Re edit old analogue projects - can I get better results ?

RobertA101

Newbie Location: Gosford. NSW Central Coast Joined: Jan 01, 2013 20:16 Messages: 37 Offline

Solved by

Apr 11, 2013 20:09

I have some old videos taken on VHS-C tapes.
They were captured as AVI files, authored to Video CD as mpeg 1 I believe.
The quality was satisfactory for the CRT screens of the day.
However they look pretty lousy on current generation large LCD TVs.
Have extracted the CD files and re authored as mpeg2 on DVD - still look pretty awful.
Will I get better results if I go to the trouble of re capturing as AVI , re edit, and author directly to mpeg2 ?
The other question is , I guess, will it be worth the effort ?

RobertA101
Win10
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
mobo Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5
RAM 16
Geoforce GTX 550 Ti
PowerDirector17 Ultra 17.0.3005.0

Rocket-Scientist

Senior Member Location: HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA Joined: Apr 23, 2010 10:14 Messages: 288 Offline

Apr 11, 2013 21:04

once you rendered to videoCD (mpeg 1), there is not much you can do to improve quality. Re-capture with best vhs deck you can, preferably with a JVC (with time-base corrector built in) or use a ADVC 300 or an external TBC unit. even though vhs is low res, capture in high as res as possible. Some of the newer softwares can interpolate and smooth the image to look a lot better.

PD11 stabilizer and enhance tools have really improved. I used to use virtualdub to smooth and enhance, now can do that directly in PD11. I still use virtualdub to correct the VHS color problems.

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RobertA101

Newbie Location: Gosford. NSW Central Coast Joined: Jan 01, 2013 20:16 Messages: 37 Offline

Apr 15, 2013 18:30

Thanks Rocket-Scientist for your reply.
Here is an update of what I have done so far, may be useful for others.
Bought el cheapo Fission usb converter, PD does not recognise it, but its own program does, captured the vhs-c files as mpg2 (does not provide any other options).
Did some test clips on PD11, results are much improved and should be good enough considering their vintage
( how spoilt we are now with HD quality).
Using the stabiliser and enhancement tools at default settings was not successful,resulted in wavering pixels.
Will experiment further just tarting up the colour a bit,
the stabiliser and enhancement tools may still be useful at lower settings.

RobertA101
Win10
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
mobo Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5
RAM 16
Geoforce GTX 550 Ti
PowerDirector17 Ultra 17.0.3005.0