Music videos on VHS, worth it to digitize? Youtube SD low quality?

FinnTape79 · #1 05-10-2022, 09:59 AM

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.

lollo2 · #2 05-10-2022, 12:22 PM

Quote:

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.

Most of my S-VHS recordings are from DVB-S, and many suffers of the problems you described, because MPEG-2 compression of the '90s and low bitrate.
My recordings from analog terrestrial have different defects (ghosting, noise), but no block artifacts, mosquito noise or excessive smoothing.

Thanks for your "story"!

RobustReviews · #3 05-10-2022, 04:25 PM

Not a technical thing, but I collect music promos (about the only television I've ever watched) and I do despair at the quality of some of the conversions done by studios for YouTube. That said, it's not me they're trying to impress, so meh. If they've been made available for free, it's not up to me to be overly critical.

I'm not one for 'live' videos as they tend as they're fighting against the rules of photography often, so my personal view is that it's not especially worth getting worked-up about live performance videos as they're difficult to control for camera operators. That's not to say you don't want to do the best job possible, but we see a lot of Betacam SP/MII copies of various live clips and even those can have major defects due to the nature of the material. They don't always sparkle once you add lighting, hazers, and massive RF interferences.

When you see some of the original edits you can also see some of the rough bits that are magically corrected for the final release too. All bands seem to have been guilty of the odd cheeky overdub. I have a Queen tape that's got two totally different sections of 'It's a Hard Life' carefully grated in, expect the HiFi track was left with the original version where Freddie completely forgets the lyric!

I do have a (vanishingly rare) copy of Belinda Carlisle's 'Good Heavens' tour on Video8 with a PCM soundtrack, that's much better than the version that's up on YouTube. That's from my personal collection, because, well... late 80s Belinda..

If you're finding bizarre stereo artefacts, they could be processed monoaural recordings. There's a cheeky little trick to do a fake 'stereo' effect to widen the staging for music from mono sources. It's obviously not brilliant but it does make a pseudo-stereo which gives a bit more atmosphere than a mono' recording when coupled with images. Live mixes aren't done with conventional stereo in mind which can also make them sound a bit 'funny' in isolation.

Anyway, music promos are cool, and I'm a complete geek on them so looks like an interesting project.

msgohan · #4 05-10-2022, 11:58 PM

I'm somewhat optimistic for the future of music video preservation on official YouTube channels. The companies that uploaded aliased 240p-equivalent pukefests in 2006-20xx (prior to YouTube HD) are able to swap out the video with a new, remastered or upscaled encode while keeping the original metadata and comments. (Which YouTube doesn't allow us mere mortals to do on any of our videos.) I assume you have seen this Tom Scott video.

I'm not really a fan of "side-by-side" 50%-cut comparisons, but thanks at any rate. A nice watch, particularly as this song is tied with "Dreams" for my fave Van Halen track. I just wish Eddie hadn't switched to such an ugly guitar in the '90s.

Comparing sub-optimal captures done in early-'00s to better captures done now (when the tapes are much older) is something I want to do, myself. I think a handful of unprocessed Huffyuv clips from that time have survived various HDD moves and crashes. Unfortunately, my actual "archival encodes" of the time ended up going through a pipeline of blend-deinterlace -> medium-bitrate DivX rather than interlaced MPEG-2. I would have gone for DVD output if I'd had the money for a DVDR drive as a teen, but alas.

latreche34 · #5 05-11-2022, 02:38 AM

I wish all music video production houses had the luxury of 35mm film instead of Betacam, We would be enjoying them in their high quality glory like Last Christmas. For shits and giggles I dumped the 4K version to my hard drive, Just in case.

FinnTape79 · #6 05-11-2022, 12:10 PM

Santana Supernatural clip. In this one I used Panasonic NV-FS90EG Super VHS along with Panasonic DMR-ES10 to stabilize those lines... 2004 copy (which is my current archived) is on the left side. Lot of problems. It looks like it has some kind of "thin white sticker on it". The black level isn't right and there is also rainbowing. It is good that I started this restoration all over again. There's things to improve - you wouldn't think that in the first place. VHS is such mess...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caXERC6-ds0

It is true stereo... There's several bongo drums which goes left to right according hand movement. Not possible with some spatial widener effect...

latreche34 · #7 05-11-2022, 04:12 PM

This is a good comparison showing composite vs S-Video, Will you be able to redo it using the exact same VCR, capture card and workflow please? Thanks.

msgohan · #8 05-12-2022, 03:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinnTape79

Santana Supernatural clip. In this one I used Panasonic NV-FS90EG Super VHS along with Panasonic DMR-ES10 to stabilize those lines... 2004 copy (which is my current archived) is on the left side. Lot of problems. It looks like it has some kind of "thin white sticker on it". The black level isn't right and there is also rainbowing. It is good that I started this restoration all over again. There's things to improve - you wouldn't think that in the first place. VHS is such mess...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caXERC6-ds0

Yikes. I'm not a fan of the sharpening effect on the right.

themaster1 · #9 05-12-2022, 09:00 AM

Anybody got a magic script for such old Mvideos, especially LIVE ones ? I'd be curious to know

NJRoadfan · #10 05-14-2022, 09:34 PM

You can compare a 2000 sub-optimal capture to a 2010 better capture on my channel. A noticeable improvement. Also a common trick to get around YouTube's crap SD encoding is to de-interlace and scale to 720p.

latreche34 · #11 05-15-2022, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NJRoadfan

You can compare a 2000 sub-optimal capture to a 2010 better capture on my channel. A noticeable improvement. Also a common trick to get around YouTube's crap SD encoding is to de-interlace and scale to 720p.

It's 1080p now, 720 is SD by youtube.

FinnTape79 · #12 05-23-2022, 12:14 PM

Here is something with dark picture... Neil Young. Youtube copyright hit it hard so look that attachment. The organ part with "Long May You Run" works fine with my subwoofer. Who says VHS cannot produce sub frequencies? Some odd Nicam stereo clip clip things happen. The Panasonic is not 100% ok with my JVC HR-J638 recording... See attachment. Youtube is censored.

And the answer to the title of this threat: Convert your Music Television, Viva, Onyx etc. favorite music's from the past. The YouTube quality is compromised on the area of sound and especially for the image.

This may have a sample of Neil Young "Philadelphia" song or not. At the moment it is processing it because of copyright "blocked". I have to strip 2 songs out of 3.

https://youtu.be/fk4VTs5_LdE

Look attachment for complete sample.

FinnTape79 · #13 05-23-2022, 12:39 PM

See attachment.

FinnTape79 · #14 05-25-2022, 01:07 PM

More samples. Played with S-VHS NV-FS90EG even this was recorded with JVC HR-J638E originally. This looks ok even after Youtube squash... Got it 1080p50. So the double frame rate is there as well:

Only these functions used because the picture was kind of ok in the beginning:
Cnr2(mode="oxx", scdthr=10.0, ln=35, lm=192, un=47, um=255, vn=47, vm=255, log=false, sceneChroma=false)
QTGMC( Preset="Fast", EdiMode="NEEDI3", EdiMaxD=16, TR1=1, TR0=2, TR2=3 )
TemporalDegrain2(degrainTR=2,postFFT=0)
dfttest(sigma=1, tbsize=1)
Sharpen(0.4)

https://youtu.be/w0P3hBglbYA

Vangelis (rip)

lollo2 · #15 05-25-2022, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Only these functions

That's alot. You have denoise in QTGMC(), TD2() and dfttest(). You have sharpening in QTGMC() and Sharpen()

The ruisk is plastic look and halos highlighted.

Does the raw capture look like the AVS/YT video?

Immagine.jpg

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FinnTape79 · #16 05-26-2022, 08:19 AM

Here is from my version... Now checking the raw video....

FinnTape79 · #17 05-26-2022, 08:19 AM

See attachment. Previous post was missing it. So there's the 1080p scaled not Youtube processed version and the RAW (only Yadiff deinterlace) with name: Capture_isThereA_Halo_RAW_video.jpg.

lollo2 · #18 05-26-2022, 09:38 AM

halo on original source then; yadiff and then QTGMC???; post just a small segment of the raw video capture

FinnTape79 · #19 05-26-2022, 10:20 AM

No double deinterlace. Only YADIFF for the screen capture copy. But here is unprocessed, interlaced original short clip.
And ANOTHER challenge for you... Lines that move on the screen up-down.... Here is Thin Lizzy concert. This same problem was with Van Halen Balance capture. See other sample. That Thin Lizzy is ongoing rendering. Gone >24h... Let's see if the wondering lines get reduced. Script for Thin Lizzy:

QTGMC (Preset="Fast")
TemporalDegrain2(degrainTR=2,postFFT=0)
dfttest(sigma=2, tbsize=1)
Sharpen(0.6)
ColorYUV(cont_u=8, cont_v=10)

That Thin Lizzy clip is a good example of true analog RF broadcast. It is recorded around 1998. At that time no DVB-T or similar MPEG2 based tricks

lollo2 · #20 05-26-2022, 12:28 PM

The second capture is bad, and many even+odd fields show the "weird" pattern (hum bars?)
1.jpg

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A possible solution here: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...-how-to-remove

Edit: concerning the first capture, the halo is already there: if not related to a bad capture setting, you can try (with caution) Dehalo_alpha or fineDehalo. BTW, I was just curious if the "faces" in the first picture I posted were the same in the raw capture without processing.