Capturing Video Question

cpalermo wrote on 11/6/2006, 6:19 AM

Quick question wanted to run past some the brain power on this board. I do a lot of personal editing, so nothing large scale, nothing with super expensive equipment. Aside from my typical DV capture, occasionally I need to capture video from VHS and/or DVD. So I have a VHS/DVD combo unit connected via RCA cables to a Digital-Analog converted, which is connected to the fireware card on my computer. I have no problem caputuring the video (using Vegas 6), but was looking for feedback on a couple questions:

1) When I capture from DVD, I always seem to get that top few pixes of weird noise/movement that span as a whole bar across the top. What is that? I've seen that years ago when VHS tapes are off on their tracking. Is there a way that could remove that during capture via the setup? How about post-setup- thinking track motion and nudging everything up a bit?

2) When I capture from the DVD/VHS unit, the colors seem to be a bland. I know I have a bottom line converter, it's a ~$250 TV One product I got off ebay. Is the converter the sole cause of the color blandness? Any ideas on post-capture ways to brighten/liven up the color?

Thanks so much,
Chris

Comments

SonicClang wrote on 11/6/2006, 2:06 PM

1) That weird bar of color you see at the top is pretty standard for analog signals. If you watch the video on a television you won't see it because most standard TV's cut off about 10% of the picture on every side. If you're really paranoid about it you can use the pan/crop tool and zoom in a tiny bit. As for exactly WHAT it is, I don't exactly know... noise of some sort.

2) Do the colors look bland if you watch video directly from the DVD/VHS combo unit on a TV? Or is it only after you put the video into the computer that it looks bland? There are tutorials floating around the internet for adjusting color. Best policy is to capture the video right the first time so you don't have to mess with it in post.

cpalermo wrote on 11/6/2006, 2:23 PM

Thanks for the response- yes, the colors look fine when I watch something directly on the VHS/DVD unit, but once I capture, it loses some brilliance... So guessing there is some weak link in the chain, but I will check out some of the color tutorials to see if that might help, even if it is post-facto.