Removing static line caused by damaged tape?

[Master Tape]

I have this tape which has this white static line right down the middle and it remains there for the duration of the recording, before it vanishes when another recording surfaces on the tape, which tells me it was recorded this way, perhaps with dodgy heads.

Having looked at the psychical tape itself, it has a line scored all the way down the middle, about the same position it's being displayed onscreen. It's a thin line though, is it possible to remove via software?

[johnmeyer]

Since the line doesn't seem to move up or down, a simple approach would be to use a "DeLogo" filter and simply create a thin horizontal mask. You will end up with a thin blur in place of the line. This may, or may not, be more pleasant to look at than the original.

I did look at the individual fields, and while the line is present in both fields, it is sometimes much stronger, and also in a different horizontal location on one field vs. the other. So, a more complicated approach would to substitute portions of one of the two adjacent field, only if their luma is less than almost pure white.

[Master Tape]

I could try that, but not sure how to implement it. What would be the appropriate script for Avisynth?

And that second method sounds interesting, and could reduce the appearance of it.

[poisondeathray]

"thin" - would be 1 or 2 pixels

This would need about 12-16 pixel height with feathering to cover all the garbage . Not thin.

[johnmeyer]

I used the ancient Delogo in AVISynth and did what I described above. A better tool would give better results, but it gives you an idea of what it might look like:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/7qsrotimjs1r7n9,16k2pojockz2sv2/shared

[Download the "temp.mp4" file.]

[jagabo]

The basic concept:

LWLibavVideoSource("VHS Line.avi") 
AssumeTFF()
ConvertToYV24(interlaced=true)

src = last

FIRSTLINE = 282
LASTLINE = 290

topline = Crop(0, FIRSTLINE-1, -0, 1)
bottomline = Crop(0, LASTLINE+1, -0, 1)
patch = StackVertical(topline, bottomline).BilinearResize(width, LASTLINE-FIRSTLINE+1)
bmask = src.Crop(0,FIRSTLINE,0,LASTLINE-FIRSTLINE+1).ColorYUV(cont_y=200, off_y=-50).GreyScale() # limit fix to brightest areas

Overlay(src, patch, x=0, y=FIRSTLINE, mask=bmask)

# show original and fixed, side by side
StackHorizontal(src, last)
QTGMC()

Follow with more traditional noise reduction and other cleanup.

[Master Tape]

Excellent work! That's so much better than before. Thank you.

[johnmeyer]

"thin" - would be 1 or 2 pixels

This would need about 12-16 pixel height with feathering to cover all the garbage . Not thin.

Picky, picky.

Use whatever mask is needed to cover the white. I would probably not mask any area which is not completely white.

I see that jagabo did exactly that.