Old Video Cleanup

Jim H wrote on 12/21/2008, 12:54 AM
Has anyone got any good tips for cleaning up old video? I'm finally converting my old beta tapes and some of them have a lot of bright streaking going through them. I can't imagine any filter taking this out, but maybe tone it down some?

Another thing I notice is that if there wasn't great light, the indoor stuff is black. I can't imagine I was that dumb to keep of filming when I wasn't getting anything. I'm also puzzled in that while the screen is black, the date/time is still white as can be. Is it possible that over time the image could darken yet not the date/time stamp? And on the very same tapes there will be outdoor day shots that look wonderful so it's doesn't seem to be the tape itself.

Comments

farss wrote on 12/21/2008, 3:38 AM
For your first problem try using the motion blur envelope in the video buss master track. You may need to mask out those parts of the frame where there's motion though. That means you can end up spending inordinate amounts of time on this.

The other option is to use a VCR with a dropout compensator.
That needs to be fed the RF signal from the head so it can detect the dropout and patch in something else to plug the hole. Good luck though finding such kit that still works. We've got the units, darned if they actually compensate for any of the dropouts.

Bob.
JJKizak wrote on 12/21/2008, 6:00 AM
You can always "cut it out" if there isn't too much of it or fade to a relavent still picture, or a relavent clip of something to cover up icky-poo-poos.
JJK
Sebaz wrote on 12/21/2008, 6:39 AM
I can give you just one tip that I know helps. I noticed that when I drop SD material onto a 1920x1080 project and then render it as 1440x1080 AVC (at 15 MBps, the maximum Vegas allows) it somehow smooths the output. I tried this with some material from SD channels, as well as DVDs with SD video footage, and I was very surprised by the results. Of course you might want to clean up the material with Vegas' filters first.
1marcus4 wrote on 12/23/2008, 9:50 AM
Are you usng the best player you can get your hands on? Are you using a TBC?