#1  
12-20-2010, 02:19 PM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,503
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
continued from PM...
NOTE: Rather than "waste" advice in private, I try to share as much as I can on forums so that others may gain from my information.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jesse51786
Thanks for replying on my thread. To your point about using a better VCR, I tried a couple which play other tapes with no trouble at all, and both show significant distortion at a couple certain points. Do you have any software recommendations for doing this sort of frame replacement that I'm looking for? Thanks again for your help.
I'd have to hear more about the entire project one more time, in order to know what it is that you're going for. Reply here with a quick overview on what you're doing, and where you're going with it, and I'll see what I can do to help further you along.

I can see the original post you had made:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jesse51786 View Post
Hi all,
My family has a bunch of old videos on VHS that are basically slide shows of family photos set to music. Since they've been stored on VHS for years now, I've taken it upon myself to finally get them converted to digital format to prevent further degradation. I bought a USB capture card, and I used Windows Movie Maker to get the videos in .wmv format from the VCR. I've noticed that there are a lot of bad frames (lots of grain appearing in the middle) in the videos. Now, I'm thinking that, since there are no real action shots (just flipping from one photo to another, with music playing), can I replace one bad frame of video with a good frame that appeared before? Here's an example... music is playing... photo appears for 10 seconds. 5 seconds in, grain distorts the image for a couple seconds. Can I replace those two seconds worth of footage with footage from the first few seconds? I'd really appreciate any advice you might have on this.
Jesse
... and my response was to use a better VCR.
Specifically, one of these models: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/show...-pre-1727.html

There's really no fun/easy way to replace bad frames, aside from exporting the video to many, many, MANY, thousands of still images, and then deleting bad frames (and then replacing with copies of adjacent frames). You'll have to deinterlace the video before all of that, too, and the best quality may require Avisynth (Yadif/Yadifmod+NNEDI2).

The idea behind the better VCR is to preclude the need for frame replacement. With a better VCR, the tape may simply play without any further problems.

Just reply here to this post, for further help.

Thanks, -LS

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
Someday, 12:01 PM
admin's Avatar
Ads / Sponsors
 
Join Date: ∞
Posts: 42
Thanks: ∞
Thanked 42 Times in 42 Posts
  #2  
12-20-2010, 05:17 PM
juhok juhok is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 379
Thanked 107 Times in 87 Posts
If I understood the problem correctly, wouldn't it be "easy" to just choose the best frame from each shot, export it to still image for example, save the soundtrack, then redo slideshow using the stills + audio? With luck the stills are in "progressive" form saved as two fields. I admit I use Avisynth and such daily and I'm blind to some obstacles people may have, but Nero etc used to have wizard for slideshow making (after the stills are acquired) and I'd guess nowdays there are even more alternatives than near decade ago I last needed slideshow. Also if it's just a few tapes it might be cheaper to get it professionally done? Tho my guess from jesse51786's description is that upon viewing the tapes people have paused the frame for extended periods of time (maybe 10 seconds wasn't enough?) and the tape is damaged in that area permanently?
Reply With Quote
  #3  
12-20-2010, 11:22 PM
lordsmurf's Avatar
lordsmurf lordsmurf is online now
Site Staff | Video
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 13,503
Thanked 2,449 Times in 2,081 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by juhok View Post
If I understood the problem correctly, wouldn't it be "easy" to just choose the best frame from each shot, export it to still image for example, save the soundtrack, then redo slideshow using the stills + audio?
Yes, actually, this would be better. When I wrote the above post, I had completely overlooked the details on the source. Indeed, it would be easiest and fastest to simply remake the slide show by grabbing one good still. The only "problem" will be matching the duration of the old and new slides, if they are (for whatever reason) not simply equal-length time on screen. For example, a fancy sync to music, with (as another example) some slides showing for 5 seconds, or others showing for 10 seconds.

Quote:
With luck the stills are in "progressive" form saved as two fields.
Unlikely. The video file will likely have to be pre-deinterlaced, coming off VHS source. Then again, it really just depends. If 2-3 fields are "frozen" on top of each other in a frame, and the video quality is good enough, it's visually the same as progressive.

Quote:
I admit I use Avisynth and such daily and I'm blind to some obstacles people may have, but Nero etc used to have wizard for slideshow making (after the stills are acquired) and I'd guess nowdays there are even more alternatives than near decade ago I last needed slideshow.
Yes, indeed. You would not want Nero. AN excellent slideshow program these days is the very low-cost MemoriesOnTV4. It's $60 for home edition: http://www.codejam.com/slideshow/index.htm ... and it's great for web-based slideshows, too, not just DVDs.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- For sale in the marketplace: TBCs, workflows, capture cards, VCRs
Reply With Quote
  #4  
12-20-2010, 11:26 PM
kpmedia's Avatar
kpmedia kpmedia is offline
Site Staff | Web Hosting, Photo
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 4,311
Thanked 374 Times in 341 Posts
Quote:
Also if it's just a few tapes it might be cheaper to get it professionally done? Tho my guess from jesse51786's description is that upon viewing the tapes people have paused the frame for extended periods of time (maybe 10 seconds wasn't enough?) and the tape is damaged in that area permanently?
We're actually in the middle of doing a project very similar to this, but from extremely damaged digital sources, due to a DVD/MPEG-2 camera that was malfunctioning. Of course, it's an irreplaceable event that was filmed. The new "film" is going to be built from a mix of still-good video, some extracted video stills, and other photos from the event, with the original soundtrack (enhanced, denoised, cleaned up/filtered), and turned into a new master DVD for distribution.

It's a mess, to say the least. An expensive one, that takes a lot of work in editors.

- Did my advice help you? Then become a Premium Member and support this site.
- Please Like Us on Facebook | Follow Us on Twitter

- Need a good web host? Ask me for help! Get the shared, VPS, semi-dedicated, cloud, or reseller you need.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
12-23-2010, 01:13 AM
jmac698 jmac698 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 387
Thanked 73 Times in 56 Posts
Hello,
I would like to offer an alterative approach to your problem. This technique will, in software, find the good stills and freeze-frame them, therefore recreating them, automatically and with no other changes in length or synch with audio. This is very easy to do and needs no fancy equipment.

If you would like to upload a small sample of your video, enough to cover four slides (and noise in between), I can verify my technique. The quality should be the largest visual dimensions, but the lowest file size/highest compression/lowest bitrate - I'll have to take a look at the moviemaker screen to see what setting that would be (but I don't have Windows 7 so I can't help you in much detail).

Much as you thought, with software you can select one good still from each group. Stills are by their nature progressive, I don't understand the comment about them needing to be deinterlaced (except, I mean to 'deinterlace' the stills by treating them immediately as progressive).

For the experts: I was thinking of using this Avisynth filter: http://neuron2.net/dup/dupnew.html along with some scripting. You will see that this software selects the first frame in a string of (assumed) duplicates and freeze frames it. It will pass through the noisy parts by default as they are not detected to be stills. So what we need is a way to deal with the noisy bits. The answer could be quite simple. First, run the detection of what is a still frame on the very top of the video where the noise never appears. Another idea is to use a periodic timing where, the first still in a group is freeze-framed and then all video is ignored for the next 10 seconds, and then the search for the next still begins again.

It's possible there's an even easier case, where the stills are exactly 10 seconds apart in which case you can simply select 1 frame out of every 10 seconds, and duplicate them out to 10 seconds again. The sound is left untouched. If the stills fade in or use a fancy special effect, then the few seconds of that effect are kept and then the last frame in the sequence is freeze-framed.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
12-23-2010, 03:31 AM
admin's Avatar
admin admin is offline
Site Staff | Web Development
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 4,310
Thanked 654 Times in 457 Posts
The tape has interlaced the stills to VHS format -- that's all it is.

Windows 7 isn't much different from Vista, aside from having an interface that's a nuisance. And tries to hide files from you with that silly "compatibility view" storage method -- hate that about it. (Stick to XP if you can, Vista if you must, but avoid 7 if you do lots of file management and video work!)

What would be a sample script for the Avisynth?

- Did this site help you? Then upgrade to Premium Member and show your support!
- Also: Like Us on Facebook for special DVD/Blu-ray news and deals!
Reply With Quote
  #7  
12-23-2010, 04:58 AM
jmac698 jmac698 is offline
Free Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 387
Thanked 73 Times in 56 Posts
I could make a theoretical script for a certain imaginary problem, but really I need to see his video.
Just think of it this way, let's say you can detect a still frame. Then what is the logic of fixing his problem? Just;
1 wait for still frame
2 freeze frame that until further notice
3 wait for different still frame
4 go to step 2
All you need then is a way of detecting a still frame, a way of comparing two stills to see if their different, a way to generate freeze frames.
So you find a plugin or create your own technique for each of these parts and put them together. I hope this gives you an insight into scripting, it's like making a "video program".

In real terms you'd have to use ScriptClip to process this frame-by-frame.
Reply With Quote
Reply




Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
A good replacement for Verbatim DVD-R printable discs? (everyone is sold out!) lordsmurf Blank Media 1 07-24-2010 08:32 PM
Hi8 Capture HW/SW Recommendations djam0000 Capture, Record, Transfer 8 02-24-2010 10:24 PM
Replacement for ATI AIW 9800 Pro? admin Capture, Record, Transfer 0 05-06-2009 04:33 PM
Recommendations for a digital camcorder? Neuroslicer Videography: Cameras, TVs and Players 3 10-24-2005 01:26 AM
DVD Player Recommendations? mitch Videography: Cameras, TVs and Players 5 03-18-2005 07:05 AM

Thread Tools



 
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 07:43 PM