Problems with SVHS/VHS tapes, various issues?
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I am trying to fix up old tapes for broadcast and the Internet. Since most of the viewers watching these tapes, like myself, will be acquainted with the quality and attendant issues that plague old VHS tapes, I do not expect 3D QFHD output.
The tapes I am converting to a digital format range from ten to twenty-eight years old. Older ones are in U-Matic, but I will get to those (plea for help on this forum) at another time. Fortunately, the more recent videos are in SVHS. Unfortunately, this was accomplished through melting a hole in VHS tapes!!! He said that the SVHS player played the tapes better when he watched them. I trust him, but will there be any drawbacks to this? On a particular "SVHS" video, the problems were too noticeable that I was forced to partially revert to an VHS copy. Interestingly, each video suffers from different issues. Do you know what is causing the problems on the tapes? Tracking could not help much on the copy. Is there a method to reduce the static on the bottom of the screen? I know I could crop it, but that would be the easy way out. I also fast-forwarded/rewinded the tapes before capture. I am using a Grass Valley/Canopus ADVC110. Recently I received the full Adobe Suite. Is there any equivalent on Adobe or otherwise for programs such as VirtualDub or AviSynth? I want to see if quick touch-ups would help. Yes I have a Mac! Any help is greatly appreciated. |
I just looked at the S-VHS clip real quick, and it's extremely rough. That's beyond standard signal issues -- it looks to be a malfunction of the playback VCR. What are you using as th VCR to play these?
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But much of this depends on the quality of the VHS tapes. For many years, I recorded S-VHS-ET (as JVC, the inventor of VHS and S-VHS formats, would eventually call it). There were really only two tapes that ever did well at this -- TDK and JVC mid/high grade VHS tapes. Anything else tended to be really bad. The biggest issue was the S-VHS recording was somewhat abusive to VHS tapes, and would tend to cause major dropouts. The oxide was basically rubbed off the tape because it was being used with a method that was never intended. What are the brands/markings of the tapes? If the original labels/boxes are missing, you'll have to rely on whatever is printed or engraved onto the tape itself. I actually know quite a few of these off-hand, but by visual inspection (have to see high-res photos of the full shell on all six sides). Quote:
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I have a SVHS Panasonic BRS5220 and a Mitsubishi HsU746. I believe this was captured on the latter device. However, other tapes played on this machine without any of that kind of trouble--including the VHS tape I included, which has a different problem. Since these are archive tapes, most of them have been played maybe once.
The brand of tapes were usually TDK or JVC. This tape happens to be Fuji. I remember reading something about how FF/RW dedicated machines wind the tape too quickly. Would you instead use an junk VCR for this? |
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So maybe take the top off the VCR, and with a test tape (easily replaceable commercial movie) see how the VCR operates. If it runs the tape around damaged posts, heads, etc -- don't use it for REW or FF of important tapes. I'd say a good dedicate rewinder would work okay. Problem is, it may not be able to FF. |
Hi,
This is pretty easy to fix, but the easiest way is semi-automatic, it might take longer to develop the fully automatic way. Anyhow, could you capture the same section of both tapes again, two more times in fact, and post them? My favorite technique requires 3 copies of the same video. That would help a lot. How long is the total program? Do you have a deadline for it? |
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Thanks for the helpful responses.
Unfortunately, my video converter is another city at the moment, and I will not be able to visit until June. There is no deadline, and I guess I could just revive this post at that time. Could you explain to me what this problem is and the semi-automatic vs. automatic technique? The total program is originally around 30 minutes, but I will also be cutting it into two 15 minute sections. These video captures have been stored on my external hard drive. Before I made this capture I had conducted numerous play-throughs to see if the problem would persist. It usually improved from a obvious movement to a flash. However, since I am capturing a VHS tape with a SVHS player, every time I play the video I risk damaging it. ***Luckily, I just checked my hard drive: I have a different video with a similar problem, which I captured more than three times. I stopped after awhile to prevent myself from jumping out the nearest window, after suffering from previous A/V delays. The video quality is much better than what is uploaded. I do appreciate the help. |
Yep, that's fixable, so is the other one. The glitches occur in different spots, you probably only need two passes of the SVHS one. Your SVHS copy is going to be better quality regardless. I was wondering if you get the same glitches when viewed on a real analog TV?
I don't disagree with the facts mentioned by the previous poster regarding quasi-SVHS and dropouts, but I have a different interpretation. With a burned hole, the deck doesn't know the difference, so of course a real SVHS signal is being recorded, it's just that the tape formula of VHS doesn't hold the higher frequencies very well, leading to noisy signals. The "dropouts", I would suspect are not from the tape oxide physically flaking off, but due to the signal response being so low that it's zero, which causes the video circuit to return pure white by default. The same thing would occur if bits of ferric oxide came off, also leading to no signal and a white line. For a technical comparison of SVHS and punched VHS tapes, see http://www.hembrow.eu/oldpage/svhs/index.html Anyhow, I'll post the fixed video of "announcer" when I'm done, it's kind of pointless though as it's not captured right. The announcer is interlaced 15fps, and each field is blended. There's something not right with your process here. The other one is fine. As far as your video converter, no big deal but you could just pick up a cheap one now, others will probably scream at me for this but for just $25 you can get a USB one and in my opinion, the difference in quality of this device is not nearly as important as the intelligent processing of the video. I've captured the same tape in 3 different VCRs and posted to another thread, there's only slight differences between them, and the differences between capture cards is even less. You just have to know enough to go into your settings to adjust sharpness and color because these have different defaults, causing some people to complain that the device is too "soft", when all they had to do is change the default. |
Thank you for the help. I've had to de-interlace the videos to fit them on this server. I believe the last video is better quality.
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Yes, that's a typical problem. Try http://www.megaupload.com/
There are many services like this, one click to upload and share a file for free with no registration. |
Thank you for the site suggestion. I put the videos in one file, from earlier to later captures. For some reason the videos seem to look a tad worse compared to the original, perhaps since I had to re-save the .dv as a .dv during splicing.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RIT7MBMG |
Hi,
I've got the answer to that too, try http://www.avcutty.de/english/index_info.htm It's free and lossless. |
I took a look at the VHS-VERSION.mp4 from the first post, and what I see is a tape or VCR error. You have tracking issues. Possibly alignment, but more likely it's just tracking. The ideal way to fix this would be with a better VCR, or a VCR that's been "broken" (misaligned) to match the specs of the original tape.
If you're forced to worked with the available captured video, then I would do this:
I'm downloading your other clips right now. |
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Which of the programs can denoise the video? Since I have Adobe, is the NeatVideo add-on better at this? Thanks again. |
avi and dv should be easily convertible back and forth, as far as I know. I don't know why avi would be bad, however I tried to open your file today and I'm having trouble. I can't get ffdshow to play it. I can play in VLC but when I used VLC to convert to avi, the avi still couldn't be read. As far as I'm concerned an avi is going to be a lot easier to open.
Avidemux crashed when opening it. I probably have a few more programs I can try. Anyhow, you don't need to recapture anything with that program, my main point was that it can edit the files and cut them up without losing quality. I got it open and found 5 copies of the interview. The music video is film, btw, so it would deinterlace perfectly. |
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In terms of video resolution, a proper deinterlace (i.e., "Yadif + NNEDI2 in Avisynth" vs drop-frame in a cheap editor), quality would retain detail and resolution. Here a deinterlace works to decomb non-destructively. It's not 100% perfect, but it's the best choice for the scenario. As far as video file size goes, that's controlled by bitrate, and only bitrate. For lossless or uncompressed video, cleaner streams will lend themselves to smaller file size, but we're maybe talking a 10% to 25% reduction in a best theoretical case. Quote:
NeatVideo is a good plugin, but it honestly works best in conjunction with other filters in the loop. Ideally, you'd want the VirtualDub plugin version. If you end up with the standalone or Premiere plugin, then you'd have to add the NeatVideo NR later in the workflow, after the other freeware tools have done their part. Quote:
...... Note: We don't do Megaupload, as it's too slow. Premium Members can get temporary FTP credentials to send files to Site Staff, up to 100MB max each. You'll have to PM a Site Staff member to get an FTP setup. Thanks. :) |
Admin,
He has a Mac, so VirtualDub etc. are out of the question, unless you want to use an emulator. As for size, I think he might have meant half the geometric size, in which case, no, deinterlacing doesn't imply a change in dimensions. My comment about dv<-->avi, I meant using the untouched dv codec video inside the avi container format. That's exactly what I tried to do with VLC, I selected Copy Video and container AVI. I should have no problem fixing this source, by comparing the frames of video in three copies, where one differs I can say that one has bad frames and automatically replace them from one of the other copies. l8r |
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..... This conversation is admittedly moving faster than I can keep up, due to other pending projects on my desk. :o |
And it was 741mb which I d/l at 1.3MB/s :)
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I already uploaded some videos to the Internet, but no one seemed to notice that they were not deinterlaced. Winebottler seems like a great tool. Will it also run Avisynth? As regards being buggy, do you mean it crashes often or is just a pain to get through? When I start to recapture again, I guess I'll should switch to PC, though mine is an oldtimer XP. Quote:
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Hi,
Haven't worked on it since yesterday but, it's potentially automatic, using a type of programming in a program called Avisynth. Obviously I need to focus on an automatic method, though for testing I'm creating a reference video semi-manually to see how it turns out. -- merged -- Hi, been sick haven't done a thing for a week... sorry |
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