Way too shakey captured VHS video

[aviramyi]

Hey all! I think it's worth mentioning that I have decided to open this thread after about 2 and a half hours of reading this and other forums in the process of trying to solve this problem. I'm having a sever problem of a shaking video captured from a VHS player.

My setup:
-consumer toshiba VHS player
-easycap (yes I know... please watch the sample before blaming it on the easycap)
-windows 10 laptop running OBS.

https://youtu.be/O8RU8PkwnuM

I've setup the OBS to different fps settings, but the video still shakes like crazy.
please ignore the wrong resolution and sound issues. those are secondary for me right now.

Thank you in advance!

[KarMa]

Try capturing with Virtualdub or AmaRecTV. OBS isn't really used for VHS recordings. Have you tried noncommerical tapes, like home recordings as Macrovision may be playing a role in this. Otherwise it's probably your capture device (easycap).

[JVRaines]

Your tape and/or player has large horizontal timing problems and Easycap is doing a halfway job with them. Is the VCR transport path clean? Pinch roller in good condition? How about the cassette? Any hangups or obstructions? If all else fails, you can probably fix with a recommended DVD recorder as a conditioner in the signal chain.

[aviramyi]

Thank you for your replies!

I have tried with a non-commercial tape - same issue.
When I connect the same VHS player to my TV, the very same tape and player works just fine.

@JVRaines, if what you are suggesting is the problem here, shouldn't I experience the same issues when plugging the tape and the player to my TV?

@KarMa, Virtualdub has actually done worst. I can't upload a sample right now but it showed dense flicking-horizontal lines, about 30 of them from the top of the frame to the bottom, which got me hoping that I'm dealing with a software issue, but who knows...

[JVRaines]

@JVRaines, if what you are suggesting is the problem here, shouldn't I experience the same issues when plugging the tape and the player to my TV?

TVs have circuitry to follow wide timing variations. Analog-to-digital converters have to be much more picky.

[dellsam34]

I put my money on the low quality easycap. I hope I'm not wrong.
Get one of those Pinnacle capture devices from late 90's to early 2000's they are cheap and drivers can be found here:
http://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/Hardware_Installer/readmeHW10.htm
Not sure about windows 10 though, Most people who are hard core capturers use WinXP and Win7 platforms.

[rsnitsch]

I had the same problem and developed my own tool (free to use) to fix such horizontal shaking in digitized videos: https://github.com/rsnitsch/vhs-deshaker

I know this thread is old but this issue keeps being posted around the internet. If you search for this issue via Google etc, this thread is one of the top results. I hope my tool helps people to fix their videos...

[oln]

Interesting. Ideally one would get at the problem at the source (with a TBC in some form) before the video is turned into a digital file, but for cases that's not possible. Whether it's due to lack of equipment or having to deal with something where the source material is lost it's useful to have something that can help improve the result a bit at the very least.

[rsnitsch]

Interesting. Ideally one would get at the problem at the source (with a TBC in some form) before the video is turned into a digital file, but for cases that's not possible. Whether it's due to lack of equipment or having to deal with something where the source material is lost it's useful to have something that can help improve the result a bit at the very least.

Yeah, as a matter of fact the first name I picked for my tool was "post-mortem-tbc". If you have any chance to redo the conversion to digital properly (for example with TBC, although that might not always be the issue) then that should always be preferred... always fix the problem at the source. This tool is only a last resort.

In my case the shaking was only discovered long after the videos were converted to digital. (Because the shaking only appeared in a few of the videos. Most videos were actually fine...)

[Bwaak]

I was thinking of something similar myself. How does it cope with tiny sub-pixel shake from frame to frame? Basically, when fields are stabilized individually, but there is jitter between them, so after the video is deinterlaced, there is jitter between frames?

I saw johnmeyer's script on doom9 that tries to correct vertical shaking, it was based on the idea of checking brightness of pixels on the top and bottom and calculate whether a frame has moved. I was thinking doing similar for horizontal movement, but because the shaking is very faint, I was thinking of increasing horizontal resolution to, say, 4x. This way quarter-pixel shake would be converted to a whole pixel, which would be easier to fix by shifting the frame one pixel, then the frame would be downsized back.

This would help immensely with capture cards that can stabilize on field by field basis.

It would be nice if you made your tool as an Avisynth or VDub plugin, but beggars cannot be choosers I am grateful for what you are offering!

[lollo]

Yeah, as a matter of fact the first name I picked for my tool was "post-mortem-tbc".

We are just discussing about it in your doom9 thread: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=174756

[Josh1971]

Interesting. Ideally one would get at the problem at the source (with a TBC in some form) before the video is turned into a digital file, but for cases that's not possible. Whether it's due to lack of equipment or having to deal with something where the source material is lost it's useful to have something that can help improve the result a bit at the very least.

Yeah, as a matter of fact the first name I picked for my tool was "post-mortem-tbc". If you have any chance to redo the conversion to digital properly (for example with TBC, although that might not always be the issue) then that should always be preferred... always fix the problem at the source. This tool is only a last resort.

In my case the shaking was only discovered long after the videos were converted to digital. (Because the shaking only appeared in a few of the videos. Most videos were actually fine...)

That is a great tool @rsnitsch. Are you able to create a tool that will focus on the top of the video. For those of us who don't have the original tape, I can't figure out how to correct such a problem. I think you have the right approach to this.


[Attachment 70832 - Click to enlarge]

[dellsam34]

The best way is to mask it, Even if the lines are shifted back to their original position you will end up with a black triagle on the right side just like the one on the left side, You can't bring back what is missing.

[Josh1971]

Thanks @dellsam34, the top area is such a big chunk, I think it would be worth it. I thought I could correct it or partially correct it in premiere pro, but its too skewed

[rsnitsch]

Interesting. Ideally one would get at the problem at the source (with a TBC in some form) before the video is turned into a digital file, but for cases that's not possible. Whether it's due to lack of equipment or having to deal with something where the source material is lost it's useful to have something that can help improve the result a bit at the very least.

Yeah, as a matter of fact the first name I picked for my tool was "post-mortem-tbc". If you have any chance to redo the conversion to digital properly (for example with TBC, although that might not always be the issue) then that should always be preferred... always fix the problem at the source. This tool is only a last resort.

In my case the shaking was only discovered long after the videos were converted to digital. (Because the shaking only appeared in a few of the videos. Most videos were actually fine...)

That is a great tool @rsnitsch. Are you able to create a tool that will focus on the top of the video. For those of us who don't have the original tape, I can't figure out how to correct such a problem. I think you have the right approach to this.


[Attachment 70832 - Click to enlarge]

I think vhs-deshaker must be changed/extended in two ways before it can be used for such a video:

• Most important: Add the possibility to change the colRange parameter. The colRange parameter basically limits how big the horizontal distortions can be. It is deliberately kept small by default because in my own videos the horizontal distortions were alternating like crazy (very bad shaking) but very small in terms of the shift. Currently there is no way of changing the parameter except recompiling the code yourself. I thought of adding a commandline option for that like --col-range <some-number>.
  
• Add the possibility to specify a vertical subrange of image rows to be fixed. First, the video will be processed much faster if analysis is restricted to the section at the top. Second, vhs-deshaker isn't perfect and sometimes can induce new shaking/distortions that weren't there in the original video. So it's best to not touch the bottom part of the video which looks pretty perfect to me.

I don't know when I will have the time for these changes. Is it possible that you send me a small clip of that video so I can test it? Maybe there are other changes that need to be made for it to work well...

[Josh1971]

Interesting. Ideally one would get at the problem at the source (with a TBC in some form) before the video is turned into a digital file, but for cases that's not possible. Whether it's due to lack of equipment or having to deal with something where the source material is lost it's useful to have something that can help improve the result a bit at the very least.

Yeah, as a matter of fact the first name I picked for my tool was "post-mortem-tbc". If you have any chance to redo the conversion to digital properly (for example with TBC, although that might not always be the issue) then that should always be preferred... always fix the problem at the source. This tool is only a last resort.

In my case the shaking was only discovered long after the videos were converted to digital. (Because the shaking only appeared in a few of the videos. Most videos were actually fine...)

That is a great tool @rsnitsch. Are you able to create a tool that will focus on the top of the video. For those of us who don't have the original tape, I can't figure out how to correct such a problem. I think you have the right approach to this.


[Attachment 70832 - Click to enlarge]

I think vhs-deshaker must be changed/extended in two ways before it can be used for such a video:

• Most important: Add the possibility to change the colRange parameter. The colRange parameter basically limits how big the horizontal distortions can be. It is deliberately kept small by default because in my own videos the horizontal distortions were alternating like crazy (very bad shaking) but very small in terms of the shift. Currently there is no way of changing the parameter except recompiling the code yourself. I thought of adding a commandline option for that like --col-range <some-number>.
  
• Add the possibility to specify a vertical subrange of image rows to be fixed. First, the video will be processed much faster if analysis is restricted to the section at the top. Second, vhs-deshaker isn't perfect and sometimes can induce new shaking/distortions that weren't there in the original video. So it's best to not touch the bottom part of the video which looks pretty perfect to me.

I don't know when I will have the time for these changes. Is it possible that you send me a small clip of that video so I can test it? Maybe there are other changes that need to be made for it to work well...

Thank you for the quick reply. I'm attaching two sample videos. One I managed to almost fix perfectly with premiere pro, its wasn't skewed too badly, there is a before and after. The other one is extremely skewed on top.
https://youtu.be/6U9a0YyOVMI
https://youtu.be/450vIdqDJdM
https://youtu.be/2849o_T11WM

[Josh1971]

out of curiosity, I focused on the top part of the video and I manually aligned multiple thin horizontal sections to see if there is a potential fix to such a problem. Just to get a general idea. If I was more careful in my cropping, perhaps thinner sections, I think it would be a cleaner image, it is just very tough to see what is being cropped when its only few pixels in size. The shaking left and right was the revelation to me. The top part of the video isn't entirely lost as before. @rsnitsch, I believe more and more that a solution is there to fix these type of tearing. Have you made any progress in your program?


https://youtu.be/DOAw8eHEh00