First timer for VHS conversion -- will this 'work'? Suggestions welcome!

[Alwyn]

given that you know what to do.

"If you know what to do".

[The_Doman]

HuffYUV is better, less overhead on CPU, and then less chance to drop frames. There are no installation problems with it, given that you know what to do.

I don't think the (little) extra CPU demand is a problem now with any bit decent PC?
My old Dell E6410 with first gen I5 has no problem at all with it, i think the CPU demand is minimal compared to other tasks.
At the moment i use Lagarith without any issue i know of.
UTVideo also working fine what i can see.
Only the list of codec variants to choose with UTVideo can be a little confusing for people may be?

[Alwyn]

A good question, @The_Doman.

ULY2 or UMY2?

[lollo]

I don't think the (little) extra CPU demand is a problem now with any bit decent PC?

It does not matter how much the CPU is powerful, even 15 years ago its speed and the speed of the HDs were more than enough. But capturing video is a time-continuous process, and loss/insertion of frames can always happen using a PC.

I do not believe that you never had a frame loss or inserted in your captures.

It does not make a big difference, but with HuffYUV you have just few % more chances that it won't happen. Maybe...

[rgr]

HuffYUV is better, less overhead on CPU, and then less chance to drop frames. There are no installation problems with it, given that you know what to do.

I don't think the (little) extra CPU demand is a problem now with any bit decent PC?
My old Dell E6410 with first gen I5 has no problem at all with it, i think the CPU demand is minimal compared to other tasks.
At the moment i use Lagarith without any issue i know of.
UTVideo also working fine what i can see.
Only the list of codec variants to choose with UTVideo can be a little confusing for people may be?

I think it's the opposite - it makes the choice easier. You select UTVideo YUV444 Rec.601 once and the problem is over.

[oln]

It's YUV422 Rec.601 you want, nearly all capture cards only capture in 422, and even if you have something capable of capturing in 444 there wouldn't be much point in it for videotapes as they don't have anywhere close to the chroma resolution to warrant it.

422 is half horizontal chroma resolution, 444 is full. By contrast, on VHS the resolution of the color/chroma is about 1/8 of the luma/brightness resolution.

[Alwyn]

It's YUV422 Rec.601 you want

Thanks @oln, UT has two YUV422 codecs, ULY2 and UMY2. Do you have any thoughts on which of those to use for analogue captures?


[Attachment 78559 - Click to enlarge]

[Sharc]

ULY2 for YUV.
See the package's readme.

[oln]

Yeah ULY2 variant, 422 BT. 601 is the one you want. You can also set it to encode as interlaced in the options, not sure if it helps compression any though it does at least signal to the application reading it that it's interlaced. (Though, as with huffyuv it doesn't have any option to flag field order.)

The T2 variant is a faster variant with less compression (I think it also has added support for compression between frames which is not very useful for this application)

[someguy1]

Assuming the two snips are exactly the same frame...

You can see there's a lot of horizontal 'fuzz' to the image. Not sure if this is supposed to be the case, or if it's supposed to be sorted in post-processing or something.

Snip 2: the "jaggies" are normal for a recommended analogue capture: that's interlacing and can be cleared up using various means; depends on how you're creating your final delivery file eg MP4. VDub does a simple, reasonable job using the Deinterlace filter: YADIF, Double rate TFF.

Re Snip 1, that should also have jaggies, but it doesn't look like it does. You possibly have Progressive Output set up on the 47. In the menu: Others>Setup>Connection. Change Progressive to Off. It's best to do the deinterlacing in Post.

I think I like Snip 2 better: the edges look neater (notwithstanding the interlacing) and the colour of the light archway is more consistent. There's a bit of blotching in Snip 1.

Alright, so I've had some time to do some more playing and would like to get a baseline internal DVD recording via the EZ47v to compare to a GV-USB2 capture. I'd like the EZ47V to do all the processing/deinterlacing as a straight 'burn and play', but I'm not sure what the Panasonic settings should be. I simply burned from VHS to DVD previously without seeing the tucked away 'Setup' menu.

Under 'Picture' should 'Comb Filter' be on or off?
Under 'Sound' should 'Dynamic Range Compression' be on or off?
Under 'Connection' I've placed the 'Progressive' back to on, which we discussed will do deinterlacing in the actual machine.

[Alwyn]

Under 'Picture' should 'Comb Filter' be on or off?

On.

Under 'Sound' should 'Dynamic Range Compression' be on or off?

Dunno! My hearing's so bad I can't tell. Seriously, I'm not sure on that one. I'd probably leave it off.

Under 'Connection' I've placed the 'Progressive' back to on, which we discussed will do deinterlacing in the actual machine.

Fair enough. You could compare the two.

[someguy1]

Under 'Picture' should 'Comb Filter' be on or off?

On.

Under 'Sound' should 'Dynamic Range Compression' be on or off?

Dunno! My hearing's so bad I can't tell. Seriously, I'm not sure on that one. I'd probably leave it off.

Under 'Connection' I've placed the 'Progressive' back to on, which we discussed will do deinterlacing in the actual machine.

Fair enough. You could compare the two.

Thank you. Given I'm not sure if 'Comb Filter' was on before, is there something to look out for to recognise if it was on or off in the original recordings?

The issue I'm having is that my tapes have multiple recordings on them and different lighting conditions (indoor, outdoor, different rooms), so capturing and adjusting the proc amp with the GV-USB2 is difficult and requires me monitoring the change in each recording on the same tape etc. So I'd like to compare what the Panasonic managed to do. I do feel the Panasonic has gotten the deinterlacing more 'correct' though, than what I've managed.

[Alwyn]

Given I'm not sure if 'Comb Filter' was on before, is there something to look out for to recognise if it was on or off in the original recordings?

Don't know. The recommendation has always been to have it On, I think to reduce dot-crawl.

my tapes have multiple recordings on them and different lighting conditions (indoor, outdoor, different rooms), so capturing and adjusting the proc amp with the GV-USB2 is difficult and requires me monitoring the change in each recording on the same tape etc.

Yes, it's a nuisance and I've had the same at times. If the difference is a lot, you probably have to recapture that bit with different levels. Otherwise, capture slightly darker/lower levels. You can always boost them, to a certain extent, during editing after capture. The main thing is not to capture too high (or too low) so you lose details in the blacks and whites, which you'll never be able to recover.

[someguy1]

Given I'm not sure if 'Comb Filter' was on before, is there something to look out for to recognise if it was on or off in the original recordings?

Don't know. The recommendation has always been to have it On, I think to reduce dot-crawl.

my tapes have multiple recordings on them and different lighting conditions (indoor, outdoor, different rooms), so capturing and adjusting the proc amp with the GV-USB2 is difficult and requires me monitoring the change in each recording on the same tape etc.

Yes, it's a nuisance and I've had the same at times. If the difference is a lot, you probably have to recapture that bit with different levels. Otherwise, capture slightly darker/lower levels. You can always boost them, to a certain extent, during editing after capture. The main thing is not to capture too high (or too low) so you lose details in the blacks and whites, which you'll never be able to recover.

I'll reburn a previous tape with the same settings on, no dramas, thank you.

There's a difference in lighting, but I haven't yet gone through and adjusted each section of the tape. I'll have another play with the straight to DVD conversion and work out if the improved quality is worth the price of admission -- I'm not sure it's a huge night and day difference from my untrained eyes.

[Sharc]

...The main thing is not to capture too high (or too low) so you lose details in the blacks and whites, which you'll never be able to recover.

Correct.
You didn't apply this rule with your examples in post#20, right? Were these captured with the default (procamp) settings? Or some global scenes compromise setting?

[Alwyn]

@Sharc, can't remember but probably not; in any case, it was irrelevant then. Post #20 was to only show the stabilising effect and difference in the outputs of the various players, not demonstrate anything re levels.

My above comment re levels was in response to a different tack which the topic had taken later on.