Basic Virtualdub2 filters for VHS clean-up from LegacyBox digitization?

[kumba94]

Hi,

I am looking for some advice on a basic sequence of filters, some starting settings, and the order to use them in Virtualdub2 to do cleanups on some VHS videos that were digitized using LegacyBox's service. I am not looking to get too fancy. I figure there's probably going to be some deinterlacing (use Yadif, I presume, but what's all this about field folding and such?), Chroma cleanup (need plugin recommendations for this), denoising (recommendations here too), and hopefully some basic resizing to 720p or 1080p so it'll display reasonably well on modern flat panel TVs (I believe this is where Lanzcos3 comes into play). I've got an odd mix of random tapes that were selected by family members for digitization, and I haven't even been through all of the digitized files yet, so I am not completely sure what all I have got from this service. Hence why I am looking for a short list of filters and some starting settings, and then I am sure I will go down many rabbit holes experimenting from there to try and get these files all cleaned up in time for the holidays.

My current video editing toolbox includes Vdub2, Shotcut, Avidemux, and Handbrake, plus Ocenaudio for raw audio editing. I also have access to ffmpeg and other toys on a Linux box on my network, if needed. I am not interested in learning to use AviSynth for this task, as I am heavily reliant on instant visual feedback, which isn't possible with a script-based setup. I also can't do my own recapture. I know that custom capture setups are probably going to beat whatever rigs these digitization services use, but I literally lack the room on my desk for that right now. It's a sacrifice I'll have to accept, as the convenience factor wins out here.

As far as my Vdub2 setup, I have the base filters it comes with plus I recently downloaded and installed the latest set from JPSDR's Github. I also have the Deshaker 3.1 plugin I found on another thread on these forums. Supposedly, there used to be a tranche of filters at infognition.com/VirtualDubFilters/, but that address is offline it looks (connection refused by the site). Are there other repositories of filters for Vdub2 I should look at and what filters should I look for from those? I tried searching Google for some of this, but SkyNet and me are not on very good terms right now, so it wasn't a very fruitful search effort.

Thanks!

[dellsam34]

Best to recapture in lossless and start from there, There is no quality left to compromise from LegacyBox's service, Anything you do to it will further the severity of the damage.

[johnmeyer]

Best to recapture in lossless and start from there, There is no quality left to compromise from LegacyBox's service, Anything you do to it will further the severity of the damage.

That is not very helpful. The guy just spent a lot of money to get his videos transferred. I haven't seen Legacy Box's video transfers, but I have done a great deal of work with their slide and negative transfers, and they were done competently.

I suggest the OP go to DigitalFAQ and look at some of the information there.

As far as what you need to do, that depends a lot on the nature and quality of your original videos. I strongly advise against deinterlacing and resizing. Let your TV do that. Most modern TVs are competent. Instead, concentrate on reducing the artifacts that are so common with VHS. I suggest starting with something like this script which attempts to reduce chroma shimmer, and which will reduce quite a bit of the noise which is usually the most obnoxious visual artifact in VHS tapes.

I removed all the multi-threading code, and also removed the code for reducing droupouts/comets in order to simplify the script.

You will find dozens of other scripts if you search this forum, and also search the doom9.org forum. Most of these other scripts will be better than mine.

Just to repeat: don't waste your time deinterlacing and don't bother to up-res. You gain virtually nothing, your files will have to be larger (if you up-res) and if you are new at this, you introduce quite a few ways to screw things up.

Make sure to pay attention to field order. It should be BFF, but if you get weird back and forth motion in your results (use a Bob filter to view the results if you want to check), then you'll have to change it to TFF.

#Denoiser script for interlaced video using MDegrain2
#This is my recommended starting script for VHS as of April, 2012

Loadplugin("E:\Documents\My Videos\AVISynth\AVISynth Plugins\plugins\MVTools\mvtools2.dll")
LoadPlugin("E:\Documents\My Videos\AVISynth\AVISynth Plugins\plugins\Cnr2.dll")
LoadPlugin("E:\Documents\My Videos\AVISynth\AVISynth Plugins\plugins\Film Restoration\Script_and_Plugins\RemoveGrainSSE2.dll")


#Modify this line to point to your video file
source=AVISource("E:\fs.avi").killaudio().AssumeBFF()
chroma=source.Cnr2("oxx",8,16,191,100,255,32,255,false) #VHS
output=MDegrain2i2(chroma,4,2,400,0)  

return output

#Alternate output. Use one of these three options, instead of Return Output, when setting MDegrain parameters
#stackvertical(source,output)
#stackhorizontal(source,output)

#Third option. Delete /* and */ to enable. This alternates the original with the restored frames.
#REALLY useful.
/*
return Interleave(
\    source
\  , output
\ )
*/


#-------------------------------

function MDegrain2i2(clip source, int "blksize", int "overlap", int "denoising_strength", int "dct")
{
Vshift=0 # 2 lines per bobbed-field per tape generation (PAL); original=2; copy=4 etc
Hshift=0 # determine experimentally 
overlap=default(overlap,0) # overlap value (0 to 4 for blksize=8)
denoising_strength=default(denoising_strength, 400)
dct=default(dct,0) # use dct=1 for clip with light flicker

fields=source.SeparateFields() # separate by fields

#This line gets rid of vertical chroma halo
#fields=MergeChroma(fields,crop(fields,Hshift,Vshift,0,0).addborders(0,0,Hshift,Vshift))
#This line will shift chroma down and to the right instead of up and to the left
#fields=MergeChroma(fields,Crop(AddBorders(fields,Hshift,Vshift,0,0),0,0,-Hshift,-Vshift))

super = fields.MSuper(pel=2, sharp=1)
backward_vec2 = super.MAnalyse(isb = true, delta = 2, blksize=blksize, overlap=overlap, dct=dct)
forward_vec2 = super.MAnalyse(isb = false, delta = 2, blksize=blksize, overlap=overlap, dct=dct)
backward_vec4 = super.MAnalyse(isb = true, delta = 4, blksize=blksize, overlap=overlap, dct=dct)
forward_vec4 = super.MAnalyse(isb = false, delta = 4, blksize=blksize, overlap=overlap, dct=dct)

denoised = MDegrain2(fields,super, backward_vec2,forward_vec2,backward_vec4,forward_vec4,thSAD=denoising_strength ) 

Weave(denoised)
}

[dellsam34]

That is not very helpful. The guy just spent a lot of money to get his videos transferred. I haven't seen Legacy Box's video transfers, but I have done a great deal of work with their slide and negative transfers, and they were done competently.

It may not be helpful but it's the hard truth, They are not in it for quality, just for money, You can't polish a turd, That's why I suggested a recapture. Here is a video from one of the members.

[johnmeyer]

The Legacybox film transfers shown in that YouTube video were awful.

As for the 8mm video shown later in that clip, here are links to more-or-less the same frame, captured from my screen while watching the video, comparing the Legacybox transfer to the transfer the person did himself:

Legacybox Transfer


DIY Transfer


Since I think I was one frame off in what I captured from each video, and since I have no idea whether there was any difference in processing done by YouTube with each of the uploads, I can't make too many conclusions. The DIY video capture is better, but not massively so (unlike the Legacybox film capture which was truly awful). I don't understand why the frame rate from Legacybox was anything other than 29.97, so that is disturbing.

My conclusion at this point is that the difference shown in the YouTube video would not be enough for me to do the whole darn project all over again, especially since the next transfer company might have its own set of problems. Other national transfer companies like YesVideo (via Costco, Walmart, etc.) and ScanCafe might not be any better, and finding a local transfer company that is good will have its own set of problems. And, of course, doing a DIY transfer is something most people are not interested in doing, which is why they send their stuff to these companies in the first place.

The OP should probably upload 5-10 seconds of one of the captures so we can take a look. This clip should be created using a tool which simply cuts, but does not re-encode. The OP should also open the video file in Mediainfo and post the result so we can see if the video is non-standard in any way.

[Alwyn]

Rixster, what format are your files from Legacybox in? MP4? AVI? A copy and paste from the "text" view of the Mediainfo readout for one of them would be good for us to work out what to suggest.

That's why I suggested a recapture.

Read his post. He can't.

[Alwyn]

You can't polish a turd

So what's the point of AVISynth? Of course you can, and it is totally up to the eye of the beholder whether a video is acceptable or not, before or after polishing.

[dellsam34]

It has nothing to do with AVIsynth or a surgical knife for that matters, those are just tools. If you know AVIsynth you should know that once the damage is done in capturing there is little that can be done without further damaging the quality of the final result, just like a plastic surgeon trying to fix a 70 years old woman's face.

[Alwyn]

Nonsense. You get a noisy capture, you denoise it. You get displaced colours, you move them. Colours out? Brightness/contrast off? All can be improved.

just like a plastic surgeon trying to fix a 70 years old woman's face.

Yes, boob jobs, wrinkles removal, lips boost, none of these can be done.

The only reason AVISynth exists is to improve existing captures.

[dellsam34]

I think it's clear from your reasoning that there is no point of arguing, Sure everything works just that way.

[kumba94]

Rixster, what format are your files from Legacybox in? MP4? AVI? A copy and paste from the "text" view of the Mediainfo readout for one of them would be good for us to work out what to suggest.

That's why I suggested a recapture.

Read his post. He can't.

Well, this thread took off and I got virtually no notifications. Luckily, I had it open in a browser tab that I forgot about. In any event, to clarify, the reason I can't do recaptures is because I literally lack the equipment, including a really good VCR for the VHS cassettes, and my main computer build is out of PCIe slots for a built-in video capture card (running NVME, so the basic Ryzen CPUs don't give you a lot of lanes to work with, and I'm not forking out for a threadripper). As for external capture devices....I've not had the best of luck with those. A few months ago, I bought an Elgato HD60X to mess around with captures from my Nintendo Switch and to also learn a little about cleaning up video in general. It's not bad, and I've definitely learned some things, especially a bit about VirtualDub2, but it still doesn't feel like the highest-quality kit (and it was only usable by ditching Elgato's default garbage software and going with OBS Studio)

And even if I had the equipment to do my own captures, I am out of room for said equipment on my desk. Between my UPS, weather radio, several network appliances, main desktop, monitor, a video game console, and other assorted odd'n'ends, there isn't room for setting up (properly) a video capture setup. And completely rearranging things just for that setup ain't happening, either. That's why I went with a commercial capture service. Quality isn't that much of a concern, because right now, for my family, just being able to see these videos again after years of them sitting in various cabinets is a treat unto itself.

I suggest the OP go to DigitalFAQ and look at some of the information there.

As far as what you need to do, that depends a lot on the nature and quality of your original videos. I strongly advise against deinterlacing and resizing. Let your TV do that. Most modern TVs are competent. Instead, concentrate on reducing the artifacts that are so common with VHS. I suggest starting with something like this script which attempts to reduce chroma shimmer, and which will reduce quite a bit of the noise which is usually the most obnoxious visual artifact in VHS tapes.

I removed all the multi-threading code, and also removed the code for reducing droupouts/comets in order to simplify the script.

You will find dozens of other scripts if you search this forum, and also search the doom9.org forum. Most of these other scripts will be better than mine.

Just to repeat: don't waste your time deinterlacing and don't bother to up-res. You gain virtually nothing, your files will have to be larger (if you up-res) and if you are new at this, you introduce quite a few ways to screw things up.

Best response here so far, thank you. Regarding DigitalFaq, I've been there a few times, but their site is protected by CloudFlare's anti-DDoS protection racket, and the web proxy I run on my network triggers the anti-DDoS stuff for some absurd reason, so getting access to their site is very hit-or-miss for me. Not a problem exclusive to that site, as I have similar issues on a number of other sites as well, all "protected" by CloudFlare. I can turn my proxy off or bypass it if really needed, but it's annoying to constantly have to keep doing that, and Cloudflare has no method of contacting them to ask about what is going on with their systems mistaking me for a botnet and how to fix it so it stops.

As far as video quality, they are all classic old VHS tapes. I believe many of them are the ~4hr versions, though I *think* one or two are the extended-run ~6hr ones. They are old, though, as one of the tapes is from ~1989 and it's the one I've looked at the resultant capture on so far, and really have no issues with what LegacyBox did. I haven't had time to play with cleaning things up, though, but hope to get a few fixed up in the next week or so. There are also a couple of VHS-C tapes, which needed either a matching camcorder for playback or some kind of cassette adapter for a standard-sized VCR, neither of which I have.

Regarding TVs, hah, no modern TV here. I still have a working Sony Trinitron HDTV CRT tube in 4:3 format. That said, it handles old formats really well, including playback from some laserdiscs I have. It's terrible with standard definition video games, though....N64 is unplayable on it, while PS2 is acceptable. Age is starting to get to it, as it sometimes turns itself off and then blinks an error code because of some power regulator chips in it starting to go bad. Might be repairable, but I haven't been using it much lately, so it's somewhere down on the TODO list.

For the AviSynth script, thank you for that. I doubt I'll invest the time to set AviSynth up in the next few days, but I can use the function parameters to maybe get maybe-similar results in VirtualDub2 after I finally found some websites that still have Vdub plugins available for download (many of the links I found are offline). I am no stranger to command-line setups, especially with the 5-6 Linux/BSD based systems I have scattered around, but sometimes, you just want a UI for some tasks, and as I indicated in my OP, I rely very heavily on visual feedback for video editing. I did read that there was some kind of AviSynth UI framework in Python, but last I recall trying to use it, it was not happy with how I had Python setup on my Windows machine, and I didn't feel like spending a lot of time trying to debug it (and changing Python was out of the question, since I need it a certain way for my own Python development). Maybe I'll try again at some point down the road.

And the last bit, do computer monitors do the same as a standard TV for their own deinterlacing and upscaling stuff? Some quick tests I did in Vdub with deinterlacing the 1989 cassette looked pretty good, to my eye anyways. At the time I was messing with it, I hadn't found any working Vdub filters, though, so I did not get around to trying other tricks, like fixing chroma and whatnot. Now that I have a small collection of those plugins, I need to revisit some instructions I found and give them a go in Vdub2. And file size isn't a really big concern if I did a little bit of upscaling. I've been mitigating the file size issue by encoding to HVEC H.265, which just absolutely smashes file sizes down (and H.266 should be even better once it gets wider adoption).

[themaster1]

To my eyes you don't need a lot of plugins :
Camcorder denoiser
Colormill
Rgbeq )colors work on Rgb, hue(s) etc..
Gradation curves
These are the ones i use since many years reliably

[jagabo]

do computer monitors do the same as a standard TV for their own deinterlacing and upscaling stuff?

Generally, the media player or graphics card does the deinterlacing when you play interlaced video on a computer, not the monitor.

[Bwaak]

The DIY video capture is better, but not massively so

I think it is massively better, both in terms of luma detail, as well as chroma, and AFAIK it is not even an uncompressed capture over SVIdeo that the regulars of the forum fancy, but a Hi8 played in a Digital8 camcorder, outputting DV. LegacyBox's version looks like it is a third of fourth VHS generation.

I bet that the files returned from LegacyBox are 30p, so no further deinterlacing is required, the unrepairable damage has likely been already done. It would be fun to see a sample though. In any case, I suppose "classic old VHS tapes" is some 1960s fluff broadcast in 1980s (or 1980s fluff, which was no better), not Westinghouse Studio One or Playhouse 90, so no loss really. I don't think it looks much worse that what is being broadcast on bit-starved OTA subchannels. I suppose, some of this stuff can be found on DVD, in particular from Netflix, but maybe at a library as well.