How good does my tape look?
 

This video was converted from a VHS tape (made in 1990) to .Mov (DV codec) this week by a third party. The video was originally shot on a Hi-8 camera but the Hi-8 master has been lost. The tape was converted once before, to DVD, about ten years ago.

With all factors considered, how good does it look? Can guys who are more proficient with spotting signs of age/degradation and/or a bad transfer (by the third party) tell me whatever they spot? Also, going forward, should I ask for my tapes to be transferred to MP4 instead of MOV?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byoc...ature=youtu.be

That's horrible.

- zero TBC use
- chroma flaws
- potential dropouts from flawed VCR

I hope you didn't have to pay for that. :sick:

That needs to be re-done if you want quality work.

Neither MOV (Quicktime) nor MP4 (MPEG-4 container, unknown codec) is not want you want for analog transfers.

How can you tell there was no TBC use? And what are chroma dropouts? Like, can you identify a moment on the film for me as an example?

I did have to pay :(

What mediums would I want to use?

How "good" does it look? Maybe you mean how bad does it look? Answer: it's really awful. You've been robbed.

You don't notice the bad chroma dropouts ? They're horizontal slashes, ripples and rips, some of which go all the way across the middle of the screen. If you don't know what what line sync errors look like, look at the wiggly and notched side borders. How about the bad buzzy facial edges and discoloration. You don't see any of that? How about the mess they made of your tape and then how about YouTube robbing you again when they re-processed it (at least you didn't pay for that second ripoff). [EDIT] And on top of that, either the maker or YouTube deleted alternate fields and threw away half your video. It's, like, they saw your coming.

Seriously. I think people out there are going blind. And when they don't even know they've been hornswggled, it's even more deppressing.

Aren't chroma dropouts from aging? Also...the wiggly and notched side borders - that's not aging?

The buzzy facial edges you think are more due to a bad transfer than to a 27 year old VHS tape just breaking down?

Wait, what are alternate fields? And what do you mean threw away half my video?

Bear in mind I really know next to nothing about video beyond being able to operate a video camera. So all this tech stuff goes over my head.

No.

You were ripped off by somebody using an old VCR and non-pro hardware/workflow.

Yes, bad transfer job. Really bad.

This in itself is flawed:
^ That's not how it works. Tapes don't degrade in that manner.

In the right playback hardware, it should look as good as when recorded -- sometimes even better. When a tape actually degrades, it means the magnetic material is sloughing off (oxide shedding).

Youtube uses a rough deinterlace method that simply tosses out data to achieve the deinterlace. The video looks worse. You must pre-process to progressive for Youtube, not feed it interlaced footage.

I gladly explain things to all knowledge levels. :)

There are obvious timing error, video wiggling and skewing all about.

Chroma error = color noise
Dropout = all that static in the image

On a good conversion, either MPEG or lossless. It depends on needs.
- For editing, lossless.
- For archival, never editing again, MPEG-2 at high bitrate is fine.
- For watching copy of the master, make a DVD, or process down to streaming.

You should have sent us that tape.
http://www.digitalFAQ.com/services/v...ape-to-dvd.htm

Output to DVD, BD, lossless files, whatever.

Am going to contact you now.

Sent

By the way, forgive the watermark, but these are examples of my other tapes (These were converted at home around ten years ago using a VCR/DVD combo):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1ecKqdn2ts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em5Rkdi-YqY

Ugh, the DV artifacts on high saturation areas. Just horrible. :hypno: