VHS conversion resolution?

[JaKJyb7]

My capture card, the GV-USB2, only captures 720x576 max, is it a bad card?

[lordsmurf]

This thread got confusing fast.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaKJyb7

in digital terms, what resolution the modes of VHS and S-VHS

Do you mean:

(1) From a practical stance?
Then easy! In the 2020s (and 2010s), just capture max SD resolution of 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). And done.

(2) Or do you mean from a theory stance?
Not that you can do anything practical with the numbers. And also understanding multiple variables affect it, from tape to tape, recording deck to recording deck, tape grade to tape grade, etc. Add in dogma like Nyquist (which is a theory, and NOT the only theory), and it gets more confusing; I'm not a Nyquist absolutist, some % of BS in it. So you get ranges, like 200-320 VHS, 400-540 S-VHS, etc. Not too helpful.

Quote:

and if PAL or NTSC will affect those resolutions

Yes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaKJyb7

My capture card, the GV-USB2, only captures 720x576 max, is it a bad card?

Quality aside (debatable, not important here), the 720x576 doesn't make it a bad card.
So no.

[JaKJyb7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

This thread got confusing fast.



Do you mean:

(1) From a practical stance?
Then easy! In the 2020s (and 2010s), just capture max SD resolution of 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). And done.

(2) Or do you mean from a theory stance?
Not that you can do anything practical with the numbers. And also understanding multiple variables affect it, from tape to tape, recording deck to recording deck, tape grade to tape grade, etc. Add in dogma like Nyquist (which is a theory, and NOT the only theory), and it gets more confusing; I'm not a Nyquist absolutist, some % of BS in it. So you get ranges, like 200-320 VHS, 400-540 S-VHS, etc. Not too helpful.

Yes.


Quality aside (debatable, not important here), the 720x576 doesn't make it a bad card.
So no.

Thank you so much for this. I was just after a response like this. It really is greatly appreciated.

I meant from a theory stance, but I take it that I shouldn't bother to try to rescale to the resolution it's supposed to be, what with all the factors you said.

About the card, I want the most I can get out of my captures, within reasonable price. So should I get a different one? If so, what would you recommend?

[latreche34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaKJyb7

My capture card, the GV-USB2, only captures 720x576 max, is it a bad card?

That's the only resolution you can capture at, It's a hardware limitation by standard.

After capturing you can de-interlace, crop to 704x576 and resize directly to 1440x1080 HD standard, then encode to h.264 (mp4), but you will not gain any more details, it is just to set the aspect ratio to 4:3 HD standard so modern devices and TVs can play it without any issue. Keep the original 720x576 files just in case.

[JaKJyb7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

That's the only resolution you can capture at, It's a hardware limitation by standard.

After capturing you can de-interlace, crop to 704x576 and resize directly to 1440x1080 HD standard, then encode to h.264 (mp4), but you will not gain any more details, it is just to set the aspect ratio to 4:3 HD standard so modern devices and TVs can play it without any issue. Keep the original 720x576 files just in case.

Why on earth would I want to rescale it to HD? That's redundant.

[latreche34]

For the reasons I stated, Scaling artifacts by some cheap TV's, some devices don't work well with non square flags...etc. Unless your main viewing TV is an old CRT TV or SD plasma/LCD, any other TV will rescale it to HD whether you like it or not, Software resizing (or rescaling as you put it) is much much better. Also if uploading to the cloud such as YouTube you get less penalized by compression if you upload a HD file vs a SD file, That's what I do for my YT channel.

[traal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

some devices don't work well with non square flags

True, at least for older devices.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

Software resizing (or rescaling as you put it) is much much better.

Probably false, at least for newer devices.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

Also if uploading to the cloud such as YouTube you get less penalized by compression if you upload a HD file vs a SD file

True, also YouTube only supports 60fps at 720p and higher resolutions.

[latreche34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by traal

Probably false, at least for newer devices.

Actually it's true for only newer devices, Back in the day when HD started to wide spread SD was still main stream so HD devices manufacturers made sure the upscaling features were top notch especially in some high end TVs, A/V receivers, DVD and Blu-ray players.

Nowadays the upscaling is an after though with no real dedication to quality. Probably basic X-Y expander, Even current hardware designer at this point of time never lived the SD era so they wouldn't know how to design a good upscaler chip, The engineers who designed those things retired already, This is the same reason why there is no decent capture cards or TBC's available on the market.

Unless you are talking about stand alone upscalers like the Gefen and the likes, but those are old devices from the 2000's era, they just kept making them under the same design and same components, but they will stop making them sooner or later when demand diminishes.

[traal]

When I got my 4K TV, I did an A/B comparison between native 4K content and 1080p content upscaled by the TV. The built-in upscaler does a better job of removing jagged edges from lines than the naïve algorithms in the web page I linked, but it isn't very good at restoring texture like in Shrek's clothing.

Anyway, upscaling has advanced since the SD era and there will always be a need for it so it will only get better.

[dpalomaki]

Quote:

... upscaling has advanced...

Like just about everything related to video it will depend on the specifics of the software. There are few absolutes, but many that apply in the most cases. The trick is to know the capabilities and weaknesses of the tools one is using with the source material with which one is working.

[latreche34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by traal

When I got my 4K TV, I did an A/B comparison between native 4K content and 1080p content upscaled by the TV. The built-in upscaler does a better job of removing jagged edges from lines than the naïve algorithms in the web page I linked, but it isn't very good at restoring texture like in Shrek's clothing.

Anyway, upscaling has advanced since the SD era and there will always be a need for it so it will only get better.

Neither 4K nor 1080p are SD materials, Yes technology advances but it moves on too and some legacy functions are left in the dark like displaying SD properly.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaKJyb7

Why on earth would I want to rescale it to HD? That's redundant.

Not just that, but what is the the return on time and investment here? Too many people waste time, waste money, upscaling crap from Youtube, or old DVDs. Why? Does it make the content any better to watch? No. In fact, it often adds more artifacts, distractions, reduces quality, reduces enjoyment.

I come from the hobby/collecting side of video, from the 90s. Back then, before streaming, hobbyists had a bad habit of collecting toons/shows/movies that they'd never watched, sometimes never even had an interest in. There was this notion that we'd never have access to it ever again, so they hoarded. While millennials are often credited for uttering the phrase "because I can", that behavior exists before some of them were even born.

Upscaling is often just a pointless "because I can" scenario. It's often done due to the false notion that "better will never exist", but it's only true when you own the master materials. But even then, is it worth it? For some projects, yes. For most, no.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

YouTube you get less penalized by compression if you upload a HD file vs a SD file, That's what I do for my YT channel.

While true, only resolution matters. It could be complete garbage. Youtube is tone deaf when it comes to video image quality (IQ), not just raw resolution.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

Actually it's true for only newer devices,

What's also true is this: sit at a normal viewing distance, most resolutions look the same, or most sets under 65". You only see "softness" as you get so close that you wipe boogers on the TV screen.

The main difference is interlace handling, or rather bad interlace handling. But I've not seen that in many years now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpalomaki

Like just about everything related to video it will depend on the specifics of the software. There are few absolutes, but many that apply in the most cases. The trick is to know the capabilities and weaknesses of the tools one is using with the source material with which one is working.

This. But also noting some software is just inferior/terrible at everything.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

NYes technology advances but it moves on too and some legacy functions are left in the dark like displaying SD properly.

This. The idea that "it always gets better in time" is false.
- Sometimes it is what it is, no further gains to be made.
- Sometimes stuff progresses, and then ceases. Sometimes due to "good enough" excuse, sometimes due to actual hurdles that make it impossible or unfeasible.
- Sometimes stuff does continue to be better, but it's a tiny minority of the time.

I refer to everything here, not just video.

[WeareTown]

Hi all, I was googling upscaling of VHS videos and came across this forum that I have just joined. I'm in the UK.

I have been a cameraman for an English Football League team for nearly 40 years, not professionally but more as a very keen amateur trying to do as good a job as I can with the equipment we have. We started out filming the games on VHS cameras, then SVHS followed by Mini DV and now in HD on SD cards.

I did produce season highlights onto VHS, and then later onto DVD but haven't produced season highlights since about 2006 as our footage was being uploaded to the clubs website where fans could access it without having to buy DVDs plus as the team wasn't doing that well the number of DVDs we sold were dropping to where it wasn't worth the time editing the individual matches to get all the highlights. I used a Macro Systems AVIO then Solitaire which although not rated very highly with many editors I found it really easy and fairly quick to use as well as very easy to upload direct from the tapes.

Although over the years we provided the club with a copy of each game we filmed, their copies have long vanished and they really don't have much in the way of footage of past games. This is where I come in as having master copies of the highlights videos/dvds and also quite a few individual vhs tapes of important games the club would like digital copies of all that I have.

I am happy to provide them with these as best as I can but reading and trying to understand all the comments above I get the idea that there isn't a really good way of getting the best out of old VHS footage by trying to upscale the footage. With the subject football and there being quite a bit of movement (although some of the games there wasn't much of that ) I suspect there will likely be noise and artifacts created. I did have a go with a free trial of an AI software (I can't remember the name) and at first look the picture did look clearer when looking at the players shirts but then you could see horizontal lines appearing especially when the players moved.

My solution so far is to copy the old VHS tapes to DVD then using some free software I found take the file off the DVD in my computer and transfer that to an MP4 file which seemed to work quite well in so far as the footage looked the same quality as the VHS tape.

I would be obliged for any comments as to is there a better way, such as using one of those cheap conversion boxes that you can plug an AV cable into it then copy that directly onto the computer via a USB port or using something quite a bit more expensive from say Cloner Alliance.

I hope I haven't bored you with all that and apologies if I should have started a new thread.

[latreche34]

If you want to capture the tapes for editing and restoration then you want to stay as away as you can from DVD and MPEG-2, You want to capture to lossless AVI 720x576 (assuming PAL land), from here you can do the restoration, editing.

[WeareTown]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I will take a look at that.