Best starting method for newbie (VHS digitalization)?
 

Hi,

I'm Chrisbati, totally new on this forum and in the world of digitalisation.
I read a lot of information, not always clear for me :)

I'm trying to digitalize my old VHS tape and I have a few question about, in a first time, capture:


- What's the best soft to capture Virtualdub or Avisynth. I understood that they both have their pro and cons and It depends on the context. But in a common or standard way ?

- What's the best workflow for capturing, only capturing wihthout any filter and then filtering (deinterlace, picture size, resolution, color correction,...) or capturing directly with some filters (deinterlace, ... ?) ?

- In term of resolution, for standard VHS, what's the best ? I plan to put my digitalisation on DVD and also making x264 files.

- is there any script or automatic workflow to capture and or filter that I can use and maybe tune depends on the situation ?

Thanks a lot in advance for any information.

Chrisbati

PS: sorry for my english as it's not my native language. Difficult to write and also understing too complex topics :)

Hi Chrisbati,

A good place to start is by looking thru the Guides here on the forum, particularly these: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm

There is a lot of information there, some basic info with the answers to some of your questions, and some information so in depth you don't need to understand all of it. But at least glancing thru it once will give you a better idea of where to begin and what questions to ask.

If you also browse thru the Planning section, you will find a lot of posts with exactly the same questions of where to start. That will also give you general idea of what to do with the sometimes daunting task of figuring out where to start.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-workflows/

Erich

Welcome to digitalfaq!

Avisynth is a frame server, decoder, and vide processor. It has no capture function, so it cannot be used for capture.


AVisynth and Virtualdub are the two essential programs we recommend for video restsoration, repair, and enhancement. There is no other software that can replace their total functionality. VirtualDub has the additional capacity for video capture and is used to capture analog source to lossless digital media.


Start with FLinder's excellent advice to begin with the basic guide to the properties of digital video and the basics of capture at http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm. Later you can get into more detailed and updated VirtualDub capture procedures at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...-settings.html.

Filters are not used during capture and deinterlacing during capture is never recommended. Deinterlacing is a destructive process and is used only when necessary or for internet posting. It requires special precautions and procedures. The best deinterlacer these days is Avisynth's QTGMC. Not all video is interlaced. Much video content is telecined, which should never be deinterlaced and requires special processing such as Avisynth"s TIVTC (inverse telecine).

The only "filters" used during capture are non-destructive brightness and contrast in the proc amp controls in your video capture software. These adjustments are used to insure legal video signal levels in the YUV range of y=16-235 to prevent crushed blacks and destroyed highlight detail (clipping). Analog is usually captured using a YUY2 lossless colorspace, which is the closest equivalent to the YPbPr data storage used for VHS and similar sources. Color filters are seldom used for analog source because YUV color correction is extremely basic, mlimited, often buggy, and analog tape color and levels change from minute to minute. Color correction and denoisers are best done in post processing with filters that are far more sophisticated than anything you could use at capture time.

VHS and most other analog tape sources are captured at 720x480(NTSC) or 720x576(PAL). This is the frame size used in the vast majority of VHS captures. It offers the best frame size for adequate video data in post processing. It is also the same frame size used for DVD, standard def Bluray, and SD AVCHD. Web and other formats require special processing for 'net posting and other display objectives. The exact procedures used depend on the individual video.

"x264" is not a codec and is not a format. It is an h.264 encoding engine used by several software encoders. There are several other h.264 encoding engines used by other software apps. The actual codec is "h.264". The only codec allowed for DVD is MPEG2. The codecs used for BluRay and AVCHD are MPEG, AVC/h.264, and VC1. h.264 is almost always used for the internet.

There are no automatic filters or procedures, and no one-size-fits-all processing tricks. Every video source, every video capture, every video problem differs with each project. There are problems that are common to all analog sources, and there are popular filters that are used to repair "the usual defects" such as dropouts, unwanted border contamination, chroma noise, edge halos, tape noise, and others -- but the degree and settings will be different for different sources, and additional problems can occur which require change, adjustment, and different filters.