Tarting up VHS footage...

I have a project on the go...it's a rock group thing (DVD compendium) and I have alot of VHS footage the content of which is super cool but it is VHS and suffers. Is there any genius tips (filters/anything) that can bring it more to life - lose some of the blizzard like distortion and make it more acceptable. You never know. I have all the natress filters. Cheers P

<<<blizzard like distortion>>>

Post a still grab somewhere. VHS has a lot of distortions but only some of them are fixable. Blizzards can be tracking errors. What kind of machine are you using for playback? Do you have to do manual tracking? That can solve a lot of bad video.

If the blizzard is only at the bottom of the picture, that's edge damage and you're pretty much dead.

You can also solve a lot of problems by not mixing S-Video with regular. If you have regular tapes, try to find a regular deck to play them. Far better playback.

Better to try to fix this before you digitize.

Even worse if the tapes are copies of other tapes. The errors were cumulative and pretty much unfixable.

All tape formats similar to this did it the same way. Split off the color and turn it to complete fuzzy garbage. Reduce the sharpness of the black and white and hope nobody notices. Then cram them all back together again on playback and pray. The cramming didn't always work out so well, either. It wasn't guaranteed that the color and black and white would end up in the same place. I'm over here but my fleshtones are over there.

I don't know any filter that can fix that.

There are pro VHS machines that have time base correctors and video processing already built-in. Those can make tapes look pretty good, but most of them only work on Standard Play tapes. They consider Extended Play to be a lost cause.

Koz

It is so ironic these days that many times we are told to make crappy video (old VHS, 8mm, cheap satellite feeds, dub of dubs) look better, and take nicely shot video and "effect" it so it looks like old TV.

To answer the question, why not go with the flow, and effect the VHS video, make a feature of the bad quality. Every so often, mix in some corrected footage. Since it's a rock music project, you should be able to get away with just about anything.

IMHO

Cameron Young

That reminds me of a story.

One of the VPs at my old company came into the machine room while was making dubs of a spot that was kinda "grunge-y", as was the style back in the early days of the '90's when I was but a wee assistant.

He laughed, and said, "Ya know, back in my day, we used to get paid to make video NOT look like that!". He shook his head and moved along, still chortling a little under his breath.

deb

One time I had some footage that was called "un-airable", so it couldn't be used in the story. Flash forward 14 years or so, and that same company will regularly pay tens of thousands for paparazzi video that looks like it came out of a cell phone.

How things change.

Imagine how that footage is going to look in HD, just scrumptuous!

Cameron Young

koz: "It wasn't guaranteed that the color and black and white would end up in the same place. I'm over here but my fleshtones are over there.
I don't know any filter that can fix that. "

and why is that?
i would imagine a simple colour off-set filter would be a useful thing.

there is this:
[www.riverrockstudios.com]

River Rock Studios "Cheap Lens" filter.
it has a red and a blue offset.

of course if you made the VHS footage black & white, that would side-step the problem.
as would letter-boxing get around any tearing at the bottom of the frame.


nick

<<<River Rock Studios "Cheap Lens" filter.
it has a red and a blue offset. >>>

It would be handy, but that's not what that is. That appears to be a filter that corrects for various lens distortions, but doesn't affect the middle of the picture.

I'm talking about all the colors in the frame look like spray paint and offset two lines down and 1/8 inch to the right.

The joke is that many-copied taped porn might as well be in black and white because you can't tell whose flesh tones belong to whom. "I think the orange blob next to the philodendron used to be his arm color. No, wait".

Koz

Cheers..I transfered the VHS to DV CAM using a PD 170..the footage is rare stuff and people will still like it.

But is the image basically the same? If you have a yucky edge and it's soft anyway, why not blow it up/repo it a wee bit to remove the unwanted area?

If it's great content, they will be glad to see it regardless, but it's still good to do what one can...

M A R L A


Current System:

FCP 7.0.3 on an MBP 17" from early 2011, running OS 10.8.3

Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB
Software OS X 10.8.3 (12D78)

"I'm talking about all the colors in the frame look like spray paint and offset two lines down and 1/8 inch to the right. "

like this:
[www.nattress.com]

of course Mr Nattress had the solution



nick