Vhs capture advice.

[Sharc]

A mistake I was making before was encoding to mp4 and leaving SAR at 1:1. Ive now changed it to 12:11 cropping to 692x560 and resizing to 704x576. Strangely VLC now keeps crashing when I play these files. I can watch them ok but then cant shut VLC and it then crashes?

No idea why your VLC crashes. I can play the re-encoded file clip1.mp4 of post#238 without problems here with VLC or MPC-HC......

[Leanoric]

Thanks Alwyn, think Im there now. I just had a go with the denoiser you recommended and it works really well. I might of gone a little ott with the filters on this clip but I think its much better than before.

[Leanoric]

A mistake I was making before was encoding to mp4 and leaving SAR at 1:1. Ive now changed it to 12:11 cropping to 692x560 and resizing to 704x576. Strangely VLC now keeps crashing when I play these files. I can watch them ok but then cant shut VLC and it then crashes?

No idea why your VLC crashes. I can play the re-encoded file clip1.mp4 of post#238 without problems here with VLC or MPC-HC......

Its strange, VLC crashed 3 or 4 times in a row playing it earlier. Ive just tried it a couple of times just now and it didnt crash

[Alwyn]

Good job. "I've read" that 192kbps is ample for AAC audio and VHS recordings.

[Sharc]

Maybe it would be better to resize to square pixels for better compatibility with players?

Is Bwaaks suggestion of "set Aspect ratio to "disabled" and set New size to 960x720" how you resize to square pixels?

Should I still be cropping to 692x560, and then resizing to 960x720? Im also not sure about what numbers to put into the letterbox/crop to size boxes?

When you crop to 692x560 and want to resize to square pixels with a picture height of 720 (see attachment).
But ok, if you make it 960x720 the aspect ratio error is ~1% only, which nobody will notice in practice.

[Leanoric]

Thanks Sharc

[dellsam34]

Thanks Alwyn, think Im there now. I just had a go with the denoiser you recommended and it works really well. I might of gone a little ott with the filters on this clip but I think its much better than before.

It's your choice you can do whatever you want but at this resolution 960x720 you are doing more damage to your videos and I hope you are keeping the masters, 720 vertical lines don't make sense anymore, no native panels that support it, HD and 4K TV's will have to resize it again on the fly during playback, You are not gaining anything with it, May as well crop and pad to 576, or crop and resize to a higher resolution such as 1080, with this an HD TV does nothing to display it and a 4k TV just doubles the lines.

[lollo]

May as well crop and pad to 576, or crop and resize to a higher resolution such as 1080, with this an HD TV does nothing to display it and a 4k TV just doubles the lines.

+1.

I would just (no resize, "original" post-processed pixels)

- crop unwanted borders, addborders to build 704x576 frame, encode with DAR = 4:3

or

- crop unwanted borders, addborders to build 704x576 frame, "quality" upscale to 1440x1080, encode with DAR = 4:3

But that's me

[Sharc]

If your players don't respect SAR flags, resize to 786x576

Should that be 768x576?

Yes, 768 looks correct to me. Assuming the OP's analog capture has a SAR of 12/11 (=very close approximation of the ITU-R SAR) the width of the cropped 704 wide picture would be 12/11*704=768 square pixels.

[Sharc]

It's your choice you can do whatever you want but at this resolution 960x720 you are doing more damage to your videos

Well yes, I have seen some "damage" when upscaling just a tiny little bit, say a few pixels.
720 vertical is perhaps obsolete, but there are still plenty of legacy TVs and monitors around with 1280x720 "HD" resolution rather than 1920x1080 "full HD" resolution. Same applies for legacy projectors. And not everyone is willing to buy the latest and greatest models (.....4k and whatever comes new every year .....)

[Leanoric]

I hope you are keeping the masters.

I am indeed. What Im doing at the moment though is trying to put a few episodes of a show my dad recorded years ago onto a usb stick, so Im just trying to denoise it, crop, resize with borders and convert to mp4.

+1.

I would just (no resize, "original" post-processed pixels)

- crop unwanted borders, addborders to build 704x576 frame, encode with DAR = 4:3

or

- crop unwanted borders, addborders to build 704x576 frame, "quality" upscale to 1440x1080, encode with DAR = 4:3

But that's me

[Attachment 69333 - Click to enlarge]


[Attachment 69334 - Click to enlarge]

And then encode to mp4.

Do you guys think this is what I should be doing then?

If your players don't respect SAR flags, resize to 786x576

Should that be 768x576?

Yes, 768 looks correct to me. Assuming the OP's analog capture has a SAR of 12/11 (=very close approximation of the ITU-R SAR) the width of the cropped 704 wide picture would be 12/11*704=768 square pixels.

How do I find out what SAR my capture has?

[dellsam34]

Well yes, I have seen some "damage" when upscaling just a tiny little bit, say a few pixels.
720 vertical is perhaps obsolete, but there are still plenty of legacy TVs and monitors around with 1280x720 "HD" resolution rather than 1920x1080 "full HD" resolution. Same applies for legacy projectors. And not everyone is willing to buy the latest and greatest models (.....4k and whatever comes new every year .....)

And why would you think the OP needs to buy another TV, With your analogy you are suggesting the OP to buy a 720p panel to fit your suggested resolution.

[dellsam34]

I am indeed. What Im doing at the moment though is trying to put a few episodes of a show my dad recorded years ago onto a usb stick, so Im just trying to denoise it, crop, resize with borders and convert to mp4.

Good that you are saving the masters, Just resize to 1440x1080 after de-interlacing and cropping and encode to h.264, you will have a perfect rec.709 files that are playable by most media players and TV's, Even uploading them to youtube they will not suffer too much as they are already compliant.

[lollo]

you will have a perfect rec.709

Color Matrix conversion required. In AviSynth:

Colormatrix("Rec.601->Rec.709")

[Sharc]

And why would you think the OP needs to buy another TV, With your analogy you are suggesting the OP to buy a 720p panel to fit your suggested resolution.

Nonsense. I am just saying the resizing a VHS source to 720 vertical for square pixels is not really "damaging" anything.

[Sharc]

I am indeed. What Im doing at the moment though is trying to put a few episodes of a show my dad recorded years ago onto a usb stick, so Im just trying to denoise it, crop, resize with borders and convert to mp4.

Good that you are saving the masters, Just resize to 1440x1080 after de-interlacing and cropping and encode to h.264, you will have a perfect rec.709 files that are playable by most media players and TV's, Even uploading them to youtube they will not suffer too much as they are already compliant.

And how about the colorspace?

Edit: Lollo was first.

[lollo]

I am just saying the resizing a VHS source to 720 vertical for square pixels is not really "damaging" anything.

But it's useless (and potentially lossy). There is no reason to have square pixels nor 720 vertical resize in this contest.

[Leanoric]

Ive resized to 1440x1080 and encoded to mp4 but wasnt sure what the SAR width and height should be, I left it at 1:1, is that ok?

[Sharc]

How do I find out what SAR my capture has?

Buzzword: Circle test. There are dozens++ of posts about it in this forum.

Theory: If your capture driver/gear is not flawed it should capture according the Rec.601 standard, means with a luma sampling rate of 13.5MHz. Given that the sampling frequency for square pixels is 14.75MHz for PAL, the Sampling Aspect Ratio (SAR) becomes 14.75/13.5=1.0926, approximated for a couple of reasons as 12/11.
Beware to go into more details ....

[lollo]

Beware to go into more details ....

For instance, he may ask why SAR is sometimes Storage Apect Ratio (720 / 576 = 5/4) and sometimes Sample Aspect Ratio (12 / 11)

[Leanoric]

Resolution/aspect ratios has definitely been the most confusing part so far, the more I read up on it, the more confusing it gets

[Sharc]

I am just saying the resizing a VHS source to 720 vertical for square pixels is not really "damaging" anything.

But it's useless (and potentially lossy). There is no reason to have square pixels nor 720 vertical resize in this contest.

Which contest? If there is no reason for square pixels then there is also little to no reason for 1440x1080. Resizing to square pixels is just an option as opposed to anamorphic (non-square pixles) scaling with SAR signaling, which has been discussed ad nauseam. I did neither promote it nor do I personally prefer square pixels. It's just a valid option, no?

[Sharc]

Resolution/aspect ratios has definitely been the most confusing part so far, the more I read up on it, the more confusing it gets

No wonder. But for the sake of a good sleep tonight rest assured that what you did in post #229 is not wrong.

[lollo]

there is also little to no reason for 1440x1080

It maps a full HD TV or screen for vertical resolution

edit: it also allows YT upload with less degradation (not significant for the OP)

[Bwaak]

I do sometimes resize VHS to 1440x1080, mostly for higher bitrate or to get the "HD" mark (YouTube has removed "HD" from 720 videos). But generally I don't consider VHS worthy of 1080p upscale. I upscale to 720p to ensure 60p image rate. If Youtube allowed 60 fps for 480p, I would upload them as 480p60. I do upload IVTC'd videos as 480p24.

I suggested 720p60 as a all-around compromise for computer and YT playback, also for smaller file size. Of course, everyone has their own preferences.

[Alwyn]

How do I find out what SAR my capture has?

My understanding is that analogue AVI doesn't have any stored "aspect ratio", and that Mediainfo simply divides the width by the height to come up with 5:4, or 1.25 to 1. Of course, the video has to be displayed at 4:3, because that's what it really is.

Buzzword: Circle test.

Attached is a circle (I think/hope!); a VHS capture from a TV broadcast. It can be used for cropping and resizing practice. Notice the large black bars, more on the left than the right. What is obvious that as-is, when displayed at 4:3, the circle is round.

[dellsam34]

Color Matrix conversion required. In AviSynth:

Colormatrix("Rec.601->Rec.709")

Off course, It's HD despite being 4:3 and originated from SD materials.

[dellsam34]

Ive resized to 1440x1080 and encoded to mp4 but wasnt sure what the SAR width and height should be, I left it at 1:1, is that ok?

Yes, it's square pixel, no need for a AR flag.

[dellsam34]

I am just saying the resizing a VHS source to 720 vertical for square pixels is not really "damaging" anything.

Any resizing is damaging, The resolution you resize to determines the severity of the damage.

[lollo]

Color Matrix conversion required. In AviSynth:

Colormatrix("Rec.601->Rec.709")

Off course, It's HD despite being 4:3 and originated from SD materials.

Last time we discssued about that you were not aware of it https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/405794-VHS-PAL-cutting-and-upscaling/page2

I thought it was nice to remind it