jagabo. First I tried a different tape and it looks MUCH better. You can see it with the attached Capture4.avi. However, it seems like it is choking when I set it to capture as AVI (which I assume is the uncompressed). It drops frames - a lot - and you can see that with the Capture4.avi file. Maybe I just need to reboot so there are no other tasks running? When I set it to anything other than AVI it captures without dropping any frames.

Anyway, I'll try the other methods you suggest to see if the Veggie Tales tape looks any cleaner. Otherwise, it appears as though we may have uncovered the issue.

I've also set the "Video -> Line-IN NR" to OFF. Thanks LMotlow.

So once we've determined that I'm capturing using an acceptable source, is there anything else I need to do to clean it up before I run it through the Editing software?

[LMotlow]

Aha, looks like we're getting somewhere. That's a lot of dropped frames, though. Capping to uncompressed is often a problem but capping to the same hard drive as the OS can cause it, too. I take it you're not doing this on the laptop (ouch!). You're still at an odd frame rate, 32.704 fps.

Isn't there some way the Diamond can capture to huffyuv or Lagarith? I think we have a colorspace problem, though. Anyone with ideas on that?

BTW, for what it's worth...you can get a letterboxed source into 16:9 with some effort -- provided it's a decent source. But things won't be in "high resolution", just a different frame size. After all, low resolution is, well...low. The attachment was corrected and inverse telecined to 23.976 fps, with 3:2 pulldown added for 29.97 play.

[jadoggin]

I take it you're not doing this on the laptop (ouch!). You're still at an odd frame rate, 32.704 fps.

I gave up on my old desktop and moved to my laptop a week ago. So all my recent captures are with my laptop.

Isn't there some way the Diamond can capture to huffyuv or Lagarith? I think we have a colorspace problem, though. Anyone with ideas on that?

So I guess what I could do to capture using the huffyuv codec would be to use VirtualDub and since the laptop is prone to the same issue as my desktop, to run it through AviSynth after to merge the split 240 into the full 480. Seems like a bunch of extra work, but the EZ Grabber software doesn't show frames dropped and I think that would be helpful info.

BTW, for what it's worth...you can get a letterboxed source into 16:9 with some effort -- provided it's a decent source. But things won't be in "high resolution", just a different frame size. After all, low resolution is, well...low. The attachment was corrected and inverse telecined to 23.976 fps, with 3:2 pulldown added for 29.97 play.

I wouldn't really want to do this though, would I?


Ok great news guys! It appears that setting the "Line-IN NR" on the ES10 to OFF has mostly resolved the issue on the Veggie Tales tape. It looks so much better. I've included a cap for you to compare with the others.

The last thing I'm wondering is if I would get any noticeable results from using an S-VHS player. And by noticeable, I mean by a non-professional eye. In other words, would it really be worth the money? I'm ok with that if it is. So far, I'm really impressed with the ES10 and how it has made it look better.

[LMotlow]

BTW, for what it's worth...you can get a letterboxed source into 16:9 with some effort -- provided it's a decent source. But things won't be in "high resolution", just a different frame size. After all, low resolution is, well...low. The attachment was corrected and inverse telecined to 23.976 fps, with 3:2 pulldown added for 29.97 play.

I wouldn't really want to do this though, would I?

If you get a letterboxed image in a 4:3 frame -- a lot of old tapes are made that way -- you could get 16:9 full frame from it. It involves careful cleanup and proper resizing. With really corrupt video, it'll look like doodoo no matter how hard you try.

In any case, you can't do thorough clean up with telecined tape source unless telecine is removed. That capture was well over 29.97 fps, don't know why you're getting those weird frame rates. Resize or not, you have to remove telecine for almost all cleanup operations. Replace it later when you encode. Capture3 was corrected in Avisynth:

AssumeFPS("ntsc_video")  #< get the frame rate correct.
AssumeTFF().TFM().TDecimate()  #<- remove telecine. Video is now 23.976 progressive
AssumeFPS("ntsc_film",sync_audio=true)  #<  just a step to ensure audio sync. Will probably be OK anyway without this.
# --------- do a bunch of processing, restore 29.97 with 3:2 pulldown in encode step ------------

Capture1 and Capture2 were telecined.

[EDIT] Capture 4 is, too.

[jadoggin]

Ok, I think I understand what you are telling me. However, none of my family tapes are letterboxed, but are the full 4:3. So in this case I don't think it would apply. However, I'm amazed at how you took that video and made it look so much better (without the telecine lines). So won't all of my caps be telecined? I would like my final video to not have any of these interlaced/telecined lines in them so it will look good on both a computer and a TV. Is that possible?

Note, check out the video (Capture5) that finally finished uploading. This is with the Line-IN NR" set to OFF.

[jagabo]

So won't all of my caps be telecined?

Home video shot with a camcorder will be interlaced. IVTC would not be appropriate. Whether you deinterlace or not depends on how the video will be viewed. For DVD you would leave it interlaced. For computer viewing you could double speed deinterlace.

[jadoggin]

So they will either look good on the TV or the computer, but not both.

The stacked image in the preview window may mean it's failing to weave the two fields together, just stacking one on top of the other. If that's what's happening it can be fixed with AviSynth.

Alright, I'd really like to use VirtualDub, so can you tell me what script I can use with AviSynth to fix this stacked image issue?

[jagabo]

So they will either look good on the TV or the computer, but not both.

Not necessarily. DVD doesn't support 60 fps video so you have to encode interlaced at 30 fps. Of course, your source is 30i so that's not a problem. If you play the DVD on a computer using software that deinterlaces on the fly you will get a similar image. On the computer you can smart bob to 60 fps and it will play just fine. If you have a media player or computer connected to your TV you may be able to play the 60 fps video there too.

The stacked image in the preview window may mean it's failing to weave the two fields together, just stacking one on top of the other. If that's what's happening it can be fixed with AviSynth.

Alright, I'd really like to use VirtualDub, so can you tell me what script I can use with AviSynth to fix this stacked image issue?

You never provided a 60 Hz cap or a 30 Hz stacked cap so I can't say for sure if this will "fix" your capture problem. A 60 Hz field cap would be converted to interlaced video with something like:

AviSource("filename.avi")
AssumeFieldBased()
AssumeTFF() # or BFF, whichever is approriate
Weave()

A stacked cap (two fields in the frame but stacked instead of woven, what I think you're seeing in VirtualDub's preview window):

AviSource("filename.avi")
Interleave(Crop(0,0,720,240), Crop(0,240,720,240))
AssumeFieldBased()
AssumeTFF() # or BFF, whichever is approriate
Weave()

Then you would follow that with standard interlaced video processing.