Repairing digital blocks/dropouts?

Derkoi

Derkoi

Well-known member
I have some movies backed up onto minidv tape and i'm getting some blocks of digital dropouts in a few places.

Is there any plugins/software that can repair those? I'm sure i read somewhere that there was but i can't find it now.

Here's a still from what i mean as i've not seen any other shots of this problem:

Dropout.jpg


Any ideas?
 
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cloning a spot aside of the drop out is your only option if it's actually recorded to tape.
You'll find half the time it was upon playback and isn't there at all if you rewind and recapture that spot.
 
Thanks for the reply, there's too many to clone, and they don't seem to go away. lol

Added a pic to show you what i mean.
 
If you're in pinch, I'd make them look like water spots on the lens in after effects or motion. If you know how to roto, I'd also suggest that.
 
Derkoi said:
I have some movies backed up onto minidv tape and i'm getting some blocks of digital dropouts in a few places.

Is there any plugins/software that can repair those? I'm sure i read somewhere that there was but i can't find it now.

Here's a still from what i mean as i've not seen any other shots of this problem:

Dropout.jpg


Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Tape is crap... long live solid state memory devices...

That being said, have you had the device you are using to read the tapes cleaned, like in taking it into the shop and a 'deep' cleaning recently?

There may be software out there that could do some repair, but if the data is lost on the tape, either badly written, or from damaged tape, you are pretty much stuck.

If the macro blocks 'move around', that is change from one reading to another, then it could be dirty heads, and tape transport causing the problem. Otherwise, damaged or badly written tape, its pretty much a done deal.

All of the tape work that I do goes like this... Put new tape in camera, shoot. If needed, put more new tape in camera, shoot. Once shooting stops, as soon as possible transfer footage to computer system, read shot tape once. Put shot tape in 'archives', with no expectation of being able to read it ever again... but just in case.

Save all original transfers on big hard drive. Do project, save all material for project on big disk drive. End of project, retire big disk drive.

Ok, for some of my own 'work', where I may not be asked at some distant time to recover a project, I'll not retire the big disk drive just yet... that does get expensive, and a price for a project, has some element of 'archiving' costs built in.

The point is, I don't trust tape at all. Sure I've had disk drives fail, but even with 1/2 Mag tape, you know the wheels twirling in 60-80's vintage movies showing 'big computer systems'... even that large of a surface area, and even with the 'low' density for that tape, there were drop outs, and one had to manually clean the heads and capstans frequently to make sure everything worked right... and even then...

In the case of 'mini' tapes, like 8mm and 4mm, the tape stretches, has less surface area, and much, much higher densities... so the potential for loss is greater...
 
Thanks for the replies.

They are there no matter what device i play the tape on, i guess the tapes fubar.

I'm gonna have to do a crafty re edit of the film in order to make it watchable. lol
 
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