Digitize Old Video Tape

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johnmeyer wrote on 7/22/2011, 8:51 AM
What do you generally do with old Hi8 tapes? Capture with a Digital 8 camera and then use the same AviSynth recipes on the footage?[i]I only have a 8mm deck, so I can't do Hi8 or Digital8. I found the 8mm tapes to have significantly different artifacts from what I've seen on VHS. The few Beta tapes I've done are much more similar to 8mm.

I guess I did do one set of Hi8, and the client loaned me his camera. Someone can correct me, but I think that most of the 8mm family line either have a TBC included, or don't suffer from the flagging and tearing that you commonly see in VHS. It has been several years since I last did any 8mm, but as I remember, many of them suffered from other artifacts, such as a certain "waviness", sort of like ripples on a pond.

None of the 8mm transfers I've done required extraordinary measures, so I just put my DV camcorder at the end of the composite output from the 8mm deck, captured, and encoded. The video didn't need much in the way of levels or color correction.
JJKizak wrote on 7/22/2011, 10:52 AM
The HI8 I have done was far superior to VHS. In fact it was better than S-VHS. This was using a tiny Sony GV-D200 VCR for capturing.
JJK
Editguy43 wrote on 7/22/2011, 1:14 PM
@ Kelly

We bougut the 110 before we got the 300 and so we have each one attached to different computers and VHS decks.

The 110 has no real advantage other then you do not have to have power attached, and it makes no noise, the 300 has a fan that is kinda loud sometimes.

So if the tapes are in good shape they goto the 110, and ones that need help goto the 300. Saves time on setup and we can do more at a time.
JHendrix wrote on 8/12/2011, 8:51 AM
hi again guys....

slightly OT


am i correct that if I am given DVDs that someone else captured/created from various old sources there is nothing I can do to make them better?

in other words, all I can do is extract the video off the DVD, in Vegas, and I am stuck with whatever I get?
johnmeyer wrote on 8/12/2011, 10:37 AM
am i correct that if I am given DVDs that someone else captured/created from various old sources there is nothing I can do to make them better?The answer to that question is a resounding it depends.

A major part of my business is restoring old media. If the video on your DVD was good to begin with (proper lighting, taken on a tripod, good white balance, etc., etc.) and properly encoded, then there isn't much that can be done to make the video better (see many posts in this forum about trying to improve SD footage to make it look like HD). However, if the video is shaky (hand-held), poorly lit, noisy, badly color balanced, or contains dozens of other similar flaws, then often the video can be made much better using various restoration techniques. Also, if it is badly encoded and as a result has lots of blockiness and "mosquito noise," then certain types of filters can help smooth and remove these artifacts.

In general, however, if the video is in good shape, the best and fastest thing to do is simply do a "cuts-only" edit using Womble or VideoRedo, both of which edit the MPEG-2 without re-encoding. That is what I usually do when someone wants a compilation of material already encoded onto one or more DVDs.
JHendrix wrote on 8/12/2011, 2:50 PM
VideoRedo is is 95.00 and the other is 179. Is one better?
john_dennis wrote on 8/12/2011, 5:11 PM
VideoReDo Plus is all you need if you are only working with DVD video. It is only $49.99 on their web site. It's been well worth it to me and I bought it when $49.99 was worth $49.99.
johnmeyer wrote on 8/12/2011, 11:32 PM
Womble's MPEG-VCR does lossless MPEG-2 editing and only costs $19:

MPEG-VCR