Old video to SonyHi8 to VF - awful quality

conniec wrote on 4/25/2003, 1:02 PM
I have made several movies with VF of the most basic quality. I've had many problems, and often read up on the advice of you whizzes. You are the best. Thanks for all your time. You have helped more people than you know. My problem: I have a friend's parents' 40th anniv video made 10 yrs ago. (Not a great video to begin with..the creator apparently ran his camera while narrating each photo..Grandma, 1936, etc.) She wants me to add some converted 8mm video in places (presently on vhs) and add new photos at the end to update the movie to the last 10 years. I put it (old video)in my VCR and output it to my SonyHi8 digital video camera. Looks great there. Then I started a new vf movie and sucked in the video. It has a greyish cast and a noise line across the bottom. Any way I can resolve these quality issues? thanks.

Comments

Former user wrote on 4/25/2003, 2:59 PM
the noise line is probably normal VHS headswitch error. If you are only going to watch this on TV, it will be cropped.

You say it has a greyish cast, but it looked fine on the digital 8. Did you hook the D8 up to the TV and see if it does indeed look fine? A D8 lcd monitor is not a good representation sometimes of the quality.

Dave T2
conniec wrote on 4/25/2003, 5:13 PM
Good idea. I hooked camera up to TV and it, too, looks greyish. Looked bright on the camera LCD. So is it normal degradation from old VHS to Hi8 to Computer? Is there any way to brighten up the video once in VF? Thanks again for your help!
Former user wrote on 4/25/2003, 8:04 PM
Play with the Brigtness/Contrast plugin and the Color Effx. You can help it out with these plug in effects.

I was able to bring out a scene from an old 8mm film that you could just barely make out on the original film, by increasing contrast.

Have Fun!!

Dave T2
conniec wrote on 4/26/2003, 11:51 AM
thanks DaveT2. I'm off in search of Brightness/contrast plugin & Color effx! You're the best! c
sioda wrote on 4/29/2003, 9:19 PM
I did some old family vcr to digital and found that going 25% black and white realy helped.
Bear wrote on 4/30/2003, 7:12 AM
This is one of the really wonderful things about Vegas. I have been a photographer for 40 years with 35mm and med format cameras. One of the things you could do in post (developing) was create changes that we really wild and you could fix a lot of errors. When I went to digital it got even better with Photoshop altho I admit I use photoshop elements 2 more than Photoshop 7 anyway I have always felt that most video editing programs lent themselves to the mechanics of transfer rather than the esthetics of the video itself. We are so fortunate to have Vegas that is made by people that seem to understand and provide tools for much more than the slick transfer of video.