Help with stabilization and drop outs

[Notelu]

Hi! I've been working on restoring some bootleg Pink Floyd footage, and the quality is god awful, it's from a high gen VHS, it has a ton of problems including Stabilzation, jitter, color dropouts, and tracking lines. I've been able to fix most of the problems except those 4, if anyone knows what filters I should use for fixing them I would be grateful, I have included 2 minutes from the tape so you can experiment on it.

also I don't have access to the original tape, so I can't rerip with a TBC

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notelu

it's from a high gen VHS

What's a high gen VHS?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notelu

I don't have access to the original tape, so I can't rerip with a TBC

That's good, because tape is never "ripped'. https://www.videohelp.com/glossary?R#Rip
Rip means digital to digital. It doesn't mean analog to digital.

The errors that are corrected with a line TBC and a frame tbc are corrected only during capture, not after. Can't be corrected later in software. Another unbreakable rule is that after detail has been destroyed, it can't be re-created. A corollary to that rule is that something can't be created from nothing.

The video was captured directly to a low-bitrate lossy codec. Lossy means lost forever. It doesn't come back again. It's gone.

Is this mp4 your original unaltered copy or has it been reprocessed or re-encoded? There's no way the original video was encoded to a bitrate as high as the bitrate in the posted mp4. Encoding lossy low bitrate garbage just makes it worse. regardless of the newer bitrate. Even if you have an earlier generation of this video, remember that lossy can't be un-lossy'ed.

This is what YouTube viewers often refer to as "great" quality because you can see things moving and you can hear sounds. But unless you could return to an earlier stage during which something more workable was available, I'd say you're torturing yourself to no avail. But others might have a different impression.

[Notelu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

What's a high gen VHS?


That's good, because tape is never "ripped'. https://www.videohelp.com/glossary?R#Rip
Rip means digital to digital. It doesn't mean analog to digital.

The errors that are corrected with a line TBC and a frame tbc are corrected only during capture, not after. Can't be corrected later in software. Another unbreakable rule is that after detail has been destroyed, it can't be re-created. A corollary to that rule is that something can't be created from nothing.

The video was captured directly to a low-bitrate lossy codec. Lossy means lost forever. It doesn't come back again. It's gone.

Is this mp4 your original unaltered copy or has it been reprocessed or re-encoded? There's no way the original video was encoded to a bitrate as high as the bitrate in the posted mp4. Encoding lossy low bitrate garbage just makes it worse. regardless of the newer bitrate. Even if you have an earlier generation of this video, remember that lossy can't be un-lossy'ed.

This is what YouTube viewers often refer to as "great" quality because you can see things moving and you can hear sounds. But unless you could return to an earlier stage during which something more workable was available, I'd say you're torturing yourself to no avail. But others might have a different impression.

A high gen VHS is a VHS that has been copied a lot (a copy of a recording would be 2nd gen, a copy of a copy is 3rd gen, etc.)

Yeah I re-encoded it as it's part of a longer file. Here is the longer original VOB https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TLjw5z2FBAgbUJ0anrdPHjM7QQtwTMM0

[sanlyn]

Thanks for the download link. Sorry for the delay, gotta GO repair the wife's laptop (I have no idea what she does!?!). Will post some notes later.

[traal]

Here's some footage that's identical to your Google Drive link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5IkJz7WH7M

Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DoEZWfiojs

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Notelu

A high gen VHS is a VHS that has been copied a lot (a copy of a recording would be 2nd gen, a copy of a copy is 3rd gen, etc.)

Yeah I re-encoded it as it's part of a longer file. Here is the longer original VOB https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TL...dPHjM7QQtwTMM0

It's multigenerational tape dubbing, probably no more than 3 generations. One copy has imbedded thick black oversharping halos that no form of sophisticated masking or de-ringing can repair. Likely at least one gen was from a DVD\VHS combo with VHS playback distortion ntypical of combos, then went thru another cheap player with no line tbc. Finally it went thru what appears to be a line-tbc equipped player with its dnr turned on, which removed more of whatever remained of any fine detail.

At some point after that it was digitized and lossy encoded more than once. Macroblocks are not analog. They don't appear in pure analog sources but are strictly low-bitrate digital compression artifacts. The clip was deinterlaced somehow as well as subjected to what looks like noise processing with NeatVideo or similarly aggressive spatio-temporal filtering. So, if you're looking foward to noise reduction, someone has partially beat you to it. The last processing stages included reinterlacing and re-encoding with TMPGenc 2.5 at a decent 6500 bitrate, incorrectly using a PAL BT601 color matrix and obsolete/destructive MP1 audio. The VOB's monophonic audio has zero dynamic range, and there's so little left of the original data and chroma that not even the tape grain shows up. There are a few remnants of original chroma rainbows but they've been smoothed by filtering.

There is no fine detail at all. Shadow detail is nonexistent, highlights were burned away long ago, and there is severe posterization from several stages of abuse. All that you really can do is to try to reduce some of the earlier macroblocks with deblockimng filters (which will further soften amd blur the results). Occasionally you can fix a dropout by interpolating a new frame or two from existing frames and/or replacing some pixels with those borrowed from other frames. But there isn't enough good frame data for that kind of work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traal

Here's some footage that's identical to your Google Drive link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5IkJz7WH7M

Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DoEZWfiojs

No, not identical. Just another ugly version of the same garbage.

[traal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

Just another ugly version of the same garbage.

One man's trash is another man's treasure!

But yes, I think the first thing to do is to locate another analog copy if you want to do any kind of serious restoration without magnifying the digital flaws. Maybe just multiplex in a higher quality audio track without re-encoding the video, and call it done for now.

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by traal

One man's trash is another man's treasure!

Some people treasure trash. I have some trashy stuff I keep around because it has memories attached. In particular, I learned a few things from it. But it's still trash.

[jwillis84]

You could always run the video through a plugin in a NLE and turn it into an Animated Cartoon video in the style of "Take on Me.."

.. but I date my self.