Before encoding: How to handle AVI lossless?
 

Hi there!

I recently capture VHS tapes, lossless huffYUV AVI with VirtualDub, now I'm in the process of cleaning some videos and I need your advise on the workflow. I think a basic guide would be advisable for normal users who cannot spend a ton of years on video editing and only wants a well results, specially batch TV recordings. I am planning to use this guide as a source but PAL based:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...ing-Conversion

Regarding restoration, all I want to do is just basic cleaning (removing noise, weird lines and colors, like this) https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...oma-flaws.html until get a clean and not heavy video file to pack in a MKV container. So, final file for archival proposal must be not much noticeable quality loss respect the original AVI capture. When satisfied I'll delete the lossless AVI.

As a learning user I've been reading several threads but I'm kinda confused about the correct steps to follow. What's next? What software should I use?

I guess the steps are these one:

1-Check if video has to be deinterlaced. What's the general recommended method? QTGMC on AviSynth or Hybrid?

2-Mask overscan on bottom edge of videos (the is a good guide by LS here) no crop.

3-This point is unsure, some people upscale their videos, I don't really understand why, where can I learn about this? I will take the PAL 720X576.

4-Encode to delivery format. Where is the cleaning step? Before of after the encoding? That's when things get complicated for me.

4.1. ENCODING.

I read here... Hybrid should do the trick.
MPEG-2 @ 15-20mbit high bitrate is an archival option, 4:2:2 when available
H.264 is the streaming option, required deinterlace (QTGMC only one to bother with, all others very lossy)

MPEG-2 for archives, also easy+quick to reencode copy down to DVD-Video spec for DVDs.
H264 for LAN/WAN streaming (NAS, Youtube, etc)

https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...tings-avi.html

4.2. CLEANING.

My concern is that I would like to do some cleaning using NeatVideo because I love results. Firstly tested demo version of NeatVideo on VirtualDub (1.9 and 2) and I found it awesome. I can access NeatVideo full plugin in DaVinci Resolve 18 or Adobe Premiere Pro but the first one cannot import lossless AVI files, I don't know about the latter... do you recommend Adobe Premiere Pro? Other software? Should I clean using VirtualDub filters before encoding to MP4?? :hmm:

What settings do you guys (especially LordSmurf) use to encode and clean, specially if planning to import to DaVinci to use NeatVideo? I read here "ffmpeg ProRes 422 and then import to DaVinci" but I am not sure how I should proceed....