Which software is preferred?

[jriker1]

I am bringing in some videos from VHS into the PC using a Canopus ADVC110. I am looking at a plugin that works with the following programs for clean-up. Any recommendations which is best?

After Effects
Premiere
VirtualDub
Sony Vegas
Pinnacle Studio

I believe VirtualDub does not support DV input but could be wrong. Just errors all over the place.

I know the plug-in said it supports 16bit/channel 48-bit RGB video with After Effects and Premiere, and only 8bit/channel 24-bit RGB with the rest, but not sure what would use 48-bit or 24-bit RGB or if that difference even matters.

Any comments?

Thanks.

JR

[communist]

I'm not sure I got it right. You know of a plugin that will work in the five mentioned programs and now you'd like to know which to pick?

For VHS clean-up I think AviSynth + VirtualDub will give *best* results. Dunno what this plugin will do better than the free offerings here ;)
VirtualDub will accept DV avi files, directly or via AviSynth (providing a VfW DV codec is installed, like Cedocida or PanasonicDV). VirtualDub will not capture DV over 1394 like PremierePro or other such editing suites.

There is little point in trying to fix VHS that was capped as DV at more than 8 bpc. AfterEffects provides 8/16/32 bpc because its also a compositing app where this can become a requirement in specific scenarios.

Last but not least if all you need or want to do is clean up those captures I'd not look much into those NLE packages. I wouldn't recommend Premiere for such a task at all - its an 'OK' NLE but thats about it. And AfterEffects would be kinda overkill.

[jriker1]

Thanks for the reply. Not sure if the plug-in is better than the AVISynth cleanup ones here, but betting it is. Forgot to mention in my original message that I'm looking at NeatVideo and the cleanup is exceptional from what I can see.

Question though. Does each application have it's own DV Codec and the results I get will be different, or does the hardware Canopus ADVC110 have the DV codec on it's chip? I want to get the best capture from the start so am not sure if the program used to capture the Firewire 1394 stream from the Canopus determines that, or if they are all the same for capture and the Canopus controls the quality.

JR

[communist]

The device has its own codec in form of a hardware encoder. 'Capturing' over 1394 is actually just a copy&paste thing. The captured file is the same as on a DV tape or in your case the data is the same as it was encoded by the ADVC110. For the quality it doesnt matter what capture software you use.

From the mentioned programs at least PremierePro brings in its own DV codec, may be true for the other NLE's aswell. AfterEffects IIRC uses the codec provided by the system (MS DV if nothing was installed additionally). VirtualDub has its own DV decoder but if you open DV via Avisynth then Avisynth will use an installed VfW DV codec.

They all will decode the picture slightly different and may apply sharpening on the picture or smoothing on the chroma. Then there is also the issue on how they handle the luma range when dealing with RGB in/output. In this regard Cedocida will allow you to configure it so you know exactly what the codec is doing.