HOW CAN IMPROVE A CAPTURE OF VHS TAPE???

DigiMortal wrote on 5/27/2003, 7:59 PM
My story is that I am capturing a video from a VHS tape and want to make a VCD with, but my problem is that once I compress for vcd, the aspect of the video is like opaque, shines like old movie.
My question is:
¿how can improve the aspect and quality of the image?... ¿I must apply some filter to obtain it?.

Thanks...

Comments

kentwolf wrote on 5/27/2003, 8:11 PM
There really isn't a lot you can do wit VCD's and image quality, depending on the length of the video.

It is a quick, cheap way to at least get some video onto an inexpensive medium.

I read VCD's are very big in Asia, but not so much the U.S..

I kind of like them, but they are pretty lacking in quality. That's pretty much just the way it is.
kameronj wrote on 5/27/2003, 8:37 PM
Do what you can to "beef" up the image prior to making it a VCD. But...once it is captured and converted - that's pretty much all she wrote.

I make VCDs of video I have shot and it turns out pretty okay. Too bad VcD is not as big here...the set top boxes would be more standard. I have been trying to get a player to play vcd's since picking up our first DVD (which was suppose to play 'em, but didn't) until I picked up an Apex box ($50) recently.
mikkie wrote on 5/28/2003, 9:53 AM
VirtualDub has several filters available designed to improve upon capture vhs footage.
johnmeyer wrote on 5/28/2003, 10:52 AM
The VirtualDub filters can really make a difference, especially if you have a VHS tape that has lots of snow, or if it has chroma noise. The VirtualDub filters I recommend for cleaning VHS tapes are:

Chroma Noise Reduction (author: Gilles Mouchard)
This is good only for really bad chroma noise, often seen in tapes recorded in the slow speed (EP) on early VHS equipment.

Dynamic Noise Reduction 2.1 (author: Steven Don/Avery Lee)
This is the simplest filter to use. Good for "snow" noise.

Temporal Cleaner (author: Jim Casaburi)
This has long been my favorite, although I often have better luck using the Dynamic noise reduction filter listed above.

Flaxen VHS filter
This was designed to do exactly what you want to do (clean up old VHS). It is complex to set up and slow, however.

kNRC
I'm using this more and more. It seems to leave fewer artifacts than some of the others, although its effects are subtle.

SpotRemover
I just recently became aware of this program. It was designed to remove dust spots from pre-pulldown film frames, but also may work on video noise.

Smart Smoother IQ
Another noise filter, primarily to reduce the "rainbow" noise that sometimes occurs in VHS video (not to be confused with the rainbow at the start of each recorded segment due to lack of flying erase heads in the original recorder).

VirtualDub and its filters can be downloaded here:

VirtualDub Home Page

You can run some of these filters from within Vegas using the "Plugin Pac Adaptor," available here:

Plug-in Pac Home Page

DigiMortal wrote on 5/28/2003, 6:34 PM
Thanks to all for its aid.

I am very conscious that VCD is not of great quality, but, I have seen some that are quite acceptable.
I only want to obtain the best possible image in this format.

I thank for any new suggestion.


DigiMortal
TLT wrote on 5/28/2003, 7:15 PM
What are you using to capture the VHS? How good is the quality of the video prior to capture?
DigiMortal wrote on 5/29/2003, 1:06 PM

Hi TLT:

The quality of the video (the tape) that I am capturing is quite acceptable when seeing it in a TV (obvious I known that while better is the source, better is the result), but as I said previously, when compressing it for VCD this shines opaque and loses a little the clarity that has the original one.
I accept any suggestion that helps me to improve these aspects.

Thanx...

DigiMortal