Capturing analog Betacam..Interlacing issue

[Joey Bagodonuts]

Hello all,

I am trying to capture some 1st gen Betacam tapes (not SP or digital). I have tried many different ways to properly deinterlace them...all resulting in failure. I have tried capturing with the following settings with NO deinterlacing on capture:
480x320 , 29.97
960x640, 59.94

Then I try an deinterlace after the fact, by either blending, interpolating, bobbing, Yadif, blending 2x, interpolating 2x, Yadif 2x....nothing. Still looks like crap. I have tried both top and bottom fields first (I was told however, that Betacam standard it Top First, but I gave them both a go as nothing was working).

I have also tried deinterlacing directly on capture (I am using OBS)... some problems are solved, but others are introduced (a rounded back chair looks jagged for example...regardless of deinterlacing type).

Any suggestions? Or is this just the nature of an almost 40 year old technology and it is what it is? The artifacts are significant, and there is not all that much movement (they are interviews...2 people just moving around in their chairs).

Thanks so much...
Joey

[jagabo]

Always capture with the number of scan lines of the source -- 480 scan lines. It's traditional to capture NTSC videe as 704x480 or 720x480. Once you get that right you can start deinterlacing.

[Joey Bagodonuts]

It's traditional to capture NTSC videe as 704x480 or 720x480. Once you get that right you can start deinterlacing.

Thanks for the reply! I was told that Betacam's native resolution was 480x320....that's why I used those numbers. If my info was incorrect, that might explain things. Thnx again!

[dellsam34]

NTSC standard regardless what tape recorded on is always 525 horizontal scan lines, Almost 60 fields a second, The horizontal resolution of luma and chroma depends on the format (pro, consumer, tape speed, quality of tape formulation ....etc). However any analog format brought to the digital world is going to be based on the D1 standard 720x480 (720x576 PAL/SECAM) full scan then crop to 704x480 (704x480 PAL/SECAM) to remove the safety borders.

So at the end it doesn't matter if Betcam, Betacam SP, 2" reel2reel, VHS, Betamax, Video8 ...etc.

Here is a Betcam SP capture cropped to 704x480 and de-interlaced with QTGMC then encoded to h.264.

[lordsmurf]

I was told that Betacam's native resolution was 480x320....
If my info was incorrect,

That was not correct.
Somebody swapped numbers

All NTSC analog is x486/x480 in digital equivalency.

320 is probably also a max theory res, not a true res.
VHS is often touted as being 320x480, but the number is BS, actual is often more like 250x480.

[Joey Bagodonuts]

Thank you to all who responded!

I experimented again last night capturing at the recommended 720x480 and the deinterlacing worked the way I was hoping for.

To jagabo and dellsam34 .... your comments were most useful and welcomed. Thanks again!

Joey