Setup quality check, converting VHS tapes?
Hi everyone,
I finally had some time yesterday to set up VirtualDub and try to capture a Demo. I followed sanlyn guide, and I'm using VC500, along with an LG DVD/VHS combo unit (when we last talked, It wasn't clear if it had some sort of build-in TBC). The VHS is connected via Acoustic Research PR-121 Pro Series II S-Video Cable to the Capture device, and the machine is Windows 7. My father brought me couple of random tapes from out collection. One is an old Cartoon. Which probably is not an amazing Demo, because the Cartoon itself is very old. The other video is a dancing competition. it's been taken non-professionally. I'm assuming lighting is a problem on the scene, but maybe it actually a good good. if you can perhaps point me in the right direction, I can share a better types of demo. I did notice couple of things : 1. The final video is darker compared to what I can see being played on VirtualDB preview window. I'm not sure if that's a card problem, or I just need to play with white balance/contract to make it in the proper range. 2. I didn't notice any issue sync issue, but maybe it's because I took shorts demos, and I didn't lost enough frames along to way to notice it. Thank you! |
Looking at the cartoon's histogram, the blacks are a little crushed. You need to increase brightness a little more when capturing.
I use VirtualDub's "gradation curves" filter in YUV mode to boost the luminance a little on the right and to adjust the ChromaB and ChromaR as necessary to fix color casts like I see in the cartoon (the whites are a little pink). |
Hello traal, thanks for the feedback :-)
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Thank you! |
Capture cards are known to do funky things with the video, changing the brightness being one of them. For an example, my VC500 made things brighter (at least on my Snow White retail tape). It could also be your video player application (meaning programs like VLC), depending on which one you use. There's a program called Crossbar Thing that, I believe, let's you change the values on the card itself... however I'd be careful when changing the brightness and whatnot on video, especially VHS tapes.
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You can adjust brightness, contrast, saturation and sharpness on the capture through virtualdub. Should be under video -> levels when in capture mode. You can use the histogram feature in the same menu. You will need to set video mode to "preview" (or "display with filters in virtualdub2) to get the histogram to work, can set it back to overlay afterwards, all this should be in the guide.
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Attachment 11378 You should also use the R/G/B histograms in the "Color Tools" filter to check your work. It takes practice. |
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So the only visible problem is the colour? Is it possible to know based on the Demo if the VHS has build-in TBC? and if not - how TBC will improve the current state? Also, All the video I checked has those black and white distortion at the lower section of the video. I'm assuming it's common, because I see it in other captures online (not mine). What causing that? and should I bother about it? I'm assuming I can crop the lower section - but the guide advise against it during capture? Thanks for the help guys! |
The distortion at the bottom of virtually any VHS capture is unavoidable and is called "head switching noise". Old timey tube TVs would zoom in on the video thereby pushing the edges off-screen so nobody ever noticed it. Masking and/or cropping is the common cure. I mask, it's easier. for me anyway.
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Isn't cropping change the resolution and stretching the picture (and therefore hurting quality?) and what do you mean by 'masking'? Thanks! |
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See this: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...converted.html |
Thank you. I will check how to properly mask it.
Well - I didn't get any comments about quality rather than colour. I'm still not sure how TBC effect image quality besides helping to prevent frame-skipping and therefore audio sync issue. I also don't know if my VHS has TBC build in or not - but because there haven't been comment about it, I'm assuming it OK. I will do three things next. One would be taking a longer video. To verify Audio doesn't go out of sync with longer captures. Secondly - I will learn how to adjust black-white levels with the Histogram, and colours with the Colour tool. And lastly, try the lower portion. I'm assuming there is no need for post filters - as non were mentioned. I will re-post the final longer video here for another review. And if the comments will be positive, I will start migrating our 50+ family tapes one by one. Thank you guys! |
The cartoon clip appears to be from one of those horrible compilation tapes. Not even gonna bother commenting on it.
Quoting hodgey from your previous thread: Quote:
As hodgey predicted, there is uncorrected horizontal jitter that causes vertical lines to appear bent/wavy. There are also oversharpening halos, probably caused (mostly) by the playback VCR. It's tough to say much more with this wrongly-encoded sample. |
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I wasn't able to identify those uncorrect horizontal jitter, I had the same problem with the original videos hodgey post. The LG RH video looks almost identical (if not better?) compared to the Panasonic EH57. Probably I'm not 100% know what to look at - and that's why I don't see it. |
To be fair the amount of horizontal jitter is not massive in either your or my samples of the LGs. You can see what the complete lack of correction looks like on my raw sample though. It's most noticeable when there's text or graphics that are supposed to be still. In my samples from the other thread it's most visible on the channel logo in the top right, though the recording is of decent quality so even the LG sample is quite stable (the raw capture is another beast.) On the cartoon sample you can see the image is bent a little to the left at the but the original film-to-tape is so unstable that it makes it hard to spot other issues, which is not uncommon on cartoon recordings.
You will have to see for yourself if you feel satisfied with what you get from your current deck. |
Now that you mentioned it, I did noticed it. But as you mentioned, it's one of the the things you need to look for to notice. I wasn't sure a combo of the LG VCR and the VC500 will work when I got it, the 2nd plan was to get a TBC. But I think it's pretty decent. Especially for non-trained eye. I think I'll start work with that. I also have a question about the compression, but I think it's goes beyond that topic and I'm assuming it's better not to mix. I'll open another one.
Thanks! |
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