They're random flashes of light caused by the momentary loss of video signal, (due to inherent tape flaws), in some portion of a scanline. A lot of old vhs tapes I shot 15+ years ago are loaded with them, (tape technology then was not what it is today). Drop out compensators simply replace the bright flash where there is a momentary loss of signal, with an approximation of what went before it. This should be real easy to do with a computer. I would think such a capability would be very important to people trying to restore or archive early video footage.I've searched on google.com, but found nothing. I'm starting to think that maybe dropouts ceased to be a problem before computers powerful enough to deal with them became commonplace, so maybe the software isnt out there. Will appreciate any leads..

JBoy:
What process are you using to convert your VHS files from analog to digital? My situation is a bit different than yours, but, I have found that I'm not satisfied with the results I get when I try to digitize audio and/or video from an analog 8mm cassette using my Digi8 cam. I get artifacts in the video, crackles and dropouts in the audio.

If I dub that material from my 8mm Hi8 camcorder to my Digi8, no artifacts, no crackles, and the dub from Digi8 to computer via firewire goes flawlessly.

I'm not certain if these principles would apply to your project, but figured them worth your consideration.

BTW, off-topic, for sure, but, given the vast improvements in VV30 capture/print, do you still rely upon Pinnacle to output to tape?

Caruso

jboy,
You might want to check out Motion Perfect at: http://www.dynapel.com/private/index.htm
If you do not see enough info there try emailing them with your question directly.
HTH,
Barry

Thanks for the link, bjtap, not exactly what I"m looking for-(though it looks pretty interesting, I'm downloading the demo now), but I'll shoot them an e-mail to see if they can maybe give me a better referral. Caruso, I'm not having trouble w/the conversion process, (using the A/D conversion function on my sony camcorder), the original tapes have dropouts on them. My dv copies look exactly like the vhs originals. I'm sure the pro's had ways to remove this stuff, but maybe it was hardware based, as pretty much everything was in those days.Maybe by the time computer editing really got going, people were already using dv, which doesn't produce the kinds of dropouts I'm talking about.Dv produces blocky mosaic artifacts vs analog's flashes of light. I've started using vidcap recently, it seems to do a pretty good job capturing, though it did shut down a capture at the end of a 2 hour tape, -said that vegas had generated errors.I especially like the way it automatically starts a new file in a continuous capture, to get around the FAT32 4gb limitation. Haven't tried outputting with it yet, but will soon. Yeah, I'm throughly hooked on vegas. Dont even visit the pinnacle forums anymore.

Just trying to keep this thread alive.There's gotta be something out there. Anybody ??

i would try scrubbing through the video in Vegas and just delete the bad frames as you come across them. a little skip may not be as annoying as the bright flashes. then you can print back to tape from the timeline.

Deleting frames is not an option, as the dropouts are too numerous to deal with in this fashion. I'd have to delete entire sequences. I cant believe there isn't a software solution to this problem. There must be tons of old analog footage out there with the same problem, and a software fix for dropouts would seem to the the simplest kind utility to program. As mentioned before, I know pro gear had dropout compensating hardware decades ago, so the mechanics of it have got to be easily accessible. Can anybody recommend a forum that people who've worked in the TV industry for decades might frequent ?? This may be too esoteric for a DV crowd...

If you can hook up with someone who has a good sp betacam player recorder (BVW series or something pro), you could dub the tapes onto beta, then dub them back to DV. The pro analog decks have a built in dropout compensator made to handle the problem you describe. I am unaware of any software that does this.

Hmmn, good idea. Do you know how effective it is ? I kind of figured a software plug-in, (if it exists), would work much better than a dated hardware solution. Dont really know from my own experience whether the hardware fix was effective for numerous and frequent dropout or not ??

Hmmm, does your video playback unit have the provision for external sync in? If so, I would shop around for a used time base corrector with 3.58mhz heterodyne processing. The TBC will have drop out compensation, but it has to feed back into the vcr (sync) to make it work correctly. If you shop around used broadcast supply stores you may be able to find one cheap. Try bradleybroadcast.com.

What format is the original analog tape in? 3/4" Umatic, 1/2 beta or vhs? 2" quadraplex? 1" type c?

The source material is 20yr. old vhs tapes. Thanks for the TBC solution, and I think my vcr can be externally synched, (panasonic 1960), but I'd still really mucvh prefer to find a simple piece of software that one could apply to a clip w/o getting all involved in archaic hardware. Not to mention the expense of the hardware, tho I'm sure it'd be a lot less than it sold for when current. Still cant believe the software isn't out there somewhere. You'd think it'd be a standard plug-in on any video editing program.Isn't there a need for something like this, or am I the only one out there working with aging analog material ?