First video capture, advice welcomed!
 

Hi, I've just done my first video capture with virtualdub to my Dell M6800 laptop (windows 7) and I would be grateful for any advice. These are video8 camcorder tapes.

My set up is Sony TRV120E camcorder> tbc-1000> pinnacle 710 all s-video leads. I'm also using a cyberpower BR850 AVR

Thank you, Darren.

Keep the master files and follow up with de-interlace, crop, resize to 1440x1080 and encode to h.264, Here is a sample:

Thank you latreche34. Were the clips I posted ok? If i'm honest I don't really know what to look out for. I got your download I have audio but no video. I assume my media player isn't mp4 I will get the VLC player and watch it.

I downloaded the 1st clip, looks good to me. :congrats:

I can look at others later, if needed.

There's really no reason for this. I doubt he's posting these to Youtube for the world to see.

Thank you Lordsmurf Yes I would be grateful if you could look at the other two clips if possible, just in case I'm doing something wrong.

That's not for youtube, It's for sharing with other people without going youtube route, It's as ready as it can be to be displayed on modern flat panels especially the ones that lack good de-interlacing and upscaling qualities, Unless he can share $100GB files and can be played the way they are.

I see no reason to upscale "watching copies to share" to 1440x1080.

H.264 is about more than just resolution. If you make 1080p files, and select the wrong settings (too long a GOP, etc), then the playback device will choke and stutter. At least with lower resolutions, hence lower data rates, chokes and sputters are far less common. It's also harder to easily share huge files in private, unless you want to mail thumb drives or hard drives.

HDTVs almost all scale decently, the issue has always been the deinterlacer. Even then, the deinterlacer can be fine, depends on the exact HDTV. Given how many people are "fine" with average Youtube quality, the deinterlacer in an HDTV is "fine" as well.

For local watching, high bitrate (15bps+) interlaced MPEG-2 is far preferable. Ideally, 4:2:2, but 4:2:0 is passably decent, not any different from DVDs.

Quite nice captures. The black are a little bit crushed and the whites a little bit blown out. Try to play with Pinnacle procamp to reduce this problem.

Attachment 15269

With some basic restoration you can improve a little bit the overall look: https://imgsli.com/MTEwNzA3

Filtering used:

LS I must ask, why do you prefer MPEG-2 over AVC based encoding? A Standard Definition Blu-Ray looks better than a DVD (if the source is the same) because you aren't dealing with the blocky compression MPEG-2 provides.

Is this the expected quality of captures from video8 tapes? I can tell they are better than the poor quality dvds I made about 18 years ago. As a novice I don't have a benchmark. Just getting to this point has been daunting, those scripts strike the fear of god into me!

Why daunting? Be happy, your captures are not bad!

AviSynth restoration is not that difficult. Install it, download the dlls that are in the script, load the script in VirtualDub and voilà! If any doubt, just ask ;)

LS is still living the dream of DVD.

What should I do with the pinnacle procamp settings to offset the crushed blacks and blown whites. Is there a histogram graph that I should use in the pinnacle settings? I'm guessing it's always better to do this before the capture with the pinnacle settings rather than post capture with avisynth. I will download avisynth today. Thank you Lollo2 for the restoration photo, I must have missed it yesterday it looks much improved.

There are several guides and posts in the forum. Search for them, here one from Hushpower (I did not check it, but I trust him) http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post84742

All for 32-bit version

• download AviSynth_2.60.exe from https://sourceforge.net/projects/avisynth2/ and install it
  
• create AviSynth_plugin_dir directory
  
• download QTGMC from http://avisynth.nl/index.php/QTGMC saving the file QTGMC.avsi inside AviSynth_plugin_dir
• download Zs RF Shared from http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Zs_RF_Shared saving the file Zs_RF_Shared.avsi inside AviSynth_plugin_dir
• download Nnedi3 from http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Nnedi3 unpacking the file NNEDI3_v0_9_4_60.7z in directory NNEDI3_v0_9_4_60 inside AviSynth_plugin_dir
  
• download TemporalDegrain2 from the attechement to this post saving the file TemporalDegrain-v2.2.1_modGMa.avsi inside AviSynth_plugin_dir (it is my customization of TD2)
• download RgTools from http://avisynth.nl/index.php/RgTools unpacking the file RgTools-v1.2.7z in directory RgTools-v1.2 inside AviSynth_plugin_dir
• download MaskTools2 from http://avisynth.nl/index.php/MaskTools2 unpacking the file masktools2_v2.2.30.7z in directory masktools2_v2.2.30 inside AviSynth_plugin_dir
• download MVTools from https://github.com/pinterf/mvtools unpacking the file mvtools-2.7.45-with-depans20210608.7z in directory mvtools-2.7.45-with-depans20210608 inside AviSynth_plugin_dir
• donwload FFT3DFilter from https://github.com/pinterf/fft3dfilter/releases unpacking the file FFT3dFilter-v2.10.7z in directory FFT3dFilter-v2.10 inside AviSynth_plugin_dir
• download LoadDLL from http://avisynth.nl/index.php/LoadDLL unpacking the file LoadDLL10.7z in directory LoadDLL10 inside AviSynth_plugin_dir
• download FFTW 3.3.5 from http://www.fftw.org/install/windows.html unpacking the file fftw-3.3.5-dll32.zip in directory fftw-3.3.5-dll32 inside AviSynth_plugin_dir
  
• download LSFmod from http://avisynth.nl/index.php/LSFmod saving the file LSFmod.v1.9.avsi inside AviSynth_plugin_dir

create this script with a text editor:
Open the script in VirtualDub and save it with "Fast compress" HufYUV, or feed ffmpeg with the avs script to create a h264/aac compressed file in a mp4 container:

The plugins will evolve during time, so if needed upgrade to last version of them once available

Of course this is just a basic/quick restoration, playing with the filters and their parameters the result can be improved a lot!

Enjoy!

Edit: if it helps, here you can find the complete AviSynth_plugin_dir, but is better if you download and get familiar with the plugins by downloading them yourself: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vB2...ew?usp=sharing

Thank you for the detailed downloads. I've just downloaded the Avisynth 2.60.exe. and will do the plugins now. Once this script is added in virtualdub will it be activated on all subsequent captures I do, or is this script specific to just this capture.

It is just a generic and basic deinterlacing/denoising/sharpening script. Does not take into account the input/output levels, color correction, specific defects related to each segment, personal taste for the outcomes and so on. Theoretically every video and every shot needs its own filtering.

If you enter in AviSynth/VapourSynth world you'll find many many options.

Ok thank you. I noticed the cropping part in the script. This script is post capture I'm guessing? Is there a avisynth filter that deals with the crushed blacks blown whites during the capture. I couldn't find a way to adjust the Pinnacle 710 procamp how would I access that? Sorry for all the questions I know I've got a lot more reading to do. Thanks.

What software are you using for capturing? For VirtualDub look here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...-settings.html or here https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...pture-from-VHS

Procamp "tab" is specific to your capture card

Thank you. I'm using virtualdub. I've looked at video levels on sanlyn's guide so many times and didn't realise that it's for the proc amp settings even though it's so very clearly states "proc amp settings" I'm so sorry for asking you so many times. Thank you for your patience.
I've also been looking at sanlyn's cropping "set capture clipping" to temporarily remove black borders. I assume what figure is removed from the side has to removed on the top to maintain the aspect ratio but I need to read more about this.

While configuring the procamp all black borders must be removed to do not alter the Histogram, without taking care of the aspect ratio.

When you capture, you do not crop anything, and capture the whole 720x756 frame.

When you post-process, you remove all black borders and head switching noise for proper filtering operations.
Once done you add the black borders of the same quantity you removed, or, better, to fill the frame to a 704x576 frame rather than a 720x576 frame, to respect the aspect ratio with higher accuracy. Example:

edit: the addborders() command above in addition also centers the active area

Thank you. I'm going to have a trial run with the procamp settings tomorrow. I guessing that when I'm experimenting with the procamp I will better understand how to remove the black borders.

My histogram guide was written using my IOData GV-USB2. For the 710USB, the brightness still controls the left edge of the histogram, but the contrast expands and contracts both edges, not just the right edge. So you effectively are expanding the histogram to fit with the Contrast, then moving the whole thing left and right with the Brightness.

Re the cropping, my understanding is that it is only to get rid of the black edges while you are setting the levels (the black edges might affect the overall brightness). You don't need to set the crop to the correct aspect ratio. Once you've got your levels set, you should clear all the crops to do the actual capture.

Thank you for explaining the concept, it makes sense. I'm going to try and adjust the contrast and brightness on the procamp today and see if I can get a feel for what I should be doing. The advice yourself and lollo2 have given me regarding the procamp has really helped.

Thank you Hushpower and lollo2 for the great advice. I'm hoping I've got it right? I've attached a few screenshots and 2 new captures.

Most of the time after removing the black borders with the "set capture clipping" crop, the preview screen would then disappear when I activated the histogram. I only needed the procamp video levels and the histogram display and they consistently worked in tandem. The screenshots attached with the preview screen, histogram & video levels were rare.
I'm hoping if my procamp settings are correct the crushed blacks and blown whites will have improved.

Take the following with a grain of salt because I am not an expert!

Those captures look pretty dang good to me! Well done.

Yes, I regularly have to pull the plug on the 710, re-insert it and restart VDub to get things to work properly.

I think histogram 3 is better than 6: 6 looks a bit too edgy: note the thin red line at the left edge and the sharp drop off on the right edge. 5 could have the contrast upped a bit (and Brightness to move it a bit to the right) to expand the whole histogram a bit.

I think it's better to be a bit dark; you can always brighten things up with Colormill (VDub filter). If things are too bright, you won't get detail back.

Thank you for the compliment Hushpower. I will take into account what you said about the histogram's I can see what you mean. Screenshot 3 looks smoother and wider. I just noticed 5&6 also have more cliff edges to the left.
I think this mean's I'm ready to capture more than just samples. What is the standard length of time you can capture?

For my VHS tapes, I capture the whole shabang, 3 hours worth, in one hit! Then I chop it all up into the various subjects. I'd reckon that would be about 100gb for HUFFYUV (I use MagicYUV as it plays better with my video editor).

That's probably not the most sensible route though, because you will probably find you've got some quite dark "subjects" (night-time party, indoor birthday) and then bright outdoor subjects, which might need different brightness and contrast levels. In that case, it'd be best to capture each subject separately.

If, however, you've got a tape that is pretty much the same all the way through, you can capture it in one hit. You can use VDub to "direct Stream copy" sections of it into separate files for later editing/processing.

Thank you for the advice. I will probably take your sensible route and try and capture 1 hour at a time. I will save them to the internal hd 750gb (not the one with the os) transfer them to an external Fantom hd and then, when I want to edit and restore them I can transfer them back onto the laptop?

That's a good plan. Make sure you back up any files that you can't replace by re-capturing the tapes.

Good advice thank you. I plan to make multiple copies. I only want to capture maybe 2 video's initially and restore & filter those.

Capture "opening presents 1.avi" is ok
Attachment 15297

Capture "opening presents 2.avi" can be improved
Attachment 15298

Used code to check:

Thanks lollo2 for the information. Is that a script I would put into virtualdub before I capture?

No, I used as a post-capture checking.

You can use AviSynth Histograms in real time for tuning procamp before/while capturing, but it is not easy: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...-for-Amarec-TV

Follow sanlyn and Hushpower methodology

Thanks lollo2. I need to read more on Avisynth to understand it better. I intend to do this over next few days.