Who was the company that made the Play video capture device? I remember their president/spokesperson was Kiki Stockhammer. Anyway, they had a technology in their still capture device that was able to uprez VHS to 1600x1200. I believe they were able to incorporate that into their later video capture boxes.

Might be worth a search on ebay to see if anyone's selling one cheap.

I suppose another method would be to convert it to a DVD, then play it in a 1080 upscaling set-top player and capture the HDMI output.

Digitizing low or medium resolution tapes at a high resolution is a waste of data storage. I recommend that you digitize at standard DV/DVcam resolution (720x480), and then in Vegas size the output in Vegas to either full screen or reduced size (picture-in-picture) so that video noise isn't obvious.

Most seasoned broadcasters elect to use a time base corrector or frame synchronizer between the source analog deck and the digitizing / recording device, but often one can get away without one, too. Just depends.

As others have said, do not waste your time digitizing at HD resolutions. It will make 0.00 percent difference. Instead, make sure you have a timebase corrector circuit, in order to get the clearest possible output; capture using a codec which has at least the colorspace available for HD (i.e., do NOT capture using a DV codec); then, use restoration tools that will remove both chroma and luma noise in order to eliminate all the analog noise artifacts.

Finally, I usually apply motion stabilization, because many older VHS videos were hand-held with cameras that didn't have motion stabilization built in. I also apply sharpening, similar to the unsharp mask fX available in Vegas. This gives the video a "crisper" look, even though the detail still stinks compared to DV, and certainly compared to any flavor of HD.

One final trick is to put the video into a "frame" of some sort. This means that the video will not occupy the entire screen and therefore the lack of resolution will not be as apparent. Also, since this footage is obviously from some time in the past, putting it in its own window provides a visual cue as to its historic nature.

i guess i was under the mistaken impression it could be like when you scan old photos at high dpi and get really big and high rez stills...

would this work to uprez on the fly?

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/decklinkhdextreme/features/

or is it as mentioned "a waste of time"

im guessing even if I get the blackmagic-design deck link hd extreme i still have to have the playback device.

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"a timebase corrector circuit, in order to get the clearest possible output; capture using a codec which has at least the colorspace available for HD (i.e., do NOT capture using a DV codec); then, use restoration tools that will remove both chroma and luma noise in order to eliminate all the analog noise artifacts."

so other than uprezing, would something like the blackmagic help for the other things you mentioned?

I don't think the Decklink is the right tool for the job, but perhaps others who have actually used it could offer their opinion.

Also, scanning photos at resolutions higher than the underlying "resolution" of the photo is a waste of time and also creates files that are unnecessarily large and which, therefore, will bog down subsequent use of those files. For photos, dpi is not the correct measure to use, because the dpi for negatives or slides is totally different than it would be for scanning an 8x10 photo. Instead, you need to think about total pixels. For 35mm negatives and slides, you start to get diminishing returns when you scan at higher resolutions than 3000x2000, although a really good slide or negative can yield more information at higher resolutions (you can find all sorts of heated arguments about the theoretical maximum resolution of slides and negatives if you go to some of the big photo sites). Some of the high-end film scanners can produce scans of up to 5000x3000 pixels.

Scanning most continuous tone prints at resolutions this high is usually more than required.

Back to your digitizing tape questions. The best thing to do is to digitize at several resolutions and then take those 15-30 second samples all the way to the final delivery vehicle (Blu-Ray, DVD, Internet file, etc.) and see if you -- or better yet -- someone else can tell any difference.

The idea that scanning or capturing at a higher resolution than needed doesn't have any downside neglects the fact that everything takes much longer with higher resolution files, and these files take up more space.

Who was the company that made the Play video capture device?

The Play capture device was called "Snappy." I still have mine. Want it? Play was the name of the company, not the product.

As I remember, Snappy was a quick and dirty development effort, designed to quickly generate enough cash, without having to give away most of the company to VCs, so they could pursue their real goal, namely the development of a follow-on to the amazing Video Toaster which most of the people at Play -- including Kiki -- had been involved in developing when they were all at Newtek, prior to founding Play.

Kiki is still the best demo person I have seen at a trade show, although I'd imagine Spot would give her a good run for her money. I always used to go out of my way at CES to see her show.

what are better tools then? for uprez or just digitizing?

The "Snappy" would generate relatively high resolution stills from video, but didn't capture motion video.

Kiki Stockhammer was, and perhaps still is, the "Chief Science Officer" of a campy Star Trek tribute band in Sacramento called "Warp 11."

Ahhhh, Snappy, right. I gave mine away many eons ago. It was the original snappy without the upres capability. Snappy 2 had it, but it was way more expensive.

However, they did have a video capture card, i think affectionately called the "Snappy 3", which did motion video, and it had some of the same upressing technology. I never had one to try it.

what are better tools then? for uprez or just digitizing? The Canopus products are often recommended:

Video Conversion Hardware

The model 110 does not have a TBC, but the more expensive 300 does have this important feature.

A cheaper alternative is to search eBay for an old Digital8 video camcorder. Many (although not all) of these have pass-through digital to analog capability, thus making them exactly the same thing as the Canopus products linked to above. However, some also have built-in TBC circuitry. You can often find these on eBay, listed as only partially working. Almost always the part that is broken is the tape transport or the display, but the electronic pass-through is still intact. If you are looking for a bargain, this is definitely the best bang for the buck.

Of course, if you have a LOT of this stuff to do, then getting an all-in-one VHS to DVD unit is the easiest workflow. You put your VHS tape in one side, and a blank DVD in the other, push a button, and come back in ninety minutes. You don't get any editing or fancy DVD menus, but you do get the job done very quickly, and the quality is generally quite good.

Having said that, I have spent the past ten years "perfecting" various techniques for creating the "ultimate" VHS transfers, including a lot of post production restoration techniques. You can search on my user name and get some idea of what can be done.

the 300 looks great but its a one trick pony...right?

thats why i was hoping the blackmagic card would work, because i kind of need a motioning device as well.

Any device that captures DV-format video is limited to 4:1:1 color sampling, this includes things like a Digital8 cam and Canopus 110 and 300 devices, capture devices like the Blackmagic Intensity capture at 4:2:2, which will upscale much better. There isn't a lot of color resolution on old videotapes, but the higher color sampling will prevent the chroma blocking artifacts that plague DV codecs (even the good ones like the DV codec in Vegas.)

The Black Magic cards will certainly digitize with better chroma sampling than the ADVC-300 however I don't think they include a timebase corrector.
Maybe a BMD card with a Kramer TBC in front of it would be the best solution.

Bob.

"Maybe a BMD card with a Kramer TBC in front of it would be the best solution."

You're absolutely right. A BMD card with a TBC in front would be the best cost-effective solution. All things considered, for overall image quality of a VHS transfer, a timebase corrector will make a bigger visual difference than sampling at 4:2:2 vs 4:1:1. Nevertheless, I still think that sampling at 4:2:2 is important, too.

I have both the Canopus ADVC 110 and the 300 and they seem to do a very good job, I use the 110 for tapes that are in generaly good shape.

For those that are really old or have allot of noise I use the 300 it does clean things up. We also have not had any problems with audio sync since we started using the units.

I use a Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro PCI-e card with a Datavideo TBC-1000 timebase corrector. I also have a Sony BVH-2800 1" Type-C machine which also has an excellent TBC built-in, but it only accepts composite video.

"Any device that captures DV-format video is limited to 4:1:1 color sampling"

I understand that NTSC DV is 4:1:1 and PAL DV is 4:2:0. However it doesn't change the general argument.

"I use the 110 for tapes that are in generaly good shape."

Just curious, but if you have the 300, why wouldn't you use it for everything? What advantage does the 110 ever have over the 300?

This is a timely topic for me. I have several VHS tapes I need to convert to some digital format, destined for DVD or Blu-ray disk. I have a ADVC300. What I'm looking for is a workflow that will extract the maximum quality signal form a VHS tape. I have 2 main questions:
1. Is it best to start with component outputs from a high quality VCR to a high quality capture device (something other than the ADVC300), to a high quality codec, (uncompressed?) and process within Vegas 10 Pro 64 bit?
2. Does anyone have any experience with the Matrox MXO2 mini for this purpose? I realize that it does not yet work with Vegas Pro, but I do have Premiere Pro CS5.
Also, I admit I have a lot of reading to do regarding the advantages of 10 bit video and the 4.2.2 color space, and how this relates the the quality of the final product. Also, I see two issues here, one being technical, and the other emotional, in that some of these tapes contain the images and voices of family members who are no longer with us, and this drives the technical quest for quality. Thanks to everyone for your advice.

Having said that, I have spent the past ten years "perfecting" various techniques for creating the "ultimate" VHS transfers, including a lot of post production restoration techniques. You can search on my user name and get some idea of what can be done.
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Johnmeyer's amazing contributions can be found: here

and

here.

John

"Is it best to start with component outputs from a high quality VCR"

Yes but good luck finding one in good condition at a reasonable price. I've never seen a VHS VCR with component outputs, the best you're likely to find is S-Video and that's on a SuperVHS VCR.
TBH I've not noticed any improvement using S-Video into the ADVC-300 compared to composite but if you can get S-Video, use it as it will not be worse. Also try to get good cables, some S-Video cables are quite bad.

Bob.

From my experience, when i've had S-video connections available it's been markedly better than the composite feed. It may not be that noticeable during playback or even on the initial capture, but the increased color resolution and decreased noise make further processing degrade the signal a lot less. The renders i get from an S-video capture blow away those from composite especially at lower bitrates.

I've done a lot of VHS tape transfers. Here are, in my experience, the most important things you can do in order to get the best possible transfer.

1. Use a really good VCR. The $29 closeout special will not produce good results. Numbers of heads doesn't matter (more heads provides better slow motion and better results during high speed search, but not during normal speed playback). If it has an "edit" switch (see below), it is probably good enough.

2. Get a transfer device that has a time base corrector. Those built into VCRs sometimes don't really do the real job of a time base corrector. I learned this the hard way with the otherwise marvelous PV-S4990 semi pro deck that I purchased back in 1989. It claims to have a TBC, but it really isn't a true time base corrector. I then purchased my current deck, a JVC VS30U, which I was able to get NIB two years ago, even though it is long since out of production. It has its own built-in Firewire and A/D convertor, so the video never gets converted to composite or S-Video. It also has a TBC, and this one really does the job. The differences between having it turned on, and not having it enabled are quite significant.

3. Turn OFF all HQ circuitry. This is REALLY important. Most VCRs automatically add "detail enhancement." This is a feature that was added to most VHS decks around 1984 and marketed using the term "HQ." It consists of a s-t-u-p-i-d sharpening circuit that automatically adds "ringing" in the luma circuitry. The visual effects is to put a slight halo around every sharp dark-to-light transition. When viewed at a distance, this makes the fuzzy VHS image appear to be "sharper," but in fact, it destroys the real visual information. Low-end decks do not let you turn this off. Only better decks have an "edit" switch which, when turned on, turns OFF the HQ circuitry. [I had to spell out s-t-u-p-i-d because the forum obscenity filters deleted it as obscene.]

This is really important to do. Mandatory, actually.

4. Use a capture codec that maintains color space. This one is about 1/10 as important as the previous three. VHS is such a pathetic capture format, and the way in which color is stored is already so compromised that capturing in 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 instead of the DV 4:1:1 generally won't make a huge difference. However, it will make some difference if your tapes are really, really good, or if you are transferring S-VHS instead of VHS.

5. Pay attention to the audio. I have found that in 6-hour mode, not all decks do an equivalent job of capturing the linear track. You can hear this yourself if you force the deck to play the linear track, and then run the manual tracking back and forth. So, pay attention if you have an older tape that only has a linear audio track.

6. Tracking. Speaking of tracking, this is something you have to pay attention to with older tapes. In most cases the automatic tracking works fine, but on some tapes -- especially those recorded in 6-hour mode -- the auto tracking can "hunt" and cause problems. In these cases, you can sometimes get better results if you switch your VCR to manual tracking, manually adjust for the best picture, and then capture the result. You may have to re-adjust when you get to a portion of the tape that was recorded on a different day than the section you initially captured.

7. S-Video. If your capture device is external, use the S-Video connection instead of Composite.

I've covered many times all the things you can do in post production to improve the results. I can't believe how far the technology has progressed since I first posted on this subject almost eight years ago under the rather pretentious title My "ultimate" VHS tape restoration recipe. I won't repeat everything here that I have learned in my eight-year odyssey, other than to quickly summarize:

1. Check levels on the Vegas scopes, and watch the results from the Vegas timeline on a calibrated monitor connected via a Firewire pass through. A lot of VHS tapes do not have levels set correctly.

2. Color correction. You almost always have to color-correct old VHS tapes. It is not uncommon to have a greenish cast.

3. Chroma shift. Some people over in the doom9.org forum insist that all VHS captures has a horizontal chroma shift. This causes the color to be slightly displaced from the underlying luma (brightness). I am not sure this is the case. However, if you ever have to deal with a second-generation tape, I can guarantee that you will see this issue. This can be corrected in post using the proper AVISynth tools.

4. Chroma noise. It is not uncommon to see colored shimmering and noise, especially in 6-hour tapes. This can be almost entirely elminated.

5. Luma noise. These are the small "snow" dots, similar to what you see in an old analog broadcast TV signal when the station was too far away. This is one of the most predominant features of VHS captures, and is where many of us have spent the most time trying to perfect ways to eliminate it. The current techniques are light-years beyond where we were eight years ago when I first started.

6. Detail enhancement. For me, this is a relatively new area. However, after all the above things have been done, it is definitely possible to slightly improve the amount of perceived detail. This is done primarily through sharpening, although the usual sharpening tools usually make VHS look very bad. It may seem contradictory to add sharpening at the final stage, since I said it was important to turn off the HQ sharpening circuit when capturing. However, this is added after all the other steps, and is done using much different techniques, and is done on a signal that has been cleaned up using all the other digital tools.

7. Audio Restoration. Most VHS tapes are recorded with decks or cameras that use some sort of AGC on the audio. There is not much you can do to restored the proper dynamic range (at least nothing I know of). However, you may find that the AGC created really low levels. These should be normalized. In addition, if you ever deal with a linear audio track, you will be confronted with a great deal of tape hiss. This can be reduced using Sound Forge NR or iZotope RX2.

Some day I should do a capture doing everything wrong, with HQ enabled, and not TBC, and then do the same capture doing everything right. I should then post a third version with all the post processing done. I've done this for clients, but I've never posted the results here.

Well, someday ...