Improving analog captured material

stompinne wrote on 7/14/2004, 7:20 AM

Which filters are the best for improving analog captured material. In which order to use, and.......if possible some settings, tanx

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 7/14/2004, 7:25 AM

Do a search for John Meyer's ultimate VHS recipe.
Using a converter with a TBC built in is more or less essential. Depending on the age of the video, you might find yourself pulling loads of green.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 7/14/2004, 8:33 AM

What was the source of the video? I've captured DVCPro analog and it looked fantastic. Ddidn't need any fixing. Plus, i've been working on some recently shot VHS & Hi-8. Looks very good (As good as they can get) &the only fixing was the funky couple of lines at the bottom of the screen.

johnmeyer wrote on 7/14/2004, 10:33 AM

Here's a link to my original post, quite some time ago. Please ignore all the stuff about capturing the same tape multiple times. It is a wonderful technique, but is very time consuming and I would only recommend it if you are doing historical preservation of a video asset destined to be viewed by thousands of people.

My "ultimate" VHS tape restoration recipe

Here's a link to the post within this thread where I give my current Virtualdub filter chain (and settings) used for cleaning up VHS captures:

VirtualDub Filter Chain

Please note that I often do not use the Smart Smoother because I find it leaves the video a little too soft. If you use the other two plug-ins with the settings shown, you should see noticeable improvement from the original, but you'll have to look really hard to see any filtering artifacts.

Finally, as already noted, the key to the whole thing is getting a high-quality capture in the first place. Follow the advice in this thread, as well as the advice given by others in the thread above, about equipment, TBC, etc.