VHS Clean-Up

Michael Erlewine

Michael Erlewine

Well-known member
I looked for the answer to this, but could not find it. I have Premier Pro 2.0.

I have input a lot of old VHS video. Some of it looks 'not good'. What built-in effects or outside plugins would you folks suggest to help make them look better?

Thanks,

Michael Erlewine
 
We haven't seen any of the footage so there's really nothing we can suggest. But the general rule is that when the source doesn't look good, there's nothing you can do to make it look better. Being VHS is another strike. Depending on your purpose for it there might be ways to creatively color correct the footage to make it look artsy, but there's no simple plug in to make it look good.
 
clarify pls, is it old home movies from them old gigundo vhs camcorder days, or are you attempting to back up your old vhs collection.

if it is your old home movies, i would simply import in and maybe drop some color correction or wt balance on some clips to see if you can improve, but believe me, it is what it is. hurry up, cause those old vhs are starting to degrade bad.

if it is your vhs collection for back up, don't do it. i aint worth the time and money. just go and purchase the new dvd or buy a vhs to dvd and burn on the fly.

best of luck.

Tin Man
 
Golden rule of video:

"Garabage in, Garbage Out"


However saying that, here is some suggestions for the Best you can do with "VHS" that I gleaned when I was a member of "VHS Restoration" group back a few years:

(1) Use a Super VHS Player, these are dirt cheap, mostly ebay, etc. They usually use four heads, and output seperated Y/C video (very important) and some inlcude TBC (Time Base Correctors)

(2) If your SVHS player does not have a built in TBC, buy a seperate one, make sure it is Full frame and not the cheaper line type TBCs.

(3) Use S-Video, to connect between the VHS to your break out box.

(4) Use a full frame video capture card, make sure you can capture uncompressed video (very important for further enhancing), Be careful, many cards claim full frame capture but only capture half resolution.

(5) Get the BEST deinterlacer money can buy, you can try Magic Bullet or DVfilm EVEN TMPGenc (very powerful program).

(6) Colour correct and use chroma and video noise reduction, in fact a complete VHS cleanup filters exist for Sony Vegas, which includes Chroma noise remover (very good!).

Once all filters are used then do a two pass compression to MPEG2 for DVD or any other format you want.

Hope that Helps

Anhar
 
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Thanks Everyone.

Unfortunately these VHS are precious family photos. I used a SuperVHS machine to convert them to MiniDV. Now I am reading those DV tapes into Premier Pro 2.0 through their Capture routine.

I will try some of the suggestions above. Some of the tapes look ok. Some are really bad.

I was looking for ideas on what to do to help improve them and I got them. I understand the problem at this point.

Also decided to get Premior Pro CS3 Upgrade today for ny HVX200. That should be fun.

Thanks,

Michael Erlewine
 
Digitizing the source using the CLEANEST route is the most important step, this is because you want to capture the best signal possible, hence the above methods.

Once it is captured at the highest quality, then you can indeed apply some filters that I have mentioned, however at the moment they exist for Sony Vegas, lucky you can use VirtualDUB a free and powerful programs that also has these VHS filters (infact they was ported from VirtualDUB filter over to Sony)

If you want I can digg out the links to those filters.

But I strongly suggest that they get hold of TBCs, and a full resolution capture card (720x576) pixel.

Anhar
 
I went and downloaded VirtualDUB. Which filters would you suggest for working with old VHS. My greatest problem is a kind of yellow that seems to be throughout some of the footage.

Thanks,

Michael
 
An important thing to think about when going from a anolog source to a digital or the other way around is black levels. If you go from digital to anolog without converting black levels it will look too dark and if you go from anolog to digital your black levels are going to look muddy.
 
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