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  #1  
02-06-2018, 11:30 AM
ragu0012 ragu0012 is offline
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This will be fun. I've attached capture samples - the same 10 second clip captured several times - showing each possible filter setting on my JVC SR-VS30.

Please share your opinion on which setting you believe to provide optimal quality and hopefully minimize the amount of restoring needed in Avisynth and VirtualDub.

All ran through my TBC-3000 (with all proc-amp settings at default) via S-video cord to my capture card.

The various settings in the VCR menu include: Digital TBC/NR, Picture Control, Video Calibration, Digital R3 and Video Stabilizer.

Let me know if you want me to upload any different setting combinations. I did not use Video Stabilizer at all, instead opting for Digital TBC/NR on all examples except for the first (control) sample.

Sample 01: No filters (not even Digital TBC/NR), Picture Control: edit,

Sample 02: Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: edit, Video Calibration: off, Digital R3: off

Sample 03: Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: edit, Video Calibration: on, Digital R3: off

Sample 04:Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: edit, Video Calibration: off, Digital R3: on

Sample 05:Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: norm, Video Calibration: off, Digital R3: off

Sample 06:Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: auto, Video Calibration: on, Digital R3: off

Sample 07:Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: auto, Video Calibration: on, Digital R3: on


Attached Files
File Type: avi 01 - no filters.avi (96.64 MB, 108 downloads)
File Type: avi 02 - TBC on.avi (96.00 MB, 94 downloads)
File Type: avi 03 - Video Calibration on.avi (97.65 MB, 63 downloads)
File Type: avi 04 - Digital R3 on.avi (97.28 MB, 55 downloads)
File Type: avi 05 - Picture Control norm.avi (95.64 MB, 45 downloads)
File Type: avi 06 - Video Calibration on Picture Control auto.avi (89.65 MB, 45 downloads)
File Type: avi 07 - Video Calibration on Picture Control auto Digital R3 on.avi (90.54 MB, 57 downloads)
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  #2  
02-06-2018, 12:12 PM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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Part of this will be for you to understand what the settings actually do.

Picture Mode = NR
- edit = OFF
- sharp = minimal NR + edge sharpening (causes halos)
- soft = heavy NR
- auto/norm = standard NR, mostly to remove chroma, some softening may occur (depends on source)

Digital R3 = edge correction, without actual sharpening (causes halos)

VHS is not precise. The signal recording wobbles.
Calibration tries to navigate this imperfect path to give the best playback. It should never be used for recording, and is hit-or-miss (usually miss) for other JVC decks. This specific model is one of the few where it helps.

Also read: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide....html#post9965

So, really, the only thing you should focus on is picture modes.

edit = NR off
auto/norm = NR on

Nobody ever disagrees on these other settings.
- R3 = OFF
- calibration = OFF (usually) ... but not for you, not this model
- sharp = never useful
- soft = generally useful only an animation

You need to remember that NR is needed to allow for compression in later steps. So you either do it now, or later, but it's going to happen. This is really good, and realtime. Later is slow, software, and something like chroma is harder to deal with in software.

It's all about choices.

I'll look at the samples a bit later.

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  #3  
02-06-2018, 01:21 PM
ragu0012 ragu0012 is offline
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Thanks, that is helpful.

I also found it interesting how certain settings created a larger file size, and some a smaller file size, than the one without any settings selected. (You will see how I had to shorten the larger files to fit under the 99mb limit)

Quote:
Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
Part of this will be for you to understand what the settings actually do.
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  #4  
02-06-2018, 01:28 PM
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lordsmurf lordsmurf is offline
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- For lossless, noise makes larger files.
- For compression, noise requires more bitrate -- or create more artifacts. Larger files only if CRF.

And as you're seeing it's generally at least 10% difference, if not more.

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  #5  
02-07-2018, 05:01 AM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ragu0012 View Post
This will be fun.
Well, that depends on your tolerance for visual damage.
Thanks for the samples.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ragu0012 View Post
Sample 01: No filters (not even Digital TBC/NR), Picture Control: edit,

Sample 02: Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: edit, Video Calibration: off, Digital R3: off

Sample 03: Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: edit, Video Calibration: on, Digital R3: off

Sample 04:Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: edit, Video Calibration: off, Digital R3: on

Sample 05:Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: norm, Video Calibration: off, Digital R3: off

Sample 06:Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: auto, Video Calibration: on, Digital R3: off

Sample 07:Digital TBC/NR: on, Picture Control: auto, Video Calibration: on, Digital R3: on
01 is useless, not just because of noise but because of distortions from bad scanline sync that can't be repaired no matter how many filters are used later.

IMO 02 and 03 are your best bet for detail retention and overall definition after some mild to standard post-processing -- and in post you can get far more sophisticated and far less destructive than you will with a VCR's primitive filters.

04: Digital R3 kills this one. You'll never get rid of the halos (which result from improper edge sharpening) or the annoying buzz from sharpened noise.

With 05 things get foggy, contrast looks relatively curtailed and the image lacks snap. Fine detail is visibly disappearing. The face of the little girl on the floor looks out of focus. No post-capture sharpener can retrieve lost details or textures.

06 and 07 represent typical destruction from these types of players. The picture is denuded and hazy, motion smearing gets worse. The little girl on the floor looks as if she's wearing a silk stocking over her face. This kind of damage can't be repaired and isn't for archiving, mainly because the results are avoidable in the first place.

The attached 03_sample_DVD.mpg presented some color problems. JVC does odd things to color sometimes, especially reds, and so does cheap s-video wire (the latter due to uneven impedance curves and transmission noise). A Panasonic has cleaner reds but which unfortunately get pumped-up out of proportion. VHS itself is anything but pure . Then there is color reflected off the walls and the cyan daylight from the background window. The overall color cast was yellow-green, with even more green in skin shadows. The corrections seem tolerable except for the dark green of the plant in the left corner -- but, then, it's usually best to correct for skin tones. If your plants look pretty but the people are the same green, something's wrong. Try a trip down memory lane to recall how the walls and furniture looked back then.

The sample's color balance changes from cool green at the start to warmer when the bright window leaves the picture frame. And gamma's a littler tricky because of lens flare. Some color elements could be tweaked here and there, such as the boy's hair which still looks a bit green at times. But VHS color is impossibly murky anyway. I corrected in VirtualDub with gradation curves, Colormill, and temporal smoother applied to the Avisynth output while the script was running. The attached .vcf file has the VirtualDub settings. Relatively moderate denoising was used.

Code:
AviSource("E:\forum\faq\ragu0012\A\03 - Video Calibration on.avi")
ColorYUV(off_v=-3)
Tweak(cont=1.2,dither=true,coring=false)
Levels(16,0.95,255,12,235,dither=true,coring=false)
AssumeTFF()
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)

# ----- clean edges and halos before deinterlace ------ #
SeparateFields().HQDering().HQDering().DeHalo_Alpha()
Weave()
QTGMC(preset="medium",EZDenoise=4,denoiser="dfttest",sharpness=0.7,\
   ChromaMotion=true,border=true,ChromaNoise=true,DenoiseMC=true)

# --------- Vinverse reduces interlace combing -------- #
vInverse()
RemoveDirtMC(20,false)
LimitedSharpenFaster(edgemode=2)
AddGrainC(1.5,1.5)

# ---- replace uneven borders and center the image ---- #
Crop(22,0,-14,-8).AddBorders(18,4,18,4)

# ---------------- reinterlace for DVD ---------------- #
SeparateFields().SelectEvery(4,0,3).Weave()

# ---- Convert 480i to RGB for VirtualDub filters ----- #
ConvertToRGB32(interlaced=true,matrix="Rec601")
return last


Attached Files
File Type: mpg 03_sample_DVD.mpg (9.26 MB, 59 downloads)
File Type: vcf 03_sample_VDub_filters.vcf (3.7 KB, 19 downloads)
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  #6  
02-07-2018, 06:07 PM
ragu0012 ragu0012 is offline
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Thanks Sanlyn. Quick question.. did you change all your .avs scripts to .avsi? I remember in the past you said you would put a load command at the top of the script because the autoload avsi were troublesome, but I don't see that here.

As for the video, I believe there is a florescent overhead light that is probably causing issues with the color in the room, especially when combined with the daylight it is competing with. Believe it or not, those walls are definitely supposed to be white. Many of my home movies are shot in this same living room, so I have to deal with the issue in many of these tapes.

Is my cheap s-video cable really working against me??



Quote:
Originally Posted by sanlyn View Post

IMO 02 and 03 are your best bet for detail retention and overall definition after some mild to standard post-processing -- and in post you can get far more sophisticated and far less destructive than you will with a VCR's primitive filters.

The attached 03_sample_DVD.mpg presented some color problems. JVC does odd things to color sometimes, especially reds, and so does cheap s-video wire (the latter due to uneven impedance curves and transmission noise). A Panasonic has cleaner reds but which unfortunately get pumped-up out of proportion. VHS itself is anything but pure . Then there is color reflected off the walls and the cyan daylight from the background window. The overall color cast was yellow-green, with even more green in skin shadows. The corrections seem tolerable except for the dark green of the plant in the left corner -- but, then, it's usually best to correct for skin tones. If your plants look pretty but the people are the same green, something's wrong. Try a trip down memory lane to recall how the walls and furniture looked back then.

The sample's color balance changes from cool green at the start to warmer when the bright window leaves the picture frame. And gamma's a littler tricky because of lens flare. Some color elements could be tweaked here and there, such as the boy's hair which still looks a bit green at times. But VHS color is impossibly murky anyway. I corrected in VirtualDub with gradation curves, Colormill, and temporal smoother applied to the Avisynth output while the script was running. The attached .vcf file has the VirtualDub settings. Relatively moderate denoising was used.

Code:
AviSource("E:\forum\faq\ragu0012\A\03 - Video Calibration on.avi")
ColorYUV(off_v=-3)
Tweak(cont=1.2,dither=true,coring=false)
Levels(16,0.95,255,12,235,dither=true,coring=false)
AssumeTFF()
ConvertToYV12(interlaced=true)

# ----- clean edges and halos before deinterlace ------ #
SeparateFields().HQDering().HQDering().DeHalo_Alpha()
Weave()
QTGMC(preset="medium",EZDenoise=4,denoiser="dfttest",sharpness=0.7,\
   ChromaMotion=true,border=true,ChromaNoise=true,DenoiseMC=true)

# --------- Vinverse reduces interlace combing -------- #
vInverse()
RemoveDirtMC(20,false)
LimitedSharpenFaster(edgemode=2)
AddGrainC(1.5,1.5)

# ---- replace uneven borders and center the image ---- #
Crop(22,0,-14,-8).AddBorders(18,4,18,4)

# ---------------- reinterlace for DVD ---------------- #
SeparateFields().SelectEvery(4,0,3).Weave()

# ---- Convert 480i to RGB for VirtualDub filters ----- #
ConvertToRGB32(interlaced=true,matrix="Rec601")
return last
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  #7  
02-07-2018, 07:32 PM
sanlyn sanlyn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ragu0012 View Post
did you change all your .avs scripts to .avsi? I remember in the past you said you would put a load command at the top of the script because the autoload avsi were troublesome, but I don't see that here.
HQdering, QTGMC, RemoveDirtMC, and LimitedSharpenFaster are stored in my plugins folders as .avs files, not avsi. I import them explicitly with the Import() function. Reason#1: I have multiple versions of those plugins under different file names. Reason #2: different versions of the plugins use Avisynth 2.5 or 2.6, so I keep multiple versions for compatibility with older scripts. It happens that I didn't include the Import() statements in the posted scripts because it tends to confuse some readers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ragu0012 View Post
As for the video, I believe there is a florescent overhead light that is probably causing issues with the color in the room, especially when combined with the daylight it is competing with. Believe it or not, those walls are definitely supposed to be white. Many of my home movies are shot in this same living room, so I have to deal with the issue in many of these tapes.
The shadows on the young girl entering the scene say the overhead light, if there was one, was off left. In the reworked mpg the walls do look closer to white -- at least they're not green. With mixed lighting an exact correction of all elements is next to impossible.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ragu0012 View Post
Is my cheap s-video cable really working against me??
It's likely, but it's seldom a major element -- although every little thing adds up. I got rid of my $1.00 and $2.00 cables of all kinds several years ago, and also threw out the absurdly priced Monster junk and other big-store brands. They're all alike except for the connectors and jackets, which range from minimal/useless to thick/colorful/useless. The a/v cables I use for capture today are from BlueJeansCable.com and a few British imports, while those for TV & set top player HDMI are either Audioquest Pearl or from ThatCable.com in the UK. I think it's been about 10 years since I bought a piece of wire from stores like BestBuy. I made extensive tests with all those cables years ago, tried every wire I could find including monoprice, but never saved the results. Among the worst video cables I ever used were from Monster, which was rather odd because 35 years ago Monster was recognized as a videophile brand until it was taken over and the new owners started using cheap sub-standard common hookup wire in their a/v products.

But I don't think changing cables would make a great difference under most circumstances for most people. Variations are different but subtle. It's difficult to make conclusions without precisely calibrating monitors and TV's using optical probes and calibration software, and working with and watching the same few problematic videos dozens of times (or more) using different wire and high-end players. Testing includes asking others for their detailed responses to different viewing setups. And as I say, the devil is in the details -- big and small, every component affects the sum of the capture to one extent or another.
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  #8  
02-16-2018, 02:20 PM
ragu0012 ragu0012 is offline
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Lordsmurf I'd still be interested to hear your take as well.
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  #9  
11-09-2019, 01:42 AM
msgohan msgohan is offline
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Replying to this old thread where it's more relevant, so that I can keep the pics where they belong for future reference. Gonna link here from the current sorta-OT discussion in another thread.

These are individual fields from 3 of the posted videos, with the two chroma channels shown underneath.

"Raw" version.
JVC S-VHS picture settings comparisons000804.png

EDIT with TBC/NR. Lines are straightened. There is no luma NR. There is mild chroma NR. Looks like temporal averaging and maybe some spatial.
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NORM with TBC/NR. Now spatial & temporal NR are both in effect, for both luma & chroma. The chroma averaging now includes more frames, which causes some trailing of colors during scenes with large movement. Her face appears to lose some color because it's been blended in with the color of the objects that were in that pixel position in the previous frames. Same with the table. And her hand gains a color ghost of its previous position. Meanwhile, the luma NR is mainly to blame for the disappearing couch detail.
JVC S-VHS picture settings comparisons000805.png

The differences are most obvious if you open each attachment in a new tab and flip between them.

The Avisynth script I used to compare and grab the images:
Code:
V1 = AVISource("01 - no filters.avi").Crop(2,0,-0,-0).AddBorders(0,0,2,0).AssumeTFF().SeparateFields()
V1 = V1.StackVertical(StackHorizontal(V1.UtoY(),V1.VtoY())).Subtitle("JVC SR-VS30 (-TBC&NR, EDIT, -Cal, -R3)",x=390)
V2 = AVISource("02 - TBC on.avi").Trim(2,0).AssumeTFF().SeparateFields()
V2 = V2.StackVertical(StackHorizontal(V2.UtoY(),V2.VtoY())).Subtitle("JVC SR-VS30 (+TBC&NR, EDIT, -Cal, -R3)",x=390)
V3 = AVISource("05 - Picture Control norm.avi").Trim(2,0).AssumeTFF().SeparateFields()
V3 = V3.StackVertical(StackHorizontal(V3.UtoY(),V3.VtoY())).Subtitle("JVC SR-VS30 (+TBC&NR, NORM, -Cal, -R3)",x=390)

Interleave(V1,V2,V3)


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