Newbe - video processing

itp wrote on 1/6/2004, 2:53 PM
I've asked couple questions here before and answers were extremely helpful. The only problem that questions were… little bit too… narrow.

‘Project’ – Burn my old home video to DVD. (No copyright problems :) )

Video was recorded with (old) PAL 8mm Sony camera (not Hi8!) and later rerecorded with some editing to domestic PAL VHS(s). I was stupid enough to reuse 8mm tapes again – mean the only video I have – VHS. Apart of normal noise on VHS on some joins I have rainbows, and rarely some gaps between clips. I have 8 – 3 hours tapes and 2 – 4 hours.

Ideally I’d like to cleanup some rainbows/noise, edit it to frame level, and add menus pointing to ‘events’ (recording on next day or something like that)

Hardware – P4 2.4, 1Gig, 120Gb (Mirrored OS) + 80Gb (additional) disks, LeadTech analog TV/Capture.

What I’ve done so far.

I’ve captured all (!!!) tapes to mpeg – (MPEG-2 Codec) 720x576 PAL, Video quality 333, Target data rate (Kbps) 6000 (parameters from LeadTech’s WinFast PVR).

I tried edit mpegs. It looks OK while you edit, but after render Vegas moves my cut points several frames towards the end. Somebody in this forum suggested that it moves to next I-frame (Since then I’ve read a bit about mpeg compression and have fractionally better understanding). That brings me realization that it looks like mpeg is not very good option for editing :)

Noise removal from mpeg using VirtuaDub-MPEG2 (suggested on this forum). I wasn’t able to find option to save it back to mpeg. When I tried to save filtered result as AVI (720x576 PAL) it produced something huge with jumps on video and interruptions in sound.

Last attempt I’ve done yesterday. Tried to recapture some bits (!!!) (learnt my lesson) to AVI. 352x288 PAL – Vegas rendering produced not very good result (problem with sharpness). Capture with 352x576 looks funny in ‘Media Player’ (squesed). After Vegas rendering looks OK (still little bit worse than direct mpeg capture), but VirtualDub noise filtering still produce jumpy video (not as bad as 720x576).

Sorry for long message.

I’m stuck, just don’t know where to go from here. (Already(!!!). And I didn’t get even close to fun with menus and burning yet :( )


Could anybody recommend something. Ple-e-ease

Comments

PeterWright wrote on 1/6/2004, 4:47 PM
It's a shame you only have second generation VHS, but that makes it even more important to maximise quality.

I would capture as full size DV - 720 x 576. You didn't mention whether you have a DV camera or a converter, but one of these can be used for pass through to firewire.

Once you have it as fullscreen DV, you can edit it as required - a little cropping may be necessary to remove noise along the bottom, plus whatevr effects may be necessary ...

then, render to fullscreen MPEG2 for DVD.
itp wrote on 1/6/2004, 7:05 PM
Thanks for answer.

Yes I do have DV camera (my 8mm was stolen and TRV11 it's replacement). That (I hope) would resolve my capture problem. But question remains how can I remove noise. When I’ve tried VirtualDub with 720x576 AVI it created ‘jumpy’ output video. Having 25 years of experience in IT development/networking (unfortunately doesn’t help much with dig. video) I know that in most cases it is me who is at fault (do something wrong), but what did I do wrong there?

I've also played yesterday (as recommended by somebody in this forum) a bit with noise reduction filter in Vegas. But it (looks like) actually reduces sharpness (which I guess would reduce noise as well).
Chienworks wrote on 1/6/2004, 8:30 PM
The jumpiness is probably due to you creating an uncompressed .avi file. At full resolution these files would be over 1.8GB/minute. These are huge files and even the fastest computers can have a hard time playing them back smoothly in realtime. They would probably work fine after being rendered into a more compressed format. If you capture in DV format through your TRV11 then the files will only be about 225MB/minute and will play back smoothly with very little loss in quality.

As far as the rainbow noise there probably isn't much you can do about it. This is very "deep" noise which affects the underlying signal to an extreme degree. It nearly obliterates the original signal so if it was removed there wouldn't be much of the original picture left behind to restore. Even if restoration was possible, the noise is very irregular and would require a lot of manual frame-by-frame retouching. You'll probably have to decide when it's better to skip the rainbow section of the video or when that section is too important to eliminate and you'll have to live with it.
itp wrote on 1/7/2004, 3:54 AM

My problems continued. I'm trying to capture through my TRV11. I can use MS Movie Maker OR Vegas. Both of them required tape in camera (even though I've configured camera for signal conversion and in ‘idling’ I can see picture coming from VCR). When I press ‘start capture’ button it always start playing tape. I’m running everything on XP.

Any suggestions ?
Winterlover wrote on 1/7/2004, 4:15 AM
You need to disable (uncheck) the "Enable DV device control" in the Capture 4.0 in Vegas. Then there is no need to have a tape in the camera.
Winterlover wrote on 1/7/2004, 4:20 AM
This tread has been my guide to VHS restoration:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=226492

The Chroma Noise Reduction wasn't that useful on my PAL VHS tapes.
farss wrote on 1/7/2004, 4:21 AM
itp,
firstly for capture in Vegas disable DV device control. Vegas is trying to control the DV transport. You then have to press play on the VCR and start Vegas into record manually.

To your noise issues. Had lots of these sorts of tapes. Just did one for a client. He'd copied LP Hi8 to VHS, and towards the end of a 4 hour VHS tape realised he might have to get another tape so he switched the VCR into long play as well. To add to the fun the tape wasn't new, had some off air stuff on it previously and there were several second gaps between where he'd recorded the new material.

It had every imaginable form of analogue problem, really wobbly sync, rainbows, noise, tape damage etc. Most of it I got rid of. The rainbows are gone for sure, the image is stable, the noise is much better. The damaged tape bits, nothing will fix that.

THe solution is timebase correction. If you had a D8 camera it would have fixed much of this, it'd also play your old Hi8 tapes. Unfortunately DV cameras don't have this, they don't have to play analogue tapes.

The rainbows are caused by the chroma being out of phase coming off the tape, they're not recorded onto the tape, they can be corrected but only in the analogue domain, once its encoded to DV not a chance.

To explain as best I can, VHS is a non heterodyne system, the chroma subcarrier isn't locked, due to tape and head irregularites it can wander and shift the chroma component. This is such an issue a lot of pro level gear just will not accept a signal from a VHS deck without preprocessing.
itp wrote on 1/7/2004, 6:46 PM
Thanks. That actually perfectly worked. BUT...

It looks like for one step forward I always get two steps back.

Now I have really weird thing. I'm writing this one more to share frustration than with hope to get answer.

The video player I use for capture - Grundig GV560HiFi. It is about 5-6 y.o. It supports 100Hz (and 50Hz as well) TV. It perfectly works with LeadTeck card in my comp. It also perfectly work with several video recorders to which I copied tapes (some time ago). But when I connect my TRV11 to it…

I tried it with several tapes and with TV programs (very consistent). It shows OK when picture stable (not too many things moving) (News read on TV). But when ads started (a lot of moving objects everywhere) camera (TRV11) got… out of sync… and then just stop showing any picture (sound still there). It does it in cycles. (I’ve tried to switch on and off 100Hz support and some other parameters on player – no change)

I’ve tried to connect camera to my other video (10 y.o. 2 head JVC, doesn’t work as VCR any more just TV receiver). It works there.

I’d probably buy new player soon but what if it would happen with the new one as well?

All equipment - PAL

If anybody ever come across to same problem (at least may be some possible explanations) – any suggestions would help.