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Old 25th July 2003, 20:03   #1  |  Link
simdavid
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Any tips to restore a 4 year old video cassette tape

Hi to all,

Is that any methods that the experts of this forum used to restore abit of the conditions of the video cassette tapes before doing a capture. I have a 4 year old tape that hasn't been taken properly and I wish to capture it before it turn worst. My humble question is any knowledge to share on how to restore.

Second thing is that the tape that I want to capture has this problems.

1. Pictures are like pulling to the left now and then.
2. The picture appear stacked like stairs. Imagine the picture of a face where the contour breaks on the eye level. The forehead above the eye stack to the left and below eye to mouth level stack to right. Then again from the mouth level to chin, it stack to left. making the picture look staggered.

3. Colours changes from normal to then yellow green and back to normal again quite often.

I done capturing for some tapes before that is bad to...But this is real bad for me.

Any Avisynth or virtualdub filters to retify such situation.

Thanks for any advice render
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Last edited by simdavid; 25th July 2003 at 20:24.
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Old 25th July 2003, 23:07   #2  |  Link
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short answer: no

long answer: what you describe is degradation of the tape itself which varies between frames. You can try a hardware TBC but don't expect anything to help.

sorry
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Old 25th July 2003, 23:10   #3  |  Link
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well, you could do a lot to improve the quality
but youŽd have to edit the video frame-per-frame
so the effort isnŽt worth it, i guess
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Old 25th July 2003, 23:31   #4  |  Link
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Where abouts in the world are you?

There is quite a good device available in the UK you may find helpful. It's by a company called GTH and called 'The ACE Standards converter'.

http://www.standardsconverter.co.uk/index.shtml

It has quite a few tricks up its sleeve that may help you!

Cheers
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Last edited by SeeMoreDigital; 25th July 2003 at 23:43.
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Old 25th July 2003, 23:35   #5  |  Link
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Do you have one of these? Where is there sample before/after video of the type this guy describes?

If this thing works, it's worth the money. All the screenshots show is modification, not restoration. The chroma shift might be helpful but it sure looks like everything could be done with scripts except TBC. There's a somewhat technical thread on neuron2's site that dealt with mis-aligned lines. Bottom line, you really need to access the information from the tape, not what comes out of the box, to fix truly bad stuff.

Last edited by FredThompson; 25th July 2003 at 23:49.
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Old 26th July 2003, 00:01   #6  |  Link
SeeMoreDigital
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Hi Fred,

I was able to play about with one of these devices for a few hours a couple of years ago. And I have to admit I was very impressed.

I ran an S-VHS video tape recording thru it. The image was suffering with very poor sync and was divided horizontally. It almost looked like two images. The bottom part looked ok but the top half was all over the place.

This little device totally rebuilt the sync field and by using the RGB colour corrector I was able to create a watchable image.

By all accounts todays version is much improved.

It's a shame, but like with most things after the device had gone I thought of quite a few things I would have liked to have tested it with.

Maybe I should have bought one but at the time I was looking for something with RGB input, which this unit does not have. However it does output RGB from both a composite and S-VHS source.

You never know I might give them a call on Monday morning!
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Old 26th July 2003, 09:03   #7  |  Link
John2002
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Re: Any tips to restore a 4 year old video cassette tape

Quote:
Originally posted by simdavid
Hi to all,

Is that any methods that the experts of this forum used to restore abit of the conditions of the video cassette tapes before doing a capture. I have a 4 year old tape that hasn't been taken properly and I wish to capture it before it turn worst. My humble question is any knowledge to share on how to restore.

Second thing is that the tape that I want to capture has this problems.

1. Pictures are like pulling to the left now and then.
2. The picture appear stacked like stairs. Imagine the picture of a face where the contour breaks on the eye level. The forehead above the eye stack to the left and below eye to mouth level stack to right. Then again from the mouth level to chin, it stack to left. making the picture look staggered.

3. Colours changes from normal to then yellow green and back to normal again quite often.

I done capturing for some tapes before that is bad to...But this is real bad for me.

Any Avisynth or virtualdub filters to retify such situation.

Thanks for any advice render
I would try different VCRs if you can borrow some. One VCR might play a marginal tape better than another.
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Old 26th July 2003, 16:59   #8  |  Link
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Now, that's a good point John.

Providing you're a keen fiddler and know a bit about the internals of a VCR. You could remove the cover off you VCR (or borrow a friends VCR - only kidding!). Bung in the tape. Hit the play button and then with 'an insulated screwdriver' play about with the video head alignment screw(s).

By doing this you can quite often get a bit 'tape to head contact' and in doing so, increase the picture stability out of the tape. Much more so than allowing the electronics of the VCR to do it itself.

Sometimes it can also be a good idea to remove the tape from its existing housing and transfer it to a new housing.

Even little tricks like winding and rewinding the tape several times, can often help.
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Last edited by SeeMoreDigital; 26th July 2003 at 17:01.
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Old 26th July 2003, 17:36   #9  |  Link
simdavid
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Very interesting tricks

What more can I do?

Seemoredigital,

I'm in South Africa, so no means to access to that machine 'The ACE Standards converter'. Thanks for your tip
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Old 26th July 2003, 19:42   #10  |  Link
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Hi simdavid

Well at least you live in a PAL system country. Which makes it a bit easier to balance the colours correctly.

Can you provide a bit more information about the tape please.

Is it pre recorded or one you have made?
Are you sure it's VHS and not S-VHS (as I had a customer who struggled for months trying to play an S-VHS tape on a non S-VHS VCR!)?

Are you sure the tape is PAL and not SECAM or NTSC?

Sorry to ask what may be obvious questions. But such things can catch the best of us out sometimes!

Cheers
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Old 26th July 2003, 20:28   #11  |  Link
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Hi SeeMoreDigital,

Yes with pleasure, the tape is pre recorded and is NTSC. My VCR is multi system and my capture card has no problem capturing it. I did 9 tape of NTSC material just last week.

I'm sure is not Secam or PAL. To describe it even further, this tape is actually a series of episodes. I tested tape 2 and 3 with minimum problems like I describe in my problems. Sadly, this is tape 1 , can't have a first lousy quality episode to play down the rest of the series. It's not S-VHS either which I would love to have ( Need S-VHS VCR as well) .

If I missd out anything info, please ask me.

Thanks for your effort to this problem
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Old 27th July 2003, 14:57   #12  |  Link
SeeMoreDigital
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Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately I don't think there's anything more I can do.

However, if you are able to say what pre recorded tape you are having trouble with, I might be able to see if it's available in the UK. I have a cousin in South Africa who visits the UK quite often maybe something can be worked out!
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Old 1st August 2003, 19:13   #13  |  Link
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Hi SeemoreDigital,

Sorry for the the reply, I was away for a week.

Thanks for your offer , I get better quality by using another VHS machine. It wasn't too much but at least it wasn't so bad either to capture. Can't be too fussy about it!

Thanks for your warm hearted offer sincerely.

See you in the forum
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Old 4th August 2003, 19:40   #14  |  Link
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I have watched the developing discussion with interest! First of all I agree that a TBC is the best solution to most capture problems from old tapes. Secondly I would like to point out that the ACE Converter is sold worldwide so available in South Africa like anywhere else and we have sold several there with units sent now to well over 40 countries. So, although the ACE is made in the UK it is available to anyone.

The TBC part is not all you will find useful of course, as those wishing to get the best from old tapes will also find the colour shift and other corrections invaluable. Colour shift correction is vital to minimise colour bleed and very difficult to do on a PC, usually requiring a frame by frame correction in a graphics editor! We have certainly found that a large proportion of recent sales have been for the sole purpose of transferring tapes to PC or DVD and we have had some excellent feedback.

If anyone would like to discuss their own issues in more detail please feel free to email me at GTH Electronics. I am always happy to help whether it results in a sale or not and have a lot of accumulated experience from customers feedback. I will also keep an eye on further discussion here.

Regards, Gordon
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Old 4th August 2003, 21:07   #15  |  Link
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Gordon,

I'm so glad to see you here. I bet the five day wait was a bit of a pain!

I do hope you will be able to find the time to take part every now and again on the forum.

You have a lot of expertise to offer us all here.

Thanks for stopping by. And welcome to the forum!


PS. I nearly forgot. If you're ready, willing and able - some guys here might require some help: -

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39685

Cheers
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Old 4th August 2003, 22:59   #16  |  Link
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@Gordon,

Would you please elaborate on how this device would help with saturated red and blue color bleed on NTSC source? At some point, the bleed itself would actually beceom part of the stored signal, not just an artifact.
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Old 5th August 2003, 10:21   #17  |  Link
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Fred,

Thanks for asking! The ACE has both horizontal and vertical colour shift. Colour bleed is the result of two factors. First, colour definition on tape copies gets lower so the colour gets more blurred and colour bleeds around the edges of strongly coloured objects. This is not too bad if the colour is in the correct place as the eye is very tolerant of low definition colour - colour Tv has used this for as long as it has existed! However the second problem on copies is that colour is often shifted sideways and vertically. This the eye does not accept and if the colour is misplaced the eye refuses to accept the higher definition black and whiet image as setting the overall definition - instead it sees the poor colour definition as it is. Correcting this misalignment lets the eye use the sharpness of the black and white image again and makes the whole look better. You can see an example at http://www.gthelectronics.com/examples.htm. In this way the ACE can improve colour bleed even if it looks embedded in the video.

Regards, Gordon
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