VHS to Blu-Ray workflow advice

[Skitter]

Okay, before anyone assumes wrongly, no, I'm not planning to upscale my stuff in any way. I simply want to use blu ray due to larger storage per disc.

I asked some questions here. You guys are very helpful.
Anyway, my setup is now as such.
-JVC HR-S9911u > AVT 8710 > ATI TV Wonder HD 600 Usb

So, using this guide and captured to huffyuv. Good results, didn't get any dropped frames or anything else stupid. (a vast improvement over my past results.) I ran a few tapes through this and all looked great, minus some interlacing lines or whatever. Also, those are some truly massive filesizes.

Anyway, I figured I'd mess around with fixing such things on a few recording before moving on and recording all my tapes--again--just to get the hang of what I need to do. I also don't want to end up recording everything only to find that I did it wrong again, and would need to start over because of one fouled up setting.

At this point, it seemed like I should make a thread in the Restore, Filter, Improve Quality forum...
But then I saw this thread. As my thread title says, I'm planning to put this stuff on blu ray, so now I'm wondering if I'm capturing to the wrong format.

Yay, more questions(!)
If I'm going to eventually be putting this on blu ray, should I instead be capturing to MPEG-2 broadcast specs as this says?
If so, how should I be doing that?

Editing:
As I said above, my captures had (what I'm assuming to be) interlacing lines. I ran Vdub's deinterlace filter (Yadif, TFF, double frame rate) and things looked good. Otherwise, my captures so far don't appear to need any other corrections.

Is that the right way to do that?
More specifically, is Vdub the thing I should be using for that?
Also, is there some guide for Vdub that kinda runs you through some of the basics of using filters and making edits, etc.
Assuming I don't need to do anything else to the captures, all I really want to do is chop up the captures into files appropriate to the segments recorded on each tape. Is Vdub what I should be using for that?

The only thing I'd like to do after that is maybe add a simple title card or whatever with a title and date. Basically adding a five second black screen, white text, to the beginning of each video segment. Is that something I should do in another program, and if so; which?

Short version: I'm uncertain if I'm doing this the right way for what I want as an end result, I'd like to get this all nailed down before I continue.
As for the editing questions, they're more about what program I should be using for what; I'll come back to those questions later, probably in another sub-forum, once I make it that far.

Thanks for reading.

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

Okay, before anyone assumes wrongly, no, I'm not planning to upscale my stuff in any way.

Good.

For future reference: despite the clueless fantasies you see or read in many video blogs, there is absolutely no advantage to upscaling standard definition analog source to HD dimensions. It is a complete waste of time and looks worse than the upscaling your media players and TV can do. High definition is based on high resolution masters, not on low resolution sources pumped up into big blurry frames.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

So, using this guide and captured to huffyuv. Good results, didn't get any dropped frames or anything else stupid. (a vast improvement over my past results.) I ran a few tapes through this and all looked great, minus some interlacing lines or whatever. Also, those are some truly massive filesizes.

Roughly 30GB YUY2 per hour is big, but far from massive. Most users keep original captures on external drives and pull off segments into their PC's for processing. Use computers for processing, not for storage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

At this point, it seemed like I should make a thread in the Restore, Filter, Improve Quality forum...
But then I saw this thread. As my thread title says, I'm planning to put this stuff on blu ray, so now I'm wondering if I'm capturing to the wrong format.

Yes, if you intend to do any modifications, add effects, clean up stuff like uneven borders, head-switching noise, tape grunge, excessive interlace combing effects, head-switching noise (yes, there are filters to clean up all that junk), then you don't want to capture to a lossy format like MPEG or h.264. MPEG and h.264 are inter-frame final delivery formats, not designed for edits or modification without quality loss. Final delivery means just that: formats designed and encoded for final format output, not designed for further modification.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

If I'm going to eventually be putting this on blu ray, should I instead be capturing to MPEG-2

No. Read the above paragraph. Broadcast MPEG is for archiving, not for edits or restoration. BluRay can be MPEG, h.264/AVC, or VC1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

As I said above, my captures had (what I'm assuming to be) interlacing lines. I ran Vdub's deinterlace filter (Yadif, TFF, double frame rate) and things looked good. Otherwise, my captures so far don't appear to need any other corrections.

I seriously doubt that they look good as you think they do, and that's easy enough to prove with even a short sample. Of course you know that all editors, Virtualdub included, do not deintelace for display. That's why you see combing in editors. Media players and TV can deintelace on the fly, except for VLC player which must be configured to deinterlace in its option menus.

For one thing, yadif is third-rate and noisy when it comes to software-based deinterlacing. You should have used QTGMC, for which there is no match anywhere. Not even your TV is that good.

For another thing, deinterlacing always has a cost. Always. There is no getting around it. So you may as well use the best and cleanest deinterlacer around when it's required. That's QTGMC.

And finally, for yet another thing, 29.97 or 25fps standard def and 1920x1080 BluRay are always encoded as interlaced. Never progressive. No exceptions.

If you mean you want to make a progressive video encoded to large-GOP h.264 or 15mbps MPEG without further compliance with BluRay spec, then you're not encoding BluRay. You're just burning a BluRay optical disc as data, not as BluRay. Like DVD, the BD spec has strict requirements.
Format requirements: https://www.videohelp.com/hd#tech
encoding requirements: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533s

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

More specifically, is Vdub the thing I should be using for that?

I don't know what you've been reading, but Virtualdub is a basic editor and file server client. It has a few good filters and some good color controls, but the primary restoration tool usually recommended (with some help and important tweaks from VDub) is Avisynth. For timeline work and special effects with lossless media, you can use any NLE such as Corel's budget video apps for edits, encoding and authoring. Do not use NLE's for deintelacing, telecine removal, or resizing -- they are inferior tools for those purposes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

is there some guide for Vdub that kinda runs you through some of the basics of using filters and making edits, etc.

Not really. You'll find 1,000 (or more) tutorials and examples in the capture, restoration, and other threads of this forum.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

Assuming I don't need to do anything else to the captures...

Mm, well, I wouldn't make that assumption. To take up your own suggestion from earlier, a short sample of an original capture in a new thread in the restoration/repair area will demonstrate that you still have more work to do for a clean final encode.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

The only thing I'd like to do after that is maybe add a simple title card or whatever with a title and date. Basically adding a five second black screen, white text, to the beginning of each video segment. Is that something I should do in another program, and if so; which?

Corel and Magix/Vegas have plenty of budget NLE's that will let you do that, as well as encode and author to various formats, and they can work with lossless media. If you want to format for web posting use avisynth, then encode with one of the suggested NLE's.

[EDIT] One advantage of using MPEG for standard definition BluRay is that MPEG for SD-BluRay can use far higher bitrates than MPEG for DVD. Thus for larger TV screens, standard definition BluRay generally can generate cleaner images than SD-DVD.

[Skitter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

Yes, if you intend to do any modifications, add effects, clean up stuff like uneven borders, head-switching noise, tape grunge, excessive interlace combing effects, head-switching noise (yes, there are filters to clean up all that junk), then you don't want to capture to a lossy format like MPEG or h.264. MPEG and h.264 are inter-frame final delivery formats, not designed for edits or modification without quality loss. Final delivery means just that: formats designed and encoded for final format output, not designed for further modification.

Gotcha.
I read somewhere that it's best to avoid re-encoding if possible.
But if the huffuy format is the one for cleaning up stuff, then I definitely want that. As I said, I just don't want to end up with 50+ videos captured only to find out (again) that the capture format is wrong for my purposes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

I seriously doubt that they look good as you think they do, and that's easy enough to prove with even a short sample. Of course you know that all editors, Virtualdub included, do not deintelace for display. That's why you see combing in editors. Media players and TV can deintelace on the fly, except for VLC player which must be configured to deinterlace in its option menus.

For one thing, yadif is third-rate and noisy when it comes to software-based deinterlacing. You should have used QTGMC, for which there is no match anywhere. Not even your TV is that good.

For another thing, deinterlacing always has a cost. Always. There is no getting around it. So you may as well use the best and cleanest deinterlacer around when it's required. That's QTGMC.

And finally, for yet another thing, 29.97 or 25fps standard def and 1920x1080 BluRay are always encoded as interlaced. Never progressive. No exceptions.

If you mean you want to make a progressive video encoded to large-GOP h.264 or 15mbps MPEG without further compliance with BluRay spec, then you're not encoding BluRay. You're just burning a BluRay optical disc as data, not as BluRay. Like DVD, the BD spec has strict requirements.
Format requirements: https://www.videohelp.com/hd#tech
encoding requirements: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533s

Nope, I definitely don't want to use it simply as a data disc. I want to have it function like a normal, commercial blu ray; menus for selecting the videos and all that.

Okay, so I missed the memo on editors not deinterlacing, that makes sense though.
Basically, I'm seeing the interlacing "comb" effect in Vdub, but I don't want that in the final product. How do I make that happen?That's my only interesting in deinterlacing at all.
You said TVs can do that on the fly, can I assume that an interlaced video, burned as SD blu ray will not have that effect when played in my blu ray player hooked up to my TV?
For previewing it before I put this on disc, what media player should I use or how should I view the video? I currently use MPC-HC but it won't play the lossless captured .avi file. (or I could be fouling something up with that)

Quote:

Originally Posted by sanlyn

Mm, well, I wouldn't make that assumption. To take up your own suggestion from earlier, a short sample of an original capture in a new thread in the restoration/repair area will demonstrate that you still have more work to do for a clean final encode.

Yeah, I guess I should have said I'm not actually making that assumption. I fully intend to head over to the r/r area and see what all work I have to do. Like I said, I'm just trying to work out which program to use for what and in what order. I only have to do it right once.

So Vdub/Avisynth for corrections/cleaning, use something else for text/title cards/authoring. (I'll look into your suggestions)

Many thanks. I guess I'll go do a bunch more captures and come back with some samples.
What's the best way of getting the samples? Just cut down the capture until I have a small enough segment to be within the filesize limit?

[sanlyn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

if the huffuy format is the one for cleaning up stuff, then I definitely want that. As I said, I just don't want to end up with 50+ videos captured only to find out (again) that the capture format is wrong for my purposes

huffyuv isn't a format. It's a lossless compression codec. Common lossless codecs used for processing are huffyuv (YUY2 and RGB), Lagarith (YUY2, YV12, RGB), and multi-matrix UT Video Suite, among others.

The term "format" includes many properties such as frame size, frame structure, and the codec used. For your purposes ("official" DVD or standard definition BluRay) the frame size is 720x480, and the frame structure is either interlaced or telecined. Essentially, telecine is played similar to interlaced. The codec for DVD is MPEG2 exclusively. The codecs used for BluRay can be MPEG2, h.264, or VC-1. The standard audio encoding for DVD/BluRay is Dolby AC3.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

I'm seeing the interlacing "comb" effect in Vdub, but I don't want that in the final product. How do I make that happen?That's my only interesting in deinterlacing at all.
You said TVs can do that on the fly, can I assume that an interlaced video, burned as SD blu ray will not have that effect when played in my blu ray player hooked up to my TV?

Standard definition BluRay uses the same interlaced frame structure used by DVD for 4:3 and 16:9 video. Take out a DVD that you own. Load it into your DVD or BluRay player. Play it into your TV. DVD's are interlaced. Let us know if you see interlaced combing in your TV when playing DVD's.

Now turn on your Tv cable box and watch it on your TV. Tune to a TV channel. It doesn't matter which channel, it can be HD live, an HD movie, an old TV show, or whatever. TV broadcasts are interlaced. Let us know if you see interlace combing on your Tv when viewing TV channels.

PC media players deinterlace and remove telecine (partial interlacing) by default. One player that doesn't deinterlace by default is VLC Player. You can set VLC's deinterlacer to "Auto" by using its Options menu. If you see excessive interlace combing when viewing on a PC media player, the fault is likely in the source video itself especially with home movie cameras. Excessive combing effects can be modified with Avisynth filters and with cleaner encoding for final output.

I don't know why MPC-HC isn't reading huffyuv. Most popular media players include huffyuv decoding. Personally I never cared for MPC-HC. I've been using Media Player Classic, MPC-BE, and VLC for years.

[sanlyn]

Sorry, I seem to have overlooked this question:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skitter

What's the best way of getting the samples? Just cut down the capture until I have a small enough segment to be within the filesize limit?

1. Open the AVi capture in VirtualDub.

2. Use the lower left navigation controls to select about 8 to 10 seconds of video and try to include motion (walking, waving arms, camera pan, or similar). 8 to 10 seconds of YUY2 video will be more than small enough to fit within the 99MB upload limit.

3. After creating the selection, click "Video..." -> then click "direct stream copy" in the drop-down menu.

4. Click "save AVI.." and give the sample a name and location.

5. Open a new thread or new post in the forum and click "manage attachments", which is an icon that appears below the reply window. If you don't see the "manage attachments" command, click on "Go advanced".

6. In the attachments window, locate your sample and upload it using that dialog window. Give the sample time to upload....uploading is slower than downloading because of virus checking.