Why does this video look so bad?
 

I am resuming my massage project after a 1-2 year hiatus. Halfway through 500 VHS and Hi-8 tapes.

On tapes I am not passionate about, I am not doing anything in AVIsynth. Just capturing with virtualdub (huffyUV) then dropping the AVI into TotalCode Studio to create both my 15Mbps interlaced MPG file -- and a 6Mbps deinterlaced MP4 file.

I believe I'm using the same settings as I used a couple years ago, but my encoded file looks like crap. (Ghosting... jittery movement)

And I can't figure out why. To get me started on the right path, could someone view the file (and compare to the AVI) to see what you think I've got going on wrong here?

If you need more info on the files I can sure answer any questions.

Thanks so much for your help. A

Your highlights are blown out, that for sure. We need a little info, please. What player? What TBC? What capture device?

Please, no mp4's or deinterlacing. We don't like analyzing broken and borked files, and there's more than one way to deinterlace.

Thanks Sanlyn.

To be more specific - I can't figure out what's causing the ghosting and choppy movement on the compressed MPG file and can't go any further until I get this addressed.

My parents' camera (Sony Hi-8) was malfunctioning for about a year and those blown out highlights very much exist on the tape. Because of the amount of damage, I don't have interest in spending time trying to improve that when I have so many other tapes with enough dynamic range to improve upon when it comes to the older VHS tapes. I'm willing to deal with the strange florescent colors as well, again to save time on these tapes that are not a priority. However, since they involve basketball, the jittery movement is a bigger deal.

My set up for the Hi-8 transfer starts with a Sony DCR-TRV460 - with TBC activated but DNR deactived - S-video cord to Datavideo TBC-3000- going to ATV TV Wonder 600. The camcorder I purchased on ebay when my last Sony with TBC died. I do not like this one as much but don't have a trained enough eye to judge the quality.

I encode my archival files with Mainconcept TotalCode Studio, with the settings: MPEG2 High Profile- Interlaced top field first - Constant bitrate 15000kbps - 720x480 4/3 aspect - 59.94i framerate

You've helped me a ton in years past, Sanlyn, and it's great to see you're still here. Thank you for your time and expertise.

I didn't think of this until I posted my response.. but is it possible the ghosting and choppy video doesn't exist on other computers? Is it just my PC's video player?
Just for reference, on my screen the AVI looks really smooth but the MPG looks terrible.

Don't use players to judge. Open in VirtualDub2. You don't want processed video to look at right now. The player is for playing, and enjoying, maybe post-encode quick testing. But not this, not during the capture phase, and proofing of the captures.

I looked at both and the MPG clip looks like what I used to see when I watched channel 3 in my area (Analogue cable) it was on te same channel as it was OTA and often it bled thru causing about the same images.....