All my HIFI music videos (on VHS) are recorded with JVC HR-J638E, which I still own. Even today, the recorder works great for playback, but certain rewinds do not work reliably. Some tapes won't eject and I need to retract tape manually...
I didn’t have high expectations when I started digitizing the music videos and concerts I recorded between 1996 and 2001 (and some even 2004 during DVB-T digital age). My first round of digitization took place in 2004. At the time, I was using composite cables and a Pinnacle PCTV-100i PCI bus capture card which I actually still own that PCI card. It has a Philips digitizing Saa-xxxx circuit and it has a poor 2D comb filter. The S-Video interface is still found and composite. This post will summarize my 2004 results, 2022 results and Youtube SD picture versions (480p or 576p) I use as a reference. During the 2004 I captured it with some Pinnacle Studio 9 and used some factory noise reduction and that was it. After that I encoded the final viewing copy. Don't remember if I used lagarith or similar for first phase raw capture.
This time (2022) I have a little different approach. Today, those same original tapes are 18 years older than the last time they were played and captured. Thanks to digitalfaq for helping me, I will be able to implement that digitazion process in a slightly more advanced way today. I still don’t have the best possible hardware available, but these devices should get good results. Excellent quality demands a good condition S-VHS deck (most likely JVC) and DataVideo TBC-1000 or similar.
So my signal chain is: JVC HR-J638E (in good condition, no comets or black lines and it is the same player which originally recorded the source i'm playing). JVC outputs via Full Scart (dunno if it outputs RGB) to Panasonic DMR-ES10 (which work's a poor mans picture corrector - little bit Line TBC'ish things but not fully) and Panasonic Outputs S-Video to Avermedia DVB-T (not SaaXXX chip) and whole thing is captured with
Virtualdub and audio is fed Tascam US-366 with 48khz / 16bit.
JVC composite out -> composite in DMR-ES10 s-video out -> s-video in Avermedia DVB-T capture card
Audio: DMR-ES10 audio out RCA -> RCA in Tascam US-366
Post processing: Avisynth /
Virtualdub. QTGMC deinterlace, TempSmooths, TemporalDegrain or TemporalDegrain2. Some post sharpening and maybe aWarpSharp2. Crop with VirtualDub and Canvas Size (not resizing) to make it 720x576. Some final encodings to x264 I did with Shotcut and synced the audio match the picture. Audio / Video sync is almost always incorred. Virtualdub has some 500ms default setting which is almost always wrong? Maybe my external USB Tascam US-366 input latency settings play some part on this. But shotcut audio sync does it. Most of the time i need to delay the sound around 150ms - 250ms to make it match with the picture.
Results: The overall picture has better contrast, edge detail is more "up". No twisting picture geometry. Little bit digital tv kind of feel (most likely due Panasonic DMR-ES10 artefacts). The quality is even with Youtube content. I'm wondering why youtube uploads lose most of the detail. The general atmosphere is overly soft (on Youtube samples). The color saturation is often good but the whole thing is hazy. This is especially true for standard definition Youtube content.
Interesting side note for DVB-T era VHS recordings: The digitality of the source image is also reflected in the VHS source. Somehow the picture is more in your face. DVB-T era content is basically MPEG2 which I recorded on VHS-tape from set top box via Scart-cable to video. I transferred one VHS content to digital (It was recorded originally to VHS tape from DVB-T source). Even after Avisynth functions it picture seems somehow more blocky (sawtooth blocky edge) than tapes from true analog RF source. Even one VHS home video (transfered) which was DV-tape master - even recorded on VHS it exposed some digital artefacts.
I put some results here. This is my Van Halen "Right Now" which is now public on Youtube. I tried to combine side by side my 2004 with 2022. It upscaled to 1080p with Shotcut to try preserve some detail. 90% of the VH uploads are mono or their stereo picture is somehow altered (I have Adam ribbon tweeter monitors to verify sound). I will upload some raw samples in the upcoming posts. In Finland, it was legal to record a program on TV for personal use. This content is protected by copyright, but these home recordings may be processed and archived for personal use. Short samples can be uploaded for educational purposes...
SAMPLE 1: Van Halen Balance Tour 1995 (Toronto) Opening, never released officially on DVD/BD etc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpZtr_6_g5A
So my advice: Digitize your good quality music videos from SD picture era. Youtube quality is so low and the audio is most likely packed with some high compression algorithm.
