on tape masters made by professionals there is often a 30 second color bar or blank part of the tape preceeding the content or warnings. this is exactly for that reason, that the vcr will first need to track properly but more importantly vcrs are more destructive to the first and last parts of a tape that get rewound as they see so much use. if you capture before you press play, its very easy to get dropped inserted frames at the beginning.

Thanks premiumcapture

That's very unfortunate.. So there's no fixing that..

Am I better off not using the AVT (is less more?) if there aren't frame sync timing issues?

Is there a reason why the retail video seems to look better without both AVT and panny's TBC (#61 1st file)? Not sure why there would be a difference between no TBC at all (#61 1st file) and having just the panny's TBC (#64 1st file) on (unless I'm seeing things)

The last part of the device questions are which workflow works best for each type? I have many other tapes (that I won't upload) but I figure if we can come to conclusions and throw around ideas on these I and others who are relatively new at this would be able to use it as a guideline for the rest.

Are the below statements true or is this more ambiguous to answer?

1) the home video with the little girl is better off with panny's TBC and AVT's TBC. Home video captures are in posts #59&60

2) for the SLP tapes, the JVC TBC with AVT's TBC is the better option. SLP captures are in posts #67,68,70

3) for the retail tape, the panny without panny's TBC and without the AVT is the better option. Retail tape captures are in posts #61,64,65

You should also read the FAQ on TBCs: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...time-base.html

Based off comments so far, internally and on the forum, the AVT-8710 is probably functioning perfectly. :2cents:

Thank you kpmedia.

I appreciate letting me know that I can rest easy with the AVT-8710. I have read that thread (that's how I started hunting for the AG-1980, JVC SVHS player, and green/black AVT-8710) but that was 7 months ago. I'm new at this so I apologize if I'm getting a few details jumbled (perhaps I should go through that thread again as a refresher). This site has been a fantastic resource and I appreciate everyone's help. Thank you very much.

In the meantime, I've went out to GOM player's customer support and asked what kind if deinterlace filter they used and they mentioned they use "triangle filter". This isn't described on google or any of the forums. Is there anything on the deinterlace through software guide that it's the equivalent or is it different? If different, what's being done and which other software uses it? I've noticed GOM player does a heck of a job (I'd say perfect?) with it compared to others such as VLC.

Many players are better than VLC. Try MPC-BE.

Have you tried GOM for interlaced video? Is mpc-be better at it?

Both are good players, but MPC-BE seems to have a vast following of very satisfied users. Why not try both, and see which one "likes" your system better?

Hi kpmedia/admin,

I've arranged the below in order of appearance and I've added the post #s they're respectively in. Thank you very much!

Home video samples:
post#59
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi

post#60
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi

retail video samples:
post#61
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi

post#64
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi

post#65
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi

SLP video samples:
post#67
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi

post#68
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi

post#70
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fter_reset.avi

What about these?
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post33001
Which FTP files are those?

And it looks like something is missing here:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post33181

Some of you post # are now wrong, because I've had to merge some posts.

We'll go back and delete these organization posts when done with this. Some were already removed. ;)

Thanks a lot Lordsmurf!!

For the first link you've provided I figured since those captures were prior to the AVT-8710 being properly reset it didn't matter (and I've deleted it from my back up because it was of no use). In hindsight after going back to the post, if you'd like for me to put the winrar files on the site back together so the flow of the conversation makes sense (i.e. How to properly reset AVT vs what I did) I can do that tonight when I get back home. Otherwise, those can be deleted.

For the second link, that was all of them. I forgot to capture no AVT and no panny TBC for the retail but once I was done, realized it wasn't needed since there's no way of telling if the AVT's TBC is working or not based off of both TBC's turned/plugged off.

(The below is only assuming if partial merges are possible)
As for organizational flow, I'd say post#59 should be split in two after the fourth sample and merge with post#61 at the start of the second already merged there (i.e. Right after the thank you. That way, all the retail samples are in one post.

Up until the sample portion of post#65 should be merged with the end of post#63. That will keep all the SLP samples together.

Please let me know. Thanks again!!

Belated thank you sanlyn! I'll check out both and report back!


Hi Lordsmurf,

I've added a second IDE 160gb PATA hdd to the capturing rig. Jumper is set to slave and connected to the middle portion of the IDE cable. Bios also recognizes it as secondary slave hdd. The strange thing is, it performs fine in the beginning but eventually dropped 50 frames after 20 minutes. If capturing with the primary WinXP hdd, it doesn't drop frames like that at all. How would I get capture to the secondary drive more stable as I'd rather use the 160GB than the 80GB that already used space for XP. The primary is the one the computer came with (IDE 80GB PATA).

Perhaps I've set it up wrong? Originally I've put it in with jumper setting "select" but that was worse (constant dropped frames from the beginning). When I used the "select" setting though I didn't ensure the bios saw the hdd. Should I have done that? Or put it on as master? The other end of the parallel cable is the DVD-rom drive. Was sitting there scratching my head.

Is the 160gb PATA drive 7200rpm? What about the primary 80gb?

FYI: The post rules/guidelines for attachments have been updated because of this thread. See the updates at http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news...ly-upload.html. And yes, re-download that first file, upload to the FTP, then reply here with the link.

Thanks! :)

Will do. Thank admin!

Yes, the newer 160GB is 7500rpm. Not sure what the primary 80gb. Is there a way to tell without taking it out? It's locked in tight since it came built with the desktop. I'm assuming since it's not dropping frames it'd be just as fast but not sure. The primary drive seems to be on it's own separate single plug cable

Here are the last two for post#54 mentioned in order:

http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fore_reset.avi
http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita...fore_reset.avi

Hi sanlyn,

I've just downloaded and checked out MPC-BE but am having a hard time locating the deinterlace portion of the option. Is it inherent with BCE-ME? If it doesn't have one, I'd say GOM player does a great job with taking out the combing effect from the interlaced video.

Click Play -> Filters -> MPC Decoder -> Deinterlacing to choose a setting. I have MPC as my go-to during off-time, but I tend to use VLC just as much.

Thanks premiumcapture, I'll try that once I get back. Tried figuring it out on my own by googling it but had no luck. Feels like I can only good info from here..

Another thing I tried to google and came up empty: how do I cut a yuy2 so that the video quality stays exactly the same? There's a new capture I did but want to only post the specific portion where it's happening. Seems like on the retail tape from 1986, the entire frame quickly shifts ever so slightly to the right and then to the left making it seem like it's "jumping" off it's lane.

Thanks again!!

Your huff YUY2 captures are lossless. Open the AVI in VirtualDub, make your edit, then save it lossless YUY2 using:
- "Video..." -> "Color depth..." -> and choose YUY2
- "Video..." -> "Compression..." -> and choose huffyuv YUY2
- "Video..." -> "Fast recompress"
Then "File..." -> "Save as AVI..."

I'd suggest that you save intermediate lossless AVI working files using Lagarith instead of HuffYUV. Different versions of huffyuv behave differently on different machines, while Lagarith is more universally consistent. I mention that because I don't know what version of huffyuv you're using, but this is the way your huffyuv files display on two of my PC's when they were first downloaded:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1407170326

I had to activate my copy of ffdshow's huffyuv decoder, then opened the AVi's with DirectShowSource and recompressed your samples with Lagarith to get a proper display. I'd also mention that many Avisynth plugins work only with YV12, while most versions of huffyuv won't compress to YV12.

+1 on Lagarith. Using on Windows 8.1 with no issues.

Yes, less is usually more. Every component in the capture chain affects the image to some degree. Assume, of course, that you don't have those frame-level issues.

Who says they look better, LOL? I'd say it's more a case of you not seeing things. Look at the pics (below) of the top section of your 3 basketball captures. The upper section shows how objects are bent along the top of the frame without the line tbc. The tbc circuits are also doing a little chroma cleanup, even if that kind of noise in many retail tapes isn't so horrible. In the two lower sections, the bars at the top of the frame are straight.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1407176161

You probably can't get away on that basketball tape without further cleanup. You have shots with invalid levels and chroma, and some bad oversaturation with red on some shots. There's also excessive interlace combing and some edge aliasing that could stand some work.

The panny sample has more noise, but also much more detail. The JVC runs a little more quiet with all that edge shimmer on a bad tape (there are settings in QTGMC that will clean up a lot of that). The JVC has less noise but a lot less detail. JVC's noise reduction on very noisy tapes like this can cost you: notice that the clothing and skin tones in the shots of the two guys talking have no textures or subtle contours in the JVC sample. With noisy tapes, JVC can produce a rather soft, oil-paint kind of image. Sharpeners don't restore lost detail, and denoisers here will give posterization effects in skin tones. I'd try cleaning up the Panny version instead. But that's just my opinion. Both could stand some work, in any case. I'd suggest you save the JVC for SP tapes, not slower ones. But you never can tell. Test and check things out first.

Yes, but for more reasons than you think. Without the tbc, you're losing 4 to 6 frames between frame 141 and 142 in ''test_no_AVT-8710_with_pan_TBC_after_reset.avi" . This is damaged tape that seems to be sending out corrupt frame sync signals that are being interpreted by your capture card as Macrovision effects.

Sometimes I think you're just testing us with some of these captures (???). Below are 4 different versions of the top 120 pixels of the four home tape captures. The top image with no AVT and no line TBC looks a lot like Macrovision effects across the top. The strip below that (With AVT but no line TBC) shows frame ripping across the top, which the AVT won't fix. Below that, the "No AVT but with Pan TBC" would look OK if it weren't for the fact that your capture card is dropping frames without the AVT. The bottom strip is AVT + Pan TBC.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1407176371

Below are three strips from the right-hand side of 3 captures. The strips at the left and middle show wrinkles and notches in vertical lines, without the line TBC. The middle section has AVT, but vertical lines are still crooked. The strip at the right shows how a line TBC straightens those lines. Those crooks and notches will look different on every frame -- as the video plays, those vertical lines will often "wiggle" or "ripple". The line TBC also fixed the ripping at the top of the frame.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1407176493

Something weird in "test_with_AVT-8710_but_no_pan_TBC_after_reset.avi" . I'm seeing one field frozen in place for several frames, with double "ghost" images from following frames. Maybe the .zip's didn't unzip correctly??

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1407176713

You could technically capture one with and without the AVT and take what you need from the AVT's capture and leave the rest as it is. For retail tapes I leave the AVT on base settings and adjust the software proc amp.

Thanks a lot sanlyn/premiumcapture!

Lol there's no way I'd be testing you guys. Too much respect/appreciation. It's just that I can't find that kind of info anywhere else.

Also, it was the newb (I) that said/thought those were what looked good. I was saying what I thought knowing I'm probably 50% wrong (turned out to be more than that).

So, I should opt for the JVC for the retail tapes (assuming those are SP)? Are the effects you're mentioning with the retail tapes the black and white portion of the sample with some color? I'm guessing those are "special effects" from the guys that produced the tape but it's hard for me to tell (been too long since I've watched these).

I'll go with the panny for the SLPs

The home video "test_with_AVT-8710_but_no_pan_TBC_after_reset.avi" is exactly how it got captured (and played back). The purpose of that capture was to see if the AVT's TBC was malfunctioning. I'm not sure if it's the AVT or if that's normal behavior because it has line time base errors and the AVT is creating frames with lines that are overlapping (if that's even what that looks like).

I've taken huffyuv based off of what this site recommended. I'll try to find the post and report back. Thank you!!

Like the AVT I have, it will actually lock a field in place if it can't pull anything out of the VCR.

Hey, everybody picks up this stuff piecemeal. You're just not accustomed to it yet.

That's a kind of general rule, but not absolute. You'll find plenty of tapes that look better on one player than on another. My experience with the three JVC's I owned -- and I certainly put plenty of time on all three -- is that half looked better on my JVC's, half looked better elsewhere. I even had a few taps that fared better on a couple of non-TBC Pannies that I still own, a PV-S4672 (1996) and a noisy PV-8661 (1998). That doesn't mean noise-free. Far from it! I had to use a pass-thru DVD-R for a tbc, then learn some clever denoising tricks to make those caps viewable.

The more noise you have on a tape, the more a machine's noise reduction will overdo it. Which is to say that strong noise reduction during capture has its limitations. How do you know which path to take? Well, you throw a tape into a player and see what you get. That's the hard-and-fast method that I once saw posted a while back by lordsmurf:
1. Guess.
2. Check the results.
3. Go back to 1.

Of course that "guess" becomes more educated as you move along, so it's not as haphazard as it sounds. In general, though, slow 4-hour and 6-hour-plus tapes are going to have less detail and a great deal more noise than SP. JVC invented VHS, but they never really approved of the slower versions (thank Panasonic and SONY for that) which require a little clever circuitry to eke out more detail -- namely, over sharpening and juicing up contrast on slow tapes to make 'em look "better", then drive you crazy trying to clean up the side effects.

The out of bounds levels and color are spread throughout the basketball tape. That's not unusual with that sort of compilation from multiple sources, especially when the mastering lab didn't pay attention to their own work. You soon develop an eye for that stuff. It helps to have a histogram running to help you learn what's happening.

I don't know what happened with that particular clip. It didn't happen on other caps from the same tape. Maybe it didn't unzip properly.

I use the same huffyuv on my captures, if you mean the one lordsmurf recommends. That's just the nature of huff, and newer ones are similar. If you always use the same OS, PC, graphics card, and capture drivers, etc., you'd never see a difference. I capture on a couple of old PC's built for that purpose. For processing, I'm usually obliged to archive the cap to a hard drive and then copy pieces into Lagarith for detail work on other machines. Lagarith can be a tad slower during capture, so it's huff for capture and Lagarith for everything else. As it is, your video will eventually end up as YV12 for Avisynth filters and for encoding. So why capture to YUY2 to begin with? One, to preserve as much of the original data as possible. Two, to use better means of converting VHS YCbCr to other color spaces (which means Avisynth and some very clever plugins) when and if it's necessary.

I've just tried the deinterlace on MPC-BE. I still see combing (interlace lines) on playback with all three deinterlace methods. GOM player's "triple filter" (still have no idea what this is) plays back interlaced video without any lines (no combing) and plays it back as if from my VCR. If haven't tried GOM player for your YUY2 captures definitely give it a try. It may actually allow me to bypass converting to Blu Ray (by saving a back up copy and playing the regular copy of the file straight up)! Let me know what you guys think. I haven't seen another player that can do this. Running on my E-450 4gb win7 computer so not sure if the other players require a better system?

Virtualdub 1.10.4
Huffyuv 2.1.1

Dang.. Looks like I installed the latest version of each. Are there any cons to using these? Should I install the filters by carrying them over from post#18 below or replace my virtualdub with this one?
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...lters-pre.html

Excessive interlace combing as seen on good quality media players is often a sign of improper or sloppy processing. You'd be amazed at how many retail videos and modern broadcasts look like crap. Admitted, there are some poor players and tv's around. But a player or TV that over-processes and over-scrubs is not an accurate test for most projects. For that reason, pros and advanced hobbyists audition their work on thoroughly calibrated monitors and TV displays. The idea isn't to make everything look pretty, but to display the work accurately and in accordance with established standards that are universally well-documented. True, every player has playback variations to some degree. True, most users wouldn't know a well calibrated display from a bag of beans. True, many viewers enjoy distortion with their hallucinogens. And true, many viewers have exceptionally loose standards. But if your output looks "perfect" with only one specific player with very specific settings, but looks like garbage on every other player in the whole world regardless of player quality, it's not likely to fly well as a "good fit" for many viewers.

That's why I was asking if others here have used it and noticed a difference/same results? (i.e. I'm looking to see if it's not just my machine/s). From my end, I've tried both on my computer here and the computer from my parent's computer and am seeing the same result. Have you tried the newer one? Is it flawed or is it working on your end?

I want to reiterate so as to make sure there aren't any misunderstandings. I have no illusions of grandeur. I am well aware I'm in a newbie stage and at an exploratory/asking/learning stage and am a far ways away from grasping/knowing everything there is to know about this process. That's precisely why I'm very appreciative of all the help being given on this forum.

-- merged --

Huzzah! I've been able to crop/delete and save! Thanks sanlyn! I was worried it was going to be another long trial and error ordeals. Love it when things work the way I hoped it would! At this point for me, it's still monkey see, monkey do (while trying to figure it out). Is the footage showing up like what you've posted because I'm using the latest version of virtualdub (that's annoying that it doesn't stay consistent if because different versions..)? Do I download logarithm and apply the same method as huffyuv? I'm on 64bit Win7 so got really lucky this forum had specific instructions as to how to install those two.

At the beginning of this video (with AVT and panny TBC), for some reason it had a thick horizontal garbled line that went across (far away view of epcot portion). The portion where I was describing it as the frame going off track and moving slightly to the right and back occurs on the rest of the sample. Is this normal behavior? What's happening in those situations?

http://cdn4.digitalfaq.com/vhsdigita..._panny_TBC.avi

My post was just ruminating wildly on software players today. Haven't tried GOM in a while. The last version from a couple years back tried to take over my PC with ads and toolbars. The only real complaint I see from users is that it's just another player, after all. Perfectionists complain that GOM can't be set up to recognize monitor calibration profiles (but neither can many other players). Fortunately I have a monitor that's petty close to spec to begin with -- and, naturally, LG stopped making this model line because they wanted to target a lower price point. Usually, like most picky hobbyists, I try out final videos on multiple players. I also borrowed a few calibration tricks from lordsmurf and a few other picky guys, some for PC monitors and some for TV. That gets to be an entirely different ballgame, but in short I mean that accuracy in a media player gets complicated as hell.

Fortunately media players are easy to find and install. They can be un-installed, too. Since they don't represent a major financial investment, it wouldn't hurt to try a few players and settle into the ones you feel would suit you best. None of them play exactly the same way a calibrated TV or set top player will, and none of those will ever look like the big projected movie screen at your nearest Multiplex. I look for a display that can display objects and color the way they look in nature, not the way they're supposed to look in showrooms and light shows.

And even with the best media players like MPC, OTF deinterlacing isn't perfect. For something like this for playback just to watch, the only guaranteed way to avoid combing is to discard, but for editing purposes and inspection, its better to plug it into VirtualDub.

What I'm seeing from my end is no combing (at all) along with smooth playback with GOM player (my parent's computer wasn't as smooth but theirs uses an integrated intel graphics card while mine is smooth with the E-450 GPU but even that's not THAT powerful of a graphics processor. Both show no combing). I've been using/installing that player for about a decade now and as long as you don't leave the check boxes in the beginning to install their stupid toolbar and ads you won't get them (unless I've been lucky). Give it a shot but only if you're up for it. I'll continue to explore what happens on other computers from my end.

In the meantime the latest sample I've posted shows some odd behavior I haven't seen in other threads so not sure what to make of it. Does the latest virtualdub have any known issues? Wondering if there's a preferred version of virtualdub and huffyuv.

It looks like magnetic dropout, either damage to the tape or a mastering error. You can use AviSynth to reduce it but it looks like its one or two frames at most.

Thanks premiumcapture!

Are you referring to the portion that shows the far away view of Epcot (thick horizontal line) or the error where the frame suddenly shifts to the right and back again? I'm seeing two errors here.

Thanks sanlyn!

I appreciate I can now cut out unwanted portions of the capture (I've selected the range and deleted). Is there a way to split the file into two files or do you have to cut and save each half separately?

I've also noticed the color depth portion was grayed out once I got to selecting fast recompress. Is this normal? Wondering if the color depth portion gets defaulted or if the selection I've made become locked in. There was a portion where I had to select both input and output so I've selected yuy2 for both. Should I have also made selections for audio?

I was looking at this site to distinguish between fast recompress and direct stream copy since someone else mentioned I should use direct stream copy (this was 7 months ago) but I can't figure out why they'd say that (this was back when I still had the crappy ADVC110).
ftp://88.200.53.184/pub/video_semina...-pipeline.html

Hi Admin,

Now that the FTP link portion is cleaned up, is there any way to tell why the second hdd is dropping so many frames (less stable than the OS hdd)?

I see more errors than those two. I'll be posting something later as a short (I hope!) report on how to spot and resolve stuff like that.

Doing it the way suggested, separately is easier if you want two different clips.

Normal. Fast recompress means just that, it won't run any VirtualDub filters that might be loaded. Leave "full processing mode" open to access all those sub menus. Select fast recompress or some other process option after you set everything else.

You can edit with direct stream copy, but basically it means to simply copy to the same compressor, color, etc., as the original. Example, if your original was huff YUY2, that's what comes out. If you want to change compressor/color, use fast recompress. It also works other ways if you really wanna get complicated, but I find those two settings easier to remember that way. Audio defaults to direct stream copy unless you set it to do something else.

Thank you very much sanlyn!

So that means I could use direct stream copy for the cut I made since I went from YUY2 to YUY2? If going that route is there no difference? Are there slight quality loss issues using either of these to cut (if so, just capturing in two sets would be better instead of capturing the entire tape and cutting later)?

The only difference in the two methods is being able to change compressors or color space, etc.

I can't find the previous post where you stated you tried to download "algorithm" ? ? I think you meant Lagarith. Get it here: http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html . Many people don't use anything else.

To address the bad frames and shifting: it's not always your fault. It can easily be the source.

The tape may be damaged, but in any case is not moving smoothly and is giving the TBC and AVT a rough time. A pro sync machine at 10 times the price would have 10 times the memory cache and processing power, but with pro-sumer gear you have to try to help your hardware a little. Often repacking a tape will offer smoother feed off the casette's spool and more consistent flow across the heads.

Repacking means rewinding the tape a time or two, without playing and without pause. Examine the tape cassette from the top. If you see that the tape winding on the left or right side has a lot of bumps, ridges, and uneven winding, it can cause jerky tape movement. Insert the tape into the VCR, but don't play it. Fast-rewind all the way to the end, without pause. Then fast-rewind all the way to the beginning, without pause. You might have to repeat the process. The idea is to rewind the tape more smoothly onto the right-hand feed spool.

VirtualDub reports that the video is slightly off-speed at 29.971 fps (average, or just heaser info). An AVisynth plugin that I used reported that the frame rate was inconsistent. Disturbances in tape motion can occasionally cause inconsistencies in a few frames. An Avisynth function (AssumeFPS) can help with that.

First, a closer look into what the video is doing. Open the clip "1986_retail_with_AVT_and_panny_TBC.avi" directly in VirtualDub using "File..."->"Open video file...". You won't be using filters yet. As with other editors or PC players, YUY2 video will be converted to RGB, but only for viewing. The file itself won't be affected because viewing is all you'll do for now. We need to look at specific frames, so use the frame advance ">>" and reverse "<<" buttons at the lower left of VirtualDub's window.

The video is interlaced. Keep it that way for the time being. Use the VirtualDub ">>" advance button to view one frame at a time. You can move at a more normal rate by holding down the "->" directional key on your keyboard. Move forward, and stop at frame 92.

Frame 92 has a bad dropout across the top. This could be damage, or it could be a blob of runaway dust. It may appear again in this or similar location if recaptured, but likely it will always be in the same frame. Avisynth can help with that, too.

Move to frame 394. You can move back and forth between frame 393 and 395 to see what's happening when the image appears to "shift". Actually it's only the bottom half of the frame that doesn't move properly. The bottom half shifts left before the top half does. The bottom half is also blurred. Repacking the tape and recapturing might prevent this. If not, Avisynth can offer some help. It's also possible that the original film has that defect.

Frame 672. This frame shifts upward and to the right. The upward nudge is called frame hop or "projector hop". Frame 673 moves downward and to the right, and is blurred. Frame 674 is normal. Possibly the original itself has some camera movement or object shift to begin with -- you'll often see this, especially in promotional films. I'd guess it looks like a production problem. Likely you can't avoid the shift altogether, but you can smooth it out a bit with Avisynth.

All sorts of things go astray in the first shot of the clip. Look at the landscape and foreground as the camera zooms in. Literally, objects and planes are rolling and shifting, lines twitter or act broken. This could be a fault in the original (possible), or poor tracking from tape damage. Again, I'd suggest again that you repack these tapes if the windings look sloppy. It often makes a big difference, and it helps the player do what it has to do.

You wouldn't want to fix any of these defects while the clip is interlaced. Now, let's look at this video field by field rather than frame by frame. Often you'll see a frame problem, but the problem exists in only one field of that frame.

I used Avisynth to perform the following, but for now you can use VirtualDub to see similar results:

Move the video back to its beginning, at frame 0. Go to "Video..."->"filters..." and choose VirtualDub's "bob doubler." Set the field order to "Top Field First" and the deintelace method to "bob", then close that dialog to activate the bob doubler. The fist thing you might notice is that the frame count of the interlaced file began as 780 frames, but the count is now doubled to 1560. The bob filter isn't the best deinterlacer. It's rather crude and gives a soft image that often flickers. But it's handy as a quick analysis tool. The interlaced fields are now separated and resized to full-frame 640x480. Remember, now, that all "frame numbers" will be doubled. The original field 0 of frame 0 is now bobbed frame #0. The original field 1 of frame 0 is now "frame" #1. When a video is bobbed or deinterlaced, the new even frame numbers 0, 2, 4, 6, etc., were originally the even fields. The odd numbered "frames" were originally fields 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. To calculate which original interlaced frame you're viewing, divide the bobbed "frame" number by 2.

Move to bobbed frame number 184. Remember that the left-hand window is the original video frame. The right-hand window is the result of the bob. In the left-hand view of the original frame, you will see the dropout flash in frames 184 and 185. On the right-hand bob-filtered view, the dropout streak appears only in frame 184. This means that the bad streak is only in the even field of the original interlaced frame. The original odd field of that frame has no dropout. The original interlaced frame number is 184 / 2 ( = frame 92).

Just out of curiosity, move to bobbed frame 202. You'll see a white spot in the upper right sector. This white spot appears in bobbed frames 202 and 203, so it's in both fields of that frame. Moreover, the spot is in exactly the same place in both fields. If you deinterlaced this video and used a spot remover to clear that spot, the spot filter would see it in two consecutive frames. So that spot would likely stay as-is. If a disturbance doesn't move, it's often not seen as "noise". But there are ways around that, too.

Move to bobbed frame 788. This is the frame that had the shift in the lower half of the image (original frame 394). If you move between bobbed frames 788 and 789, you'll see on the right-hand side that the shift occurs only in the odd field of the original frame.

Finally, move to bobbed frame 1344 (original frame 672). This is the shifting robot. The object shifts up and to the right in frame 1344-1345. But notice that in the left-hand window, the wand in the robot's hand doesn't move. In the right-hand window, the robot's arm moves in bobbed frames 1344 and 1345. In the left-hand "original" window, frames 1346 and 1347 are alike and look blurred. But in the right-hand window, bobbed frames 1346 and 1347 show clean movement. The same right-hand/left-hand thing occurs in the next two bobbed frames. This indicates that in order to repair this 3-frame interlaced sequence, you have to deinterlace and look at the problem as stretching across several fields -- perhaps up to 6 fields, maybe less.

The attached mpg is DVD spec. It's just an exercise, really, to see what I could get. I repaired most of the bad frames mentioned, cleaned some bad chroma bleed and shift. But more could be done. The first scene is a lesson in what results when you try to fix everything in sight: over-filtering, usually. Color balance is fantasy here, just to test effects.

Statistics: I used Avisynth for most of this. Deinterlaced with QTGMC, then resized with Spline36Resize to 720x480 and reinterlaced for encoding at the end. Several denoisers were used, including MCTemporalDenoise, Santiag, and cnr2. Most of the bad frame repair used ReplaceFramesMC, which is based on MVTools. Some of the color stuff was VirtualDub (ColorMill and gradation curves). Encoder: TMPGenc Plus 2.5.

I doubt that most users would go thru this much trouble for every video. Life is too short.

ED: Saw a VirtualDub guide similar to this post some years back in digitalfaq, but couldn't find it.

I actually phrased a question regarding this in the premium section. My timing settings don't drop any frames and the video looks and sounds in sync but I haven't seen much regarding good timing settings and handling imperfect frame rates and jitter. Would be helpful to me as well if you could delve a little bit deeper into this.

Tell the truth, I've never seen that message before, and I've used the same routines a thousand times. It came from ReplaceFramesMC when MVtools was called, and said something like "frame rates don't match" because 4 frames were being examined (2 in each direction). Beats me.

I just entered the following code and kept going (the frame rate is for deinterlaced ntsc):

I was more interested in the timing settings for a capture like this to avoid getting a quirky frame grate in the first place. I have a feeling that's what's going on here.

I always check VirtualDub Capture for 29.97. But I see posts where the frame rate can be off a bit despite the setting.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1407286440

And this part?