Need color repair advice

[awolfoutwest69]

I have been using Virtualdub/AviSynth for several years to capture and edit VHS video. My current project is confounding me, as I face video artifacts that I can't eliminate/minimize. This capture is concert footage taken from the master VHS, and is exhibiting ghosting to the left of the main image and color bleeding.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/awow69/doom9/zero0.png

I have used chromashift with great success in the past, but it seems that the color on this VHS tape has bled in both left and right and has defied my attempts to shift it back to a more natural-looking position. I can tame the bleeding somewhat by reducing the color saturation via Tweak (my best attempt was .95sat), but I wonder if that's the most effective solution.

Additionally, there is a green cast to the upper portion of the frame that I suspect is a result of stage lighting just outside the frame. While likely a part of the original scene, I'm wondering if there is an effective technique for minimizing the effect of this lighting on the frame. I am struggling with masking using color values and haven't made any real progress. Any help would be very much welcome and appreciated.

Here is a 50 frame clip (http://www.mediafire.com/?1zvu9x5bfdy) (15MB) of the raw AVI capture (HuffYUV compressed)

:thanks:

[rfmmars]

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/5670/colorfit0wf4.th.jpg (http://img171.imageshack.us/my.php?image=colorfit0wf4.jpg)

I don't believe its a color fit problem but what you see is overdone "Apeture Correction" done by the VCR. This is quite common in the HQ series of recorders but could also be at the recording site. See yellow circle

Also I see in the green circle a stage lighting condition that looks like color bleed, this also can be seen in the yellow green where the face color has a greenish tinge.

You could try deringing of just the black & white signal and add back the color signal.

Is the original that purple or is it just stage lighting?

Richard

[awolfoutwest69]

Thanks, Richard. I'm reading up on aperture correction, and seeing some people use that term interchangeably with "edge enhancement" and sharpness. I've got some reading to do in order to understand the issue.

In the meantime, I dug up more info on this recording. Apparently, it was done on March 2, 1987 using a Panasonic PK-957 video camera. My capture chain is: Panasonic PV-9450 hi-fi VHS vcr > composite > AVT8710 tbc (proc amp settings at default) > composite > ATI TV Wonder 650 (all filtering options set to 0). This Panasonic vcr provided better detail with this source tape than my JVC SR-V10U S-VHS deck. When I plug the VCR directly into my NTSC monitor, I see the same artifacts, leading me to conclude that they are not being introduced by tbc or capture card.

I agree that the artifact in the green circle on your marked still looks like color bleed, but I was surprised to encounter that type of distortion on the master tape. Does that sort of thing happen to an aging VHS, or maybe as a result of a poorly calibrated video camera? I believe that the intense pink coloration is the result of stage lighting. I did have the notion that what appears to me to be color bleed could conceivably be a sort of "halo" surrounding the subject as a result of stage lighting.

I will certainly try deringing of the luma signal and report back. Thanks very much for your input!

[rfmmars]

Yes your JVC model is a poor quality model all though I only use JVC. I have a JVC BR-611 broadcast deck and the less expensive but good BR-9900 S-Video series.

Just like anything, people do good & bad quality work so it just may be a poor made master.

I used "fdump's" Filter-de where you can move each color by itsself in X,Y directions, and thats where I saw the problem.

Richard