Ready to capture VHS, SVHS?
 

Hi folks,

Glad I found this forum and expert comments. I've been reading a lot of things here.
I'm planning to capture VHS / SVHS with VirtualDub 1.9.11 and deinterlace with Hybrid QTGMC. My videos are home videos for watching on modern television / PC screen through a NAS.

The material I already have:
- JVC SVHS HR-S7611 (with Line TBC)
- Sony Hi8 EV-S9000E PAL (with line TBC)

The material I bought lately and cheap in case I need a stronger TBC-ish output:
- Panasonic DMR-ES15 PAL
- Sony RDR-HX780 PAL

PC:
Win10 Intel I7 processor

My capture USB stuff:
IO-DATA GV USB2 (ordered in Japan) software version 1.15 for Win10. I also have a Pinnacle DV500Plus, but the old PC is done and the card is not compatible with all motherboards. It also only records to Mpeg I guess.

Capture software:
VirtualDub 1.9.11 + filters (Thx @lordsmurf)
HuffYUV
Hybrid (Thx @Selur)

1. Do I need to capture my 768x576 DAR video material in VirtualDub in 720x576 format? Will it squeeze the 4:3 image? Will I loose picture visibility? 768 x576 is not recommended?

2. What is the best procedure?

2.1 First capture in HuffYUV 4.2.2, no cropping to avoid dropped frames?
2.2 Deinterlace with Hybrid?
2.3 Cropping afterwards in a next step? So in 3 separate steps? Or is it possible to use QTGMC and crop use CCD filter at the same time without having dropped frames? Is it good to crop to 704x576 and why?

3. Convert to Prores422 ?

4. Wat kind of files do you keep on a hard drive as source material for PAL region?

4.2 Original interlaced capture file in HuffYUV in 720x576 as source material? Already cropped or not?
4.3 Deinterlaced Prores422 file cropped to 704x576? Use filters for denoise and color in this process or is this better in post editing using NeatVideo in Premiere Pro?
4.4 Deinterlaced converted H264 file for watching on television and PC screen? Some people convert here to 1440x1080. Should I do that?

Thanks a lot guys :wink2:

Stef

Welcome. :)

Replying as I read...

Software good.
Hardware should be good --- if properly working (and if it's eBay sourced, 50/50 odds of that)

NOTE: You lack a frame TBC. That will likely be a problem eventually. Line TBC cleans the image, frame TBC cleans the signal. You need both.

This was a mistake. It's not the best card, just a cheap not-the-worst card. The VCRs are like sports cards, but then you're buying your cheap tires at Asda/Walmart. It ruins your true performance. The GV-USB has been "meme'd" online in recent years, mostly by a few overly vocal fans that admire it due to costs alone (and being a "not worst" card). There are better.

Too old -- and it was never good even when new.

:congrats:

768x576 is not legal to anything mainstream, so no.
720x576 is the max legal, use that.

768x576 and 720x576 show the same image, just in different pixel geometry. You're not losing anything from less pixels. You have to think in non-basic math to understand video. More than just addition and subtraction, often not even multiplication and division. (That's a reason calculators exist for some things, and at least used to.)

- capture only, never try to filter (including crop) during capture.
- scrub timeline in VirtualDub, excising unwanted footage, saving Stream Copy output to new file --- or, masking and cropping now (not Stream Copy, but Full Process), essentially pre-processing file for Hybrid deinterlace, which does improve Hybrid speed
- open in Hybrid, then QTGMC, added filters as desired, save out to delivery/final H.264/6 file for watch/distribution

Why? Only if editing on Mac somewhere.
In that case, don't encode to H.264/etc, but rather the high quality ProRes422 for the NLE (FCP, Premiere) on Mac. FYI, I capture Windows, use VirtualDub2 or Hybrid for ProRes422 exports, including upscaling, edit in FCP for 1080p documentary work.

At minimum, ideally lossless 720x576 interlaced unprocessed captures. Huffyuv best, FFv1 not great for non-SD (HD lossless), ProRes422 is "lossy lossless" (virtually lossless).

If it's important, keep everything. SD files are relatively small (35gb/hour max), and a 22tb HDD is maybe $350 USD now. Sometimes the decision time for "how much should I keep" is more wasteful than just sticking it all on a drive. (If really important, multiple copies, multiple drives, multiple locations.)

:salute:

Thanks for your answer Lordsmurf!

About the IO-Data GV USB2. It's new, but an old original version with Win8 sticker on it, straight from Japan. Still crappy stuff? I really thought this thing was okay, according to reviews and comments... :question:

So if I edit in Windows, I should convert in Hybrid to H264? You mean the lossless H264? Will Premiere Pro see that file still as YUV or will it get a RGB treatment? That's why I mentioned Prores422, because I read somewhere on the forum that Prores422 will be handled in Premiere Pro as YUV.

And what about the 720x576 to the 704x576 crop? Is that needed in my case? :)

Would you do in Hybrid or VirtualDub2 a 1440x1080 upscaling to H264 codec (lossless) for post editing in Windows Premiere Pro? Or keep it 720x576 to edit and upscale afterwards? Better Hybrid or VirtualDub2, or better post editing upscaling in Topaz Video AI?

Many thanks,

Stef

The proper way is to de-interlace and crop to 704x576, but that won't ged rid of all junk around the frame edges so either mask it or crop it all and resize to 1440x1080, If editing is itended do not encode to any format, you will be damaging your footage. There are many ways to de-interlace and resize while still in near lossless depends what tools you have.

GV-USB2 = not best, not worst, but definitely overrated. It's cheap. That's why people like it. Not for quality, but rather not the worst quality. It's not a compliment. "She's not that ugly."

Reviews mean nothing.
- There are products that literally catch on fire, burn down houses, and still get 5/5 stars with glowing reviews. This is because Amazon/etc incentivizes reviews, and many are fake.
- This is because people generally don't know quality from non-quality, and are satisfied with literally anything. You could re-label dog food as human food, and people would leave good reviews for it. I'm not wrong here, there's research on this.
- People only leave bad reviews when there is a mob mentality, and most of those are fake too.

I don't yet know your project intentions, so it's hard to give exact advice on the order of operations, or what to archive for posterity. It will differ, based on factors.

Thanks, I understand the problem now.

My intention is to watch the in Premiere Pro edited VHS / S-VHS home and holiday movies on my Samsung 55" LED screen and or PC screen. The interlaced captured files I will store on HDD.

Will Premiere Pro see that HuffYUV video file still as YUV or will it get a RGB treatment? That's why I mentioned Prores422, because I read somewhere on the forum that Prores422 will still be handled in Premiere Pro as YUV. To be clear, I'm not a Mac user.

Would you upscale or resize to 1440x1080 with H264 codec (lossless) for editing in Premiere Pro on a Win10 PC?
Or leave it 720x576? I mean, in what format and what codec you use to edit the videos in Premiere Pro on a Windows 10 PC, keeping in mind to keep YUV color?

Or do you guys edit the Hybrid deinterlaced HuffYUV files in Premiere Pro? :)

I have read Topaz can cause a color shift by assuming the wrong color matrix. https://community.topazlabs.com/t/ur...findings/54770

Avisynth/Vapoursynth will handle the YUV to RGB conversion. When premier gets the video it will be RGB and then you’ll just use Premier for color editing.

I read several times that it's important to keep HuffYUV captured video in YUV. Now you say that Avisynth/Vapoursynth converts YUV to RGB? :D I'm totally confused now. What is the next step when I have a captured interlaced HuffYUV video file? I want to deinterlace in Hybrid and I have to convert to... what? (For editing in Premiere Pro in Windows 10) Whats the best codec and resolution for me?

Avisynth/Vapour can convert color. ConvertToYUY2(), ConvertToYV16(), ConvertToRGB(), etc.
Premiere will.

Premiere is a hatchet job on some things. All NLEs are. With Avisynth (and thus Hybrid), you can pre-process files for better NLE handling. Deinterlace, colorspace conversion, whatever else is needed.

Okay thx guys... So let's say this will be my process:

Capture: 720x576 HuffYUV 422 interlaced (archive file)

Hybrid: Deinterlace and save as H264 (step 1) - Crop to 704x576 (step 2) - Color convert to RGB (step 3) - Upscale to 1440x1080 (step 4) - archive file

Ready for editing in Premiere Pro ? Is that a bit correct? :)

I could be wrong, but I think you want to avoid H264 for any sort of archive file. That's more of a file delivery format.

Yeah, that's indeed what I was thinking too. It's confusing, because H264 normally goes out of Premiere Pro.

I need a good quality and workable format/codec/AR for VHS/S-VHS video to edit in Premiere Pro and watch on a tv or pc screen later.

These are the remaining questions on that file format for editing in PP:
Prores422 or H264 (or even HuffYUV) ?
Keep YUV or Color convert to RGB ?
720x576 or 704 x 576 or 1440x1080 ?

What's the way to go forward to have a good quality video file for editing in Windows 10 in Premiere Pro? Can somebody please tell me?

Convert to RGB. Your video will be displayed in the RGB color space. When you hear getting the RGB treatment with Premier Pro they are talking about if you try to bring a YUV video into Premier it will automatically expand the YUV color space to RGB as soon as you try to edit because Premier works in RGB. Premier isn’t good at making that conversion. Hybrid is good at making that conversion. Hybrid will allow you to work in YUV before going to RGB. Premier Pro is better at RGB color editing than Hybrid.

H.264 is meant to be encoded to at the end. You want to avoid lossy compression until the end of editing. H.264 compresses your video a lot by throwing out information that you will need if you are going to edit. The GOP structure of H.264 make it tough for editors to deal with. H.264 is designed for sharing. Losslessly compressed codecs don’t lose information. They they are designed for editing.

1440 by 1080 for YouTube because YouTube uses square pixels and YouTube treats SD poorly so people upscale to HD. Once you capture losslessly compressed capture you can encode to watch on whatever player you want. You won’t upscale for anything you watch locally.

I'll tell you what I do, but definitely keep in mind that customs vary. I also am not a business; I just end up with large VHS projects now and then.

I do what LS said and immediately trim any unwanted material at the beginning or end of my capture in VDub and save a new file. I happen to save an uncompressed .AVI for this. It has simply made my life that much easier, and I have the space and speed to handle it. (but save your original capture! always!)

I edit with those files, in Premiere. Works great, but at the risk of sounding show-offy I have to mention that I very recently and very specifically built a heavy duty new machine so that editing and rendering from giant uncompressed AVIs wouldn't be tedious and burdensome. It isn't, unless I'm rendering in the summer. HOT!

Thx Gary34 and 7jlong,

So what you guys say is to deinterlace the HuffYUV 422 in Hybrid and keep it losless in the same HuffYUV 422 ?

So you edit in Premiere Pro the in Hybrid deinterlaced, cropped, color converted to RGB and denoised files in lossless HufYUV 422? Is that possible? Will that work smoothly? Also when you render in Premiere Pro and export to H264? Is that smoothly working?

No, I don't create HuffYUV files to edit with. Uncompressed AVIs. No compression scheme whatsoever, not even a lossless one. I also do not deinterlace footage before the editing stage, and I do not deinterlace when I output a "master" file. I would only deinterlace if I had a strong reason to do so, as the interlacing preserves detail that is lost instantly no matter how good or well-tweaked your deinterlacer is.

Yep, the uncompressed files are huge, unfortunately.

4:2:2 is YUV. The 2:2 is chroma subsampling. https://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/vi...nd-sources.htm
RGB is 4:4:4. You will capture within the 16 to 235 luminance range then when you convert to RGB that will get expanded. 16-235 will go to 0-255. Anything that was outside of the legal limits 16-235 will be clipped. You’ll use the sone type of proc amp to stay within the legal limits during capture.

Premier will be after Hybrid.

Only deinterlace when needed. YouTube requires deinterlacing.

7jlong, so you stay in the 720x576 capture? Not a 1440x1080 in your flow?

I capture 720 480 NTSC then keep that losslessly compressed interlaced file and then encode to whatever from there. 1440 1080 is just an upscale for YouTube.

No, I don't do any scaling anywhere in my workflow. If I wanted to upscale or deinterlace later for some reason, I'd do it off the finished master file I created from my edited project. All that scaling just makes everything take longer if done earlier since its a processor burden, and doesn't serve much of a purpose except to make up pixels.

I went back to your original post - you really don't have any reason to deinterlace (or upscale) if you will be playing back files from a NAS on a modern television. Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong on that, but I'm fairly sure most TVs these days will handle interlacing from a streaming file? You might have to look up the exact file specs that make your TV the happiest, I think some of them can be fussy, but I'd skip both the scaling and deinterlace for now and see how things go. You can always create a new, deinterlaced version of your finished projects. Going the other way is a disaster.

Your TV can handle interlaced footage. VLC can handle interlaced footage. YouTube can’t. You don’t have to upscale for YouTube but it does help.

Allright. Thanks for your comments and link. You both have a little bit of other flow, but that doesn't bother me.

@Gary34 So if you edit in Premiere Pro, do you use the (deinterlaced if necessary) lossless HufYUV 422 codec? 7jlong uses uncompressed, do you edit straight HuffYUV422 in Premiere? Or what kind of codec comes out of Hybrid before editing? Can the Premiere Pro software handle it?

I read that people also convert to virtually lossless ProRes422 from Hybrid to edit in a Win10 environment with Premiere Pro. Probably to shrink the file size?

It’s 4:1:1 for PAL. YUV can be 4:4:4 but that doesn’t pertain to this.

Hybrid Can output a lot of different codecs.

This is probably really confusing getting all of these new concepts all at once.

I would look up aspect ratio, color space, and lossless vs lossy compression.

What's 4:1:1 PAL? (Nothing that I'm aware of.)

Also note, many media players, especially smart TVs, do not deinterlace interlaced H.264.

@Gary34 Sure, but in your case, what kind of file will you retrieve out of Hybrid? A HuffYUV 4:2:2 lossless file, (deinterlaced or not) to edit in Premiere Pro? Can you answer on that?

7jlong uses the uncompressed AVI to edit.

@Lordsmurf Your workflow is deinterlacing with QTGMC in Hybrid to create an intermediate file. And that intermediate file, will you save it out of Hybrid as a lossless HuffYUV 422 already color converted to RGB for editing in Premiere Pro for Win10? (The goal is watching edited videos delivered out of Premiere Pro as H264 on a modern TV).

Or what kind of lossless or virtual lossless codec would you derive from Hybrid as intermediate video file for PAL editing?

I don’t use Premier.

:smack: You’re correct. https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...bsampling.html

I’ve heard that Mpeg 2 is better for interlaced content because of the way it compresses.

I don't have a single workflow. What I do entirely depends on the project needs.

For example
- sometimes I pre-process for an NLE, and it may (or may not) include deinterlace step
- sometimes, it remains interlaced.
- sometimes, no NLE is involved at all, merely archiving with VirtualDub and Avisynth

So ... it depends. :hmm:

@Lordsmurf But what is your advice in my case? :D

The goal is watching edited videos delivered out of Premiere Pro as H264 on a modern TV.

What kind of lossless or virtual lossless codec would you derive (in my case) from Hybrid as intermediate video file for PAL editing in Premiere Pro?

Capture HuffYUV 4:2:2 interlaced, I agree.

Intermediate file format from Hybrid?? It almost seems a secret. :wink2:

All I can offer is that I don't open Hybrid until after I've finished editing and have a final file. Then, if I wanted a (relatively) foolproof streaming file, only then would I deinterlace in Hybrid and create an H.264 file.

But for generating your intermediate editing file, another application to look at if you haven't already is VirtualDub2. IMPORTANT: this is not at all a replacement for VirtualDub. They are different beasts, with different purposes. But have a look, it may help you resolve your workflow and intermediate format decisions. I find it quite useful for certain tasks.

What format for your intermediates? You'll find many opinions. Your priority is a format that allows clean editing - not all do, due to how they structure the data. Premiere tries to make you forget that some codecs are problematic for editing, but they are. I would do my best to avoid editing in H.264, for example.

Many people are happy with ProRes as an editing codec, though it has its detractors, like anything. You may have to do a bit of experimentation with a few different options to find out how any one choice mixes with the footage you're dealing with.

Note also that I am the kind of person who does not like to do a lot of image processing/cleanup/etc between capture and intermediate file - I leave that for later.

I'm still not 100% clean on the goals of the project. I know it wasn't in the 1st post, and I just scanned the rest.

I'm not a colorspace purist. Sometimes we don't have a choice in what happens. All we can do is attempt to mitigate it. So, for example, I'd convert to RGB in Avisynth (encoding out RGB Huffyuv or Lagarith) before feeding to Premiere.

For pre-process steps, or intermediary -- essentially non-final steps -- I just use Avisynth with AvsPmod, encoding the .avs file in VirtualDub. For me, that's way easier.

Premiere can import and export other codecs fine, when installed. The colorspace is often the problem.

H.264 (AVC, AVCHD) is a shooting source format, but it often also exists as 4:2:2 and with clean source. Used for conversion, it trips over noise, creating blurry mush. So it's not that it can't be used, but shouldn't. H.264 is intended for delivery/final encode, not source or the middle processing steps.

7jlong has a good process for his needs. I don't do what he exactly does, and then you may not either. But it is good to understand why choices are made for workflow processing, as you shouldn't be too far away.

- For pure archive, I capture Huffyuv, VirtualDub scrub and output (sometimes Stream Copy, sometimes Full Process with filters). Then done, Huffyuv retained.
- Sometimes I encode MPEG-2 interlaced for DLNA (like for my cartoon/TV hobby) and/or delivery.
- But for Youtube, I have to deinterlace, upscale. And if I'm doing editing/documentary work, mixed sources (new HD, old SD), then I have to do those steps before NLE.
- ...and there are many others, such as restoration.

So ... again ... it depends. :hmm:

What, precisely, are you aiming to achieve here?

@Gary34, 4:2:2 can also be RGB. Sampling isn't colorspace. But most of us learned about sampling with YUV, as did I (many decades ago). Bit depth is another separate concept with overlap.

Thanks for your reply @Lordsmurf and @7jlong.

What I try to achieve is an easy way to create the best intermediary file for editing in Premiere Pro and afterwards export it there to H264. It's all a labyrinth for me. :)

7jlong is editing in uncompressed AVI, I think it will eat too much drive space for me. But of course, in his flow, the drive space will be okay, because of the instant cuts.

AvsPmod, I will try it, thanks. What about ProRes422, as 7jlong also mentioned? Is that also an option for NLE in Win10, or will it loose quality on color for example? And last but not least, what about HuffYUV lossless as an intermediary file?

My circle is almost round now. Thank you guys for your help and patience. I'm a newbie in this and I'm just looking for a perfect fit as intermediary NLE file. But as I understand, perfect fit is not that easy. :D

ProRes422 is really for Mac editing, not Windows. If Windows, just use standard Huffyuv lossless. Note that current Premiere will need the 64-bit installed 32-bit/x86 Huffyuv. Not the 64-bit Huffyuv (never use it), but the 32-bit installed for 64-bit apps like Premiere. Understand? Use the hofmand installers.

There's really no reason to use uncompressed. I probably know why 7jlong did: resources. Older systems sometimes had issues crunching lossless fast enough for the timeline. I used uncompressed for a tedious Premiere project back in 2005, maybe a few others times since.

AvsPmod is really just the GUI for Avisynth, to help you write and see live results.

As far as deeinterlacing before, or after, the NLE (Premiere), it really depends on what you're doing. If your "edit" is just scissors to lop/rearrange footage, then you could just use VirtualDub (and leave interlaced). If you plan lots of fancy effects, then you either must pay attention to interlacing, or deinterlace as you initially planned.

There's no one correct answer.
There are many bad answers. I don't see any of those in this thread.

Well, my interest in uncompressed did indeed start long ago (30 years, I just realized - ugh) when the concept was just another tool in the toolbox to try to get acceptable video out of a PowerMac 8500/120. Uncompressed 320x240 gray scale captures could actually yield full motion, which was incredibly exciting in 1995. Those were the days! (it was arty farty art school stuff I was making, not tape capture for accurate reproduction).

Luckily resource issues are long, long since behind me, so at this point it’s like mountain climbing. I can edit uncompressed, so I do. It’s also a leftover neurosis from endless photo work - no compression allowed there unless I need to make a JPEG of a final file for some reason.

I would also never dream of trying to work uncompressed on anything over SD resolution.

Yet.

@Lordsmurf

Okay, I understand the need of the Hoffmand installer. So I resume my flow:

Capture: HuffYUV4:2:2 lossless interlaced 720x576 AVI

Intermediary: HuffYUV 4:2:2 lossless interlaced or deinterlaced 720x576 AVI

Hybrid actions:
- Deinterlace
- Color Convert to RGB (but stay in the HuffYUV 4:2:2 codec?)
- Eventually denoise, etc.

NLE
Premiere Pro in Windows 10
- RGB Color correction
- Trimming and editing
- Output in delivery format H264 (for watching on a modern 16:9 TV)

Now (hopefully) my final questions:
1. After color converting (in Hybrid) to RGB, I stay in the HuffYUV 4:2:2 lossless codec? So RGB color in a HuffYUV 4:2:2 codec?
2. Some filters in VirtualDub are RGB? Will they affect the HuffYUV 4:2:2 file? Probably not after the RGB color conversion?
2. Will Premiere Pro handle the (in Hybrid) RGB color converted file in the (Hoffmand installer) HuffYUV 4:2:2 lossless file correct without clipping the original converted YUV colors? Will the original YUV colors be affected here? I just don't want to lose YUV color quality after all those time absorbing steps. :D


Thanks in advance! :)