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-   -   VHS to MP4 capture weird colors? (https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-restore/13487-vhs-mp4-capture.html)

S_Clayton 05-07-2023 10:34 AM

VHS to MP4 capture weird colors?
 
3 Attachment(s)
I'm converting my family's VHS tapes to digital. I've successfully transferred over 50 recordings using various hardware (OBS,Premier Pro, and Photoshop) to correct the color and deinterlacing but this one recording is driving me crazy. It is not the tape because other recordings on this same tape are fine. I've tried the common methods to correct but nothing helps. I've added three attachments to my post. 1. Problem Child 2. Clip from same tape taken on a different day but recording the same ball field. 3. 2nd Clip after running through OBS deinterlaced to Yadif 2x, increased FPS to 60 and added a color correct filter, Im just a beginner and your input would greatly be appreciated.

latreche34 05-07-2023 03:39 PM

In the first clip the levels are overblown, it really needs a recapture.

S_Clayton 05-07-2023 04:35 PM

Recaputed
 
1 Attachment(s)
Thank you for looking my posted. Start of game as been recaptured.

latreche34 05-07-2023 06:52 PM

Still overblown, Try to use histograms in vdub.

Hushpower 05-07-2023 07:33 PM

You need to lower the brightness and contrast for the capture. What program are you using for capture? Then we can give you some pointers.

S_Clayton 05-07-2023 07:59 PM

1 Attachment(s)
Clearclick to capture. which has worked great for the 50 videos I've converted so far. Then I would (OBS or Photoshop) to correct the color and deinterlacing. Im just doing family movies and on a budget :). Someone just told me it was overexposed because when I lower the brightness and contrast it completely washes it out. I've been messing around with this all day.LOL and I'm sure your going to laugh at this but I recaptured, darkened and just for kicks video taped my computer screen with the IPhone 15. Added a “vivid warm” filter. At least the details came through. Obviously there is a more professional way to do this but I am on a budget. Any advise you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Hushpower 05-07-2023 09:40 PM

I don't know anything about the Clearclick so can't help you with that.

lordsmurf 05-07-2023 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S_Clayton (Post 90641)
Clearclick to capture. which has worked great

This is an infamous low-quality device, and will never give you proper results.

No how much you may "like" it (why, exactly?), it's just not very good.

Worst of all, it's expensive. It's essentially an Easycap (less than $2 to produce, sold for $10-20, or even $50-100 rebadged under low-end "brand names" like Roxio), with an added SD slot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by S_Clayton (Post 90620)
to correct the ... deinterlacing

What do you refer to here?

Interlace is how analog video exists. There's nothing to "fix", and in fact the ClearClick (ClickCrap) messes with interlacing. Yes, for later viewing, you may need to deinterlace (example" Youtube), but nothing needs to be "fixed".

Quote:

(OBS,Premier Pro, and Photoshop) to correct the color
OBS and Photoshop are the wrong tools for video color correctopm. You're essentially using a hammer to twist in a screw. Premiere can, however, though it can usually greatly benefit from a pre-process using Avisynth. You don't want to "color correct" errors, making overall video quality worse.

Quote:

running through OBS deinterlaced to Yadif 2x, increased FPS to 60
Don't do that.
In fact, ideally, don't use OBS at all.
For that matter, get a better card. You're wanting quality, and that device simply cannot do it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34 (Post 90635)
In the first clip the levels are overblown, it really needs a recapture.

Yep, bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34 (Post 90637)
Still overblown, Try to use histograms in vdub.

Yep.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower (Post 90638)
You need to lower the brightness and contrast for the capture. What program are you using for capture? Then we can give you some pointers.

It's the device. No amount of settings will unring that bell.

Quote:

Originally Posted by S_Clayton
Im just doing family movies and on a budget :).

That $175 that you spend for the crappy card would have been better spent elsewhere. While I do not suggest super-budget whatsoever (as quality will suffer, and you make more work for yourself), you can plod along with the right tools. I would suggest returning it, and letting us guide you to better cheap(skate) options.

Quote:

Someone just told me it was overexposed because when I lower the brightness and contrast it completely washes it out.
No.

Quote:

Obviously there is a more professional way to do this but I am on a budget.
This is a misnomer.
- Quality is not "professional".
- And "budget" does not mean crap.

Crap means crap.
Professional just means you charge $$$ for it, and you can still use crap to do it. (Sadly, many service do use crap. Some are even proud of their junk, making Youtube videos that shows their operation is worse that what users can do at home.)

There are quality budget paths, though the more you pnich pennies, the more you sacrifice in time and sanity. Which is exactly what you're facing here.

Quote:

I've been messing around with this all day.
Video should not be this hard, and is not this hard when you the correct tools. The main obstacle is overcoming cheapness, and the wrong idea about costs.

A video hardware budget should match a good desktop computer budget.
Not a cheeseburger, a month of Netlfix, or whatever.
Not even the cost of a single hard drive ($100), which is obscenely low.

Quote:

Any advise you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Return that ClearClickCrap, and buy something that doesn't make your video life miserable. For $200(ish), there is a narrow path for better quality (compared to what you're getting now), though some nuisance still involved. It's far from ideal, far from actual "quality". And yet, vastly better than the junk you're punishing yourself with.

I'd also mentioned that "family movies" will someday matter to somebody, even your later self. Don't screw it up. Otherwise you'll just end up the bad guy, the a-hole, at some point in time. I could tell stories about how botched video work led to family infighting, and how we had to redo lazy cheapskate projects with quality that the rest of the family enjoyed. Sometimes the person who botched the project realize they were cheap/lazy/stupid (their words!), often young, and had me redo their unwatchable mess from the original tapes.

ammarqureshi93 05-11-2023 12:55 AM

The type of product that is used is irrelevant. VHS quality itself isn't the best, but to counter your argument with "low quality devices" I've used a $4 "Easycrap" device that worked perfectly fine. Yes its not perfect and I have decided to use software called --SPAM-- that literally changed all my VHS videos and made them twice as better. The software itself is $40 for one entire month to use. It uses AI and machine learning to reencode the videos and make them better. In all honesty, I would suggest people to use that. It doesn't matter what device you are using, but if you want to use advanced AI to retouch your videos then use --SPAM--. Theres nothing you can say about the AI being bad because its advanced enough that it has been exposed to millions and millions of videos to capture the fine details to apply to the video. Theres also several other editing apps as well, but none of them are powered by AI. The software has received good feedback and is consistently improving. I don't regret at all spending the $4 on my capture card paired with the --SPAM-- software. Please don't misinform people too.

traal 05-13-2023 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ammarqureshi93 (Post 90738)
I've used a $4 "Easycrap" device [with] software called --SPAM-- that literally changed all my VHS videos and made them twice as better. The software itself is $40 for one entire month to use. It uses AI and machine learning to reencode the videos and make them better.

Interesting. Those EasyCap devices can't capture losslessly at full VHS resolution, so you're paying $40 a month to do something AI video enhancement software is good at, removing the digital artifacts caused by the EasyCap device and restoring the full resolution.

But you would get even better results and save money in the long run with a proper capture card.

Someday AI will be able to improve VHS to DVD quality, but that day has not yet arrived.

S_Clayton 05-13-2023 09:24 PM

Thank you for responding. Believe it or not, I have a YouTube Channel where I upload 1980s baseball and softball games. Without going into too much detail, In the 70's and 80" there was a Little League ballpark in my neighborhood. Thousands of low income kids played ball there. Six months ago I formed a private Facebook Group to share our memories and team photos. Within three months I had 500 members (coaches and former players) with no scammers:). Then I discovered a lot of old VHS tapes of the games that my dad had recorded. I purchased the "clear crap," as you term it, converted the tapes, created a public youtube channel and and the audience watching the games is overjoyed with the results. They are not trained digital editors, and neither am I.
But something is clearly wrong with this one game. If it was the "clearcrap" the other 50+ hours of games I've converted would have looked the same. Perhaps it's the film because Ive watched the whole game and when the recording stops and a new game starts the colors are fine. I'm not sure, which is why I contacted Digitalfaq to ask if you'd seen anything similar. If you haven't, it's fine to say, "I've never seen that before." During the video I noticed that someone else had a large video camera with a microphone set up about 5 feet away. I wonder this this could have caused interference. But I have no clue just something I notice. If this section of the tape is defective then I would need to hire a service to restore the color? Or maybe its not possible to fix it. I would be willing to pay someone to fix it but I would want to see a small clip repaired first. IF you believe you can repair this one (1 hour game) please let me know.

-- merged --

Im downloading AVC Labs now. Ill keep you posted :)

-- merged --

Thank you for responding. Believe it or not, I have a YouTube Channel where I upload 1980s baseball and softball games. Without going into too much detail, In the 70's and 80" there was a Little League ballpark in my neighborhood. Thousands of low income kids played ball there. Six months ago I formed a private Facebook Group to share our memories and team photos. Within three months I had 500 members (coaches and former players) with no scammers:). Then I discovered a lot of old VHS tapes of the games that my dad had recorded. I purchased the "clear crap," as you term it, converted the tapes, created a public youtube channel and and the audience watching the games is overjoyed with the results. They are not trained digital editors, and neither am I.
But something is clearly wrong with this one game. If it was the "clearcrap" the other 50+ hours of games I've converted would have looked the same. Perhaps it's the film because Ive watched the whole game and when the recording stops and a new game starts the colors are fine. I'm not sure, which is why I contacted Digitalfaq to ask if you'd seen anything similar. If you haven't, it's fine to say, "I've never seen that before." During the video I noticed that someone else had a large video camera with a microphone set up about 5 feet away. I wonder this this could have caused interference. But I have no clue just something I notice. If this section of the tape is defective then I would need to hire a service to restore the color? Or maybe its not possible to fix it. I would be willing to pay someone to fix it but I would want to see a small clip repaired first. IF you believe you can repair this one (1 hour game) please let me know.

Hushpower 05-14-2023 01:16 AM

The main issue I see with the Clearclick is that it appears you can't control the recording parameters such as brightness and contrast, which this particular recording needs adjustment for during capture.

I have a similar recording with blown-out brightness; I can't recall what I did wrong when I was filming; maybe I bumped some setting on the camera.

A traditional capture workflow that uses a "standard" USB digitiser will give you the ability to control the brightness and contrast, but involves much more mucking around with software (and probable heartache). Quite frankly, I'd be sending the tape out to get that one recording captured with more appropriate gear.

Surely there is a DigitalFAQ member who can help here (or recommend someone)? If I wasn't in Oz, I'd do it for you.

latreche34 05-14-2023 01:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by traal (Post 90827)
Interesting. Those EasyCap devices can't capture losslessly at full VHS resolution, so you're paying $40 a month to do something AI video enhancement software is good at, removing the digital artifacts caused by the EasyCap device and restoring the full resolution.

You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit, That's not how it works. No amount of AI can recover what is missing that didn't get picked up by a lousy capture workflow in the first place.

lordsmurf 05-14-2023 06:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ammarqureshi93 (Post 90738)
The type of product that is used is irrelevant.

No. :rolleyes:

Quote:

worked perfectly fine.
"Fine" can have no standards whatsoever.
In fact, "fine" is a meaningless filler words in modern use.
Q: "How are you?" --- A: "Fine." ... as you sit in abject pain, upset, etc.

Quote:

made them twice as better.
You know what else would have done that? Likely exponentially better? Using a quality card. Not some Chinese USB POS that literally costs about $1 to make. You think you're getting quality for $1 of parts? Those cheap cards come from the same place where you buy fake SSDs drives, and other cheap knockoffs items. Most Easycaps use reverse engineered chips, but cheaply made and worse than NXP/etc they're based on.

Quote:

It uses AI
AI has become a synonym for "magic" to most people. They have no idea how/why it works, it "just does" (magic!). Well, some of us know the exact processes being used. Seeing actual samples of your video would likely betray them as having merely been hit with aggressive NR and sharpening, maybe contrast pumping, while leaving massive underlying issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by traal (Post 90827)
Interesting.

The person was a spammer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by S_Clayton (Post 90830)
Im downloading AVC Labs now. Ill keep you posted

You were suckered by a spammer. Do not download.

Quote:

During the video I noticed that someone else had a large video camera with a microphone set up about 5 feet away. I wonder this this could have caused interference.
No.

Quote:

I'm not sure, which is why I contacted Digitalfaq to ask if you'd seen anything similar. If you haven't, it's fine to say, "I've never seen that before."
It's rare for me to see an error I've never encountered. Video has been my hobby, then profession, for over 30 years now. I specialize in consumer analog sources.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower (Post 90833)
Quite frankly, I'd be sending the tape out to get that one recording captured with more appropriate gear.

One issue here, however, is that random services often use random gear. You may find some cheap amateur "service" that uses Easycaps and Elgatos, no TBCs, and gives you a video worse than what you already have. But at the other end, higher end, services have minimum $ and tape requirements.

Quote:

Surely there is a DigitalFAQ member who can help here (or recommend someone)? If I wasn't in Oz, I'd do it for you.
Those samples in the first post are simply awful. I'm tempted to do it simply to show what is possible. However, the overexposure is not going to be correctable beyond the point of full washout. There data is gone, replaced by white/bright.

Hushpower 05-14-2023 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LS
Those samples in the first post are simply awful. I'm tempted to do it simply to show what is possible. However, the overexposure is not going to be correctable beyond the point of full washout. There data is gone, replaced by white/bright.

You missed the point. I'll bet we could get a better capture the ClearClick because we could adjust the levels. Sure, it probably wouldn't meet the "perfection" standard, but S_Clayton is pretty passionate about this by the looks and I'm sure they'd appreciate any better.

lordsmurf 05-14-2023 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower (Post 90841)
You missed the point. I'll bet we could get a better capture the ClearClick because we could adjust the levels. Sure, it probably wouldn't meet the "perfection" standard, but S_Clayton is pretty passionate about this by the looks and I'm sure they'd appreciate any better.

No, did not miss the point.

Unfortunately, I've found that people excuse their own work, but then become unrealistic with what others can do. For example, expecting back perfect values in clear HD/4K resolution. People go from junk to impossible far too quickly. So expectations must be realistic.

- Vastly better is possible.
- But overcoming some overexposure will not be possible.

Hushpower 05-14-2023 07:43 AM

LS, the guy just needs help. Are you going to suggest a $3,000 system for an hour of video?

They've already said they are prepared to pay on the proviso they are given a small sample to check.

lordsmurf 05-14-2023 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hushpower (Post 90844)
They've already said they are prepared to pay on the proviso they are given a small sample to check.

What I see is "I am on a budget". Restoration is not a budget task.

And then "but I would want to see a small clip repaired first". Unknown where that clip would come from. Or does he refer to just a random clip from some other project?

Unfortunately, we're now rejecting most single-tape projects. Not all. Case by case. But most. People started to get rude/impatient in 2021, and that sort of BS is not worth the money. It was always those with 1-2 tapes, never those with dozens or more. They were all nicey-wicey to start, but quickly turned into clients from hell.

This is not one that I'm inclined to do. It would only be more interesting if there were several tapes, in order to create a "ClearClick vs. quality capture card" sort of sample body. But I can't do it for free, and we now have a $100 project minimum (not per tape, but per project).

What he has now is not working.
What he needs is somebody with better gear, if unwilling to buy for DIY.

But honestly, everything I saw was dreadful. It should all be re-done. So I do think better DIY is needed here. You don't need the $3k setup (even if ideal), but you can try to scrape by with less than $500 in gear.

I've been helping in the thread, and can continue to do so in the thread. But as far as "helping" (do the work myself), it's just not an option here.

S_Clayton 05-14-2023 10:29 AM

thank you for sharing your knowledge.
 
All this back in forth is silly. I understand you are an experienced professional that has been doing this a long time. You see clips and know exactly how to fix them, know when it is crap due to cheap hardware, and know how much better the clips can be. I am a rookie to say the least. Although I love learning the correct way to do things no matter what it is. So, can you detail the names of the equipment you know is best? However, based on your input, there may be no hope for this particular recording. Minimum improvement if any. Honestly, I was referred to this site by several people and knew a experienced person would let me know if it was repairable or not. Thank you sharing your knowledge and I look forward to your response.

traal 05-14-2023 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34 (Post 90834)
No amount of AI can recover what is missing that didn't get picked up by a lousy capture workflow in the first place.

What I meant was, it removes aliasing artifacts (also macroblocking, etc.) caused by the awful capture card and thereby makes the video a little more watchable. But I agree with you, it doesn't really restore anything or bring the quality up to the level of a good capture card.


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