Can anyone can send me any pointers on tweaking old PAL camera recordings?

[friendly_jacek]

hi. i hope someone will answer this (unlike my very first post here several years ago).

finally i fixed my old multisystem VCR and can capture some more of old (early to mid 90's) personal movies shot with VHS and VHS-C PAL (i believe PAL-B) cameras (long lost or broken since).

i use an old PCI video capture card with Connexant BT8X8 chip (KWorld TV878RF) and BTwincap WDM drivers, newest virtualdub, 720x576, 25fps, and huffyuv. sadly, the signal has a lot of noise. i tried to denoise in post capture, but it was slow, not much (if any) improvements, and the file size went up twice (lost compression?). maybe it's better to use virtualdub's noise reduction during capture?

also looks like i need to get some sort of TBC. i lost lots of time sorting the options before finding the TBC post by lordsmurf. Now, i'm working on getting one of the ones he recommended cheaply.

i've seen all the stickies i could find and read the long doom9's guide on capturing. they had a long explanation how to fix colors and for some reason i can't find those color adjustment filters in any virtualdub versions i have.

incidentally, the colors were nice and vibrant during the trial captures a day ago, and i can't find way to get those colors back. i did a number of various trials of the same video last night with lots of virtualdub options and colors are all dull. is there some settings on the capture card i missed?

i know i'm rambling and asked a lot of questions. if anyone can send me any pointers on tweaking old PAL camera recordings, i'm much obliged.

PS. one more question. even though i set the capture at 25fps, the real rate is lower, like 24.8 per VD. is this a problem? i has some problems with AV sync initially when i captured uncompressed, and it went away after using the newest VD and huffyuv compression. any connection there?

also, if the final DVD is going to be played in DVD player, i don't need to deinterlace, right?

[jagabo]

Generally, good noise filtering is too slow to run while capturing. It will cause dropped frames, loss of A/V sync, etc.

If you don't select a compression codec when saving from VirtualDub it will save as uncompressed RGB. That is probably what caused your huffyuv compressed source to grow larger. Use Video -> Compression... to select a compression codec and configure it.

You may be able to adjust colors during capture using the capture device's video processing amp. It's location in the capture devices filters varies but look through Video -> Capture Pin, Capture Filter, Crossbar, etc. It will look something like:



To increase the saturation (or otherwise adjust colors, brightness, etc.) after capturing there are many choices. First you need to add a filter using Video -> Filters..., then pressing the Add button. Try using the built in HSV Adjust filter. It can change the hue, saturation, and value (brightness). Increasing the saturation will make colors more vibrant.

Why do you think you need a TBC? What problem are you looking to solve?

PAL video should give you a 25 fps video file. If you end up with some other rate you probably dropped frames. Capturing uncompressed is likely to run into a disk I/O bottleneck, hence your loss of A/V sync. Compressing with huffyuv gets the disk I/O low enough to prevent that.

[johns0]

friendly_jacek-Next time you make a new thread please post a more informative title rather than 'i have a question',for this time i changed the title.

[friendly_jacek]

Generally, good noise filtering is too slow to run while capturing.

the idea about noise reduction while capturing came from this guide: http://dvdguide.ennik.com/#step2



the noise reduction effects were very noticeable, but like i said there was bad sync between audio-video.

thanks for the other points. I need to check those extra settings.

BTW, i'm thinking about TBC because vertical lines are wiggly and not straight. I've read online that TBC help with that. there are also fair numbers of horizontal lines, just like this example i found on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMA5aH_olAQ

[jagabo]

The more you do while capturing the more you're likely to drop frames and lose A/V sync. Try running Neat Video (one of the better NR filters for VirtualDub, though often overdone) while capturing. It will be a disaster!

[friendly_jacek]

You may be able to adjust colors during capture using the capture device's video processing amp. It's location in the capture devices filters varies but look through Video -> Capture Pin, Capture Filter, Crossbar, etc. It will look something like:

unfortunately, those are grayed out in mine. but there are some settings under video-source. i noticed that there was an option to check auto saturation and that did the trick. the colors are bright, maybe more so than natural, but more eye pleasing than the very flat results before. will do some more tests if that and the NR doesn't mess AV sync while capturing compressed.

[jagabo]

You usually don't want to use auto-anything. It usually ends up introducing more problems than it fixes. For example, in a shot with a dark background an auto brightness control will lighten it up. But if someone walks into the frame wearing a bright white shirt the auto brightness control will turn down and the picture will darken. That's much harder to fix than just brightening or darkening the shot in post. Auto sharpening is worse than useless with VHS sources. It will only increase noise.

Once again, if you're looking to get good quality you should capture without any filtering then do your filtering later.

[friendly_jacek]

Once again, if you're looking to get good quality you should capture without any filtering then do your filtering later.

of course you are right here. i'm going to manually adjust the HSV filter settings to mimic the auto saturation results i liked. i'll also remove the auto sharpness that was there by default. in the meantime i found this great resource on PAL filtering, much better than the doom9 guide that was mostly applicable to NTCS i guess: http://www.engon.de/audio/vhs4_en.htm

according to the guide, deinterlace is a must. i was under the impression it was not needed for DVD burning as DVD players have deinterlacing function for progressive playback. is that right?

EDIT: ok i searched and found some previous posts from both jagaboro and lordsmurf confirming no need to deinterlace for DVD format.

looks like this guide is more oriented for DVD and i'll stick with his filters and maybe even experiment with Deshake: http://www.codecpage.com/cleaning.html

thanks again!

[LMotlow]

Once again, if you're looking to get good quality you should capture without any filtering then do your filtering later.

of course you are right here. i'm going to manually adjust the HSV filter settings to mimic the auto saturation results i liked. i'll also remove the auto sharpness that was there by default. in the meantime i found this great resource on PAL filtering, much better than the doom9 guide that was mostly applicable to NTCS i guess: http://www.engon.de/audio/vhs4_en.htm

according to the guide, deinterlace is a must. i was under the impression it was not needed for DVD burning as DVD players have deinterlacing function. is that right?

Whaaaat? That's not just a bad idea, it's goofy. And your logic is outta sight. Many video formats are interlaced for a number of good reasons, and that includes many BluRay formats. Forgive me, guy, but almost everything that your marvelous guide suggested has caused one headache after another. Seriously. Once you get over that oversaturation gimmick, it'll be too late to clean your videos. High saturation runs into illegal video levels (blown out highlights, crushed darks, halos, bleeding, other problems you shouldn't have to put up with). Any color problem with your sources -- and they have plenty -- will look worse.

i'm thinking about TBC because vertical lines are wiggly and not straight. I've read online that TBC help with that.

lordsmurf (and everyone else) recommend two types of tbc, both of which you need. A line-level tbc helps straighten line timing sync and cure wiggles and jitter by correcting scanline timing within frames. A frame-level tbc corrects frame timing and helps with audio sync and dropped frames. Each type of tbc addresses different problems.

i tried to denoise in post capture, but it was slow, not much (if any) improvements, and the file size went up twice (lost compression?). maybe it's better to use virtualdub's noise reduction during capture?

Some denoisers are slow, some aren't. Depends on what you used and your settings and the kind of noise you're after. We need more info about what you did, and we need a noisy sample to see what you're talking about. There are all kinds of noise.

[friendly_jacek]

Whaaaat? That's not just a bad idea, it's goofy. And your logic is outta sight. Many video formats are interlaced for a number of good reasons, and that includes many BluRay formats. Forgive me, guy, but almost everything that your marvelous guide suggested has caused one headache after another. Seriously. Once you get over that oversaturation gimmick, it'll be too late to clean your videos. High saturation runs into illegal video levels (blown out highlights, crushed darks, halos, bleeding, other problems you shouldn't have to put up with). Any color problem with your sources -- and they have plenty -- will look worse.

Suit yourself. They're your videos.

did you have a bad day today? relax, i'm trying to learn here. if you wrote a better guide, please post it for us to see it.

[LMotlow]

I realize you're in the learning stage, but it looks as if you're ignoring some of jagabo's good advice. First, I'd recommend that you pay more attention to lordsmurf's capture guide, even if it is outdated in some areas, and ask here or at digitalfaq if some specific areas of instructions seem confusing. I'd echo jagabo and suggest that the only filters you really need during VirtualDub capture are brightness and contrast to avoid bad luma and chroma levels mentioned earlier. From what you say about color, I'd make an educated guess and say that your black levels and gamma are likely too high, which is often the case with camera-made video, which gives a low saturation look -- and likely means you're blowing away highlights. I'd try that before permanently oversaturating certain segments of your captures and possibly addressing the problem in the wrong way.

You have the right idea with working with lossless meda. Yeah, it's the longer way around but we all know how crummy analog tape looks anyway and losssless processing is the best (and in the long run, the most effective) wayto fix things.

Rather than get in a hurry and try to address everything at once, it's not feasible to get into post processing or specific capture issues unless we can see a short sample of one of your unprocessed captures. A few seconds, likely not more than 10, with motion of some kind will do. You can make that sample in virtualDub without altering the video's original character by cutting a few seconds and saving the sample using "Direct stream copy" in VirtualDub. Do not apply any filters. 10 seconds of unprocessed YUY2 huffyuv video is well within the upload size limits of this forum. Use the "Upload files/Manage attachment" button at the bottom of the reply window.

And good luck. But let's backtrack a bit and take one thing at a time.

[friendly_jacek]

First, I'd recommend that you pay more attention to lordsmurf's capture guide, even if it is outdated in some areas

i just searched and couldn't find any. i did find his post from 2014 on digitalfaq stating that he's working on one. http://www.lordsmurf.com/ that showed in some old searches is down.

lordsmurf (and everyone else) recommend two types of tbc, both of which you need. A line-level tbc helps straighten line timing sync and cure wiggles and jitter by correcting scanline timing within frames. A frame-level tbc corrects frame timing and helps with audio sync and dropped frames. Each type of tbc addresses different problems.

i just bought cheap used big VooDoo TBC on ebay. i understand it's on lordsmurf's approved list (on the bottom though).

thanks for the ideas. i'll be testing them before the main capture events when i have a (working) TBC.

just for the disclosure, i'm a beginner , but not exactly a noob. my first digital video project was circa 2001 when i put together a shiny DVD with chapters and effects from my then new DV camera. it took me a week of work (weekend and evenings after work) and i was burned out (i had a slow first gen P4 then and small HD).

the second attempt was in 2008 when i captured the most important personal recording (wedding) from VHS. i had a faster PC optimized for video capture, 2 big HDs, etc. it also took me a week and the VCR broke too.

this is my final attempt. it least i'm proud i fixed the VCR myself (a few bad caps in PS, burned diodes on main board, and bad rubber belts). this is a multisystem VCR, hard to replace in USA. this time i'm more mature and less obsessive about editing that takes the most time.

[LMotlow]

The Voodoo is a start, but it's a frame-level tbc. You will still have wiggles on lines and borders and bristly edges. The latter requires a line-level tbc in circuit before a frame tbc.

The digitalfaq main guides are outdated a bit (as you might know), so bypass most of the hardware talk and look into the principles of capture and cleanup, which haven't changed: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm, if you haven't found it already. Several sections might be helpful. Feel free to debate touchy or fuzzy issues with that guide on how to work video problems if you like -- everyone here doesn't agree with 100% of it but many members got their start with it.

[friendly_jacek]

update:
while waiting for the TBC for the quality captures, i did a trial "quick and dirty" 720x576x25 capture using the VD's NR and cropping (removing the bad edges) during the capture and huffyuv compression. color was tweaked by the capture card settings. that gave me no lost frames, good AV sync and only 30-50% CPU load on my "video capture" PC that is fairly slow for today's standards. all i did in post capture was resize back to 720x576 and that was fairly quick (near realtime). then i imported the AVI to nero DVD burning and got a quick near 1 hr DVD from it. i think this is the simplest/quickest way to do it, but not the best quality of course.

i'll do some more trials with a deshaker filter and TBC when that arrives (and hopefully works). in the meantime, i'm also looking for better quality/newer multisystem VCR.

[Brad]

cropping (removing the bad edges) during the capture and huffyuv compression. [...] all i did in post capture was resize back to 720x576 and that was fairly quick (near realtime).

This is a very bad idea, especially if you resize vertically. It's better to mask off any offending areas with black.

[friendly_jacek]

cropping (removing the bad edges) during the capture and huffyuv compression. [...] all i did in post capture was resize back to 720x576 and that was fairly quick (near realtime).

This is a very bad idea, especially if you resize vertically. It's better to mask off any offending areas with black.

you are right. i just read on the digitalfaq guide why masking is better and actually saw that overscan effect on my own old homemade DVD (where i didn't crop). the fact that i'm waiting for the TBC delivery is a blessing in disguise as i'm learning lots of new things. last night i tested the neat video filter and i was very impressed. while the VD capture NR filter is good and better than most plugin NR filters, neat video is the best and removes all the fine horizontal lines in the noisy video. the only thing that needs to be tested is the deshake filter.

[friendly_jacek]

update: i got an used BVTBC8 and seems to be working based on my limited testing. i'm still waiting for a delivery of BNC cable/adaptors before i can restart my capture project. in the meantime, i tried the border control VD filter for masking and seems to work fine without changing the frame resolution. would that be considered an acceptable solution (instead of cropping/resizing)?

i also tried the deshake VD filter for shaky amateur footage and it works great but leaves behind some movement blur that looks weird when there is no movement anymore. i think i'll pass on that.

thank you all for your support.