Deinterlace, denoise and upscale SD/DV footage for beginners

[Darryl In Canada]

The most common thing I see from newcomers is paralysis when it comes to post-capture processing. They've got a working capture setup, decent footage, and then they hit Hybrid or Avisynth and shut down completely.

My initial attempt to help the community has to create a Hybrid for Beginners video on YouTube, showing the most basic but required steps.

My new attempt to help is the VCG Deinterlacer Windows application.


[Attachment 92022 - Click to enlarge]

It's a Windows wizard-style application built for people with a capture device (a USB capture stick, a DV-25 camcorder) who need to handle the core post-capture workflow. It wraps QTGMC, the industry-standard motion-compensated deinterlacer, along with several other VapourSynth filters, behind a step-by-step interface. It's the software I wish had existed when I got back into video capture a few years ago.

What it does:

• Deinterlaces using QTGMC, configured conservatively to preserve analog character without over-sharpening
• Automatically crops switching noise from the bottom (and edges where applicable)
• Optional temporal denoising via SMDegrain (light or heavy)
• Optional upscale to HD resolutions using NNEDI3 -- useful because YouTube compresses HD uploads better than SD, so your final video actually looks cleaner online
• NTSC and PAL support with correct pixel aspect ratio handling
• Batch processing, drag and drop, no installer required

Advanced Options (all optional):

• Y/C Delay correction, Color Cast correction, Levels adjustment, mono-to-stereo audio mix
• Output formats: ProRes HQ, H.264, FFV1
• On first launch it downloads and installs FFmpeg and VapourSynth automatically (about 136 MB). Nothing else to configure.

I want to be clear about scope. This is not a replacement for Hybrid. If you need dehalo, advanced color grading, custom filter chains, or anything beyond the standard analog tape workflow, use Hybrid. I still do. VCG Deinterlacer covers the most important steps for the typical newcomer with SD or DV footage and gets them to a clean output without a steep learning curve.

I test every release on a secondary Windows machine to make sure it runs cleanly on a system other than my own development setup. That said, bugs are still possible. If you run into anything, please leave a note on the GitHub releases page or reply here.

Next steps:

1. Download the latest release: https://github.com/Video-Capture-Guide/VCG-Deinterlacer/releases
2. Watch the tutorial on how to download and run it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhig3_qBFyah3Tg6Rs3l10yLxRCyvSwhF

[c24]

both chrome and windows defender flag this program as a virus

[_Al_]

nice,

question, if I may, not related to apps functionality, but regarding qtgmc. What version of vapoursynth it uses? Havsfunc and its qtgmc function does not work with latest versions, is that right?

[davexnet]

Here's some more info

[desperate_vhs_archiver]

Hello, long time lurker here. Made an account just for this.

I have strong reason to believe this developer has malicious intent.

They've been notified of these viruses weeks ago and have not addressed it. In fact, they updated it a few weeks ago with even more viruses.

DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR INSTALL VCG DEINTERLACER ON A DEVICE OR A NETWORK THAT MATTERS.

Screenshot of VirusTotal included.

[Darryl In Canada]

The short version: it's a false positive, and I'm in the middle of fixing the underlying cause.

Here's what's actually going on. If you look at the vendor labels on that VirusTotal report, they're all generic heuristic and machine-learning buckets like GenVariant.Lazy, MalwareX-gen [Misc], Trojan.Phonzy, Wacatac.B!ml, Artemis!.... Real malware gets identified with consistent family names across vendors, because they're all recognizing the same known thing. A scattershot of different generic names like this is the signature of engines guessing based on shape rather than recognizing anything specific.

Why is this happening? Because I used an "unsigned executable." I'm just a guy, not a software company so I don't currently have a code-signing certificate, and an unsigned Windows binary with low download numbers has no reputation with Microsoft's or Bitdefender's cloud scanners. Their default posture toward an unknown unsigned exe is suspicion, which makes sense.

I'm goinhg to try to fix this. I'm applying for a code-signing certificate through the SignPath Foundation, which provides free signing for open-source projects. Once that's in place, releases will be properly signed, and the reputation problem should clear up over time as signed downloads accumulate.

I published to Github and included all the source files so anyone could see what's inside. You can read exactly what it does, and if you want, build it yourself from source rather than running my binary.

And for what it's worth, I agree with the general principle. Nobody should be casually running random executables off the internet from a stranger. This started as something I built for myself because I was tired of the manual work involved in deinterlacing my own tape captures. I put it on GitHub because it seemed useful to other people doing the same thing, not as a product.

Anyway, thanks for the comment. It gave me the kick in the butt I needed to look into the signed exe thing.