Vhs capture advice.

[Leanoric]

The video may be progressive (PsF), even on VHS. Nevertheless I re-encoded it as interlaced. That's debatable though.
Just a quick shot with a bit of denoising, colorsharpening and levels adjustment:

Nice one Sharc, looks much better than the clip that I posted. Can that all be done in virtualdub?



Do you have any idea why my captures are progressive? I have progressive turned off in the es10 settings, Is there something that I need to change in virtualdub?

[Sharc]

The video may be progressive (PsF), even on VHS. Nevertheless I re-encoded it as interlaced. That's debatable though.
Just a quick shot with a bit of denoising, colorsharpening and levels adjustment:

Nice one Sharc, looks much better than the clip that I posted. Can that all be done in virtualdub?

I did it in Avisynth, but I think same or similar filters (denoisers, chroma sharpening, level adjustments) are available in VirtualDub as well. You will have to do the filtering in post processing, not on the fly during capturing of course.

Do you have any idea why my captures are progressive? I have progressive turned off in the es10 settings, Is there something that I need to change in virtualdub?

Commercial VHS can have interlaced video with the even and odd field picture taken at the same instant in time, so the video looks like progressive frames. If this is the case for your source there is nothing you need to change with your capture settings, as I see it. Just make sure that you don't have a deinterlacer enabled somewhere in your capture workflow.

[rgr]

ES10/15 before in the workflow as passthrough.

Why is the ES10/15 so recommended?
I have EH58 and EH585 (supposedly has TBC too) -- will it be as good?

[oln]

Yeah those work just as well, I have the EH58 even so I know for sure that one works.

There are just less options in the US where lordsmurf is as the later Panasonic dvd-recorder models sold in the US used a different chipset that didn't have the same TBC capabilities.

[Leanoric]

Its amazing the difference a better vcr makes. I missed out on an s-vhs but got my hands on a new in unopened box JVC 4 head. Its one of the late models that wont record but will play s-vhs tapes.

Certainly not a vcr that would be recommended here for capture, but its a big improvement on what I was using. A tape that I thought had degraded as the picture was so bad, actually looks really good with this vcr, there was nothing wrong with the tape at all, it was the old vcr.

It has also eliminated the dot crawl that was on all of my captures. One tape that was a camcorder film transferred to vhs still has it quite bad, but its almost non existent on the other tapes that were previously bad.



One problem that still persists though, is the flickering. Its still present on all backgrounds and certain colours.

Is this normal on capture, and just something that has to be dealt with after in editing?

I had a play around with the filters in virtualdub but had no luck.

Motion blur was the only filter that seemed to take away the flickering backgrounds, it caused a sort of ghosting though so actually made things worse.

Could it be the elgato causing it?

[Sharc]

No, it is not the elgato I think. It's on the tape.
Download deflick13 from here and put the deflick.vdf into the plugins folder of VirtualDub
https://www.rationalqm.us/deflick/flick.html

and/or apply the 2 vdub internal filters
- chroma smoother (4:2:2 mpeg2)
- temporal smoother (4)

[Leanoric]

No, it is not the elgato I think. It's on the tape.
Download deflick13 from here and put the deflick.vdf into the plugins folder of VirtualDub
https://www.rationalqm.us/deflick/flick.html

and/or apply the 2 vdub internal filters
- chroma smoother (4:2:2 mpeg2)
- temporal smoother (4)

I think the deflick plugin must only be for the 32 bit virtualdub, as unfortunately it doesnt show up in filters on the 64 bit Im using.

I used the 2 settings you recommended on the other 2 filters though and they definitely calm down the flickering a bit, thanks for the help, its really appreciated.

[Sharc]

I think the deflick plugin must only be for the 32 bit virtualdub, as unfortunately it doesnt show up in filters on the 64 bit Im using.

Yes it is 32 bit, but why not simply use the 32 bit VirtualDub2?

I used the 2 settings you recommended on the other 2 filters though and they definitely calm down the flickering a bit, thanks for the help, its really appreciated.

Keep in mind that every filter is a compromise between desired and undesired effects. You have to find the acceptable balance by means of the filters settings.
Avisynth has a rich set of filters. Take the time to learn avisynth.
Or you may want to take a look at NeatVideo for VirtualDub. You can try before you buy.

[Leanoric]

I think the deflick plugin must only be for the 32 bit virtualdub, as unfortunately it doesnt show up in filters on the 64 bit Im using.

Yes it is 32 bit, but why not simply use the 32 bit VirtualDub2?

I used the 2 settings you recommended on the other 2 filters though and they definitely calm down the flickering a bit, thanks for the help, its really appreciated.

Keep in mind that every filter is a compromise between desired and undesired effects. You have to find the acceptable balance by means of the filters settings.
Avisynth has a rich set of filters. Take the time to learn avisynth.
Or you may want to take a look at NeatVideo for VirtualDub. You can try before you buy.

I mistakenly thought that I could only use the 64 bit version with my 64 bit windows. I’ve downloaded the 32 bit version now and have used deflick and the other filters you recommended. They've made a world of difference. I’ve tried them on a few different test captures from various tapes and they all look a lot better now.

I’ll have to check out neat video. I did watch a tutorial on youtube for avisynth, and to be honest, its well beyond my understanding. Maybe when I get my head around all the basics, I’ll go back and try to learn how it works.