Anything I can do to help out an old VHS recording?
by Dave Petteruto (dpetto)
on
Feb 23, 2008 at 5:59:19 pm
Hello Vegas Nation,
I was given an old (1990) VHS tape of a high school basketball teams hilights. The school wants to use parts of it for a commemeration type of thing, but the tape is not without issues! I have captured it onto the computer using two different VCR's (an old one and a newer one) and it pretty much comes out the same. I'm getting a picture, but there are wavy lines in the middle of the screen, it's veiwable but very distracting. It doesn't seem to be a tracking issue because I tried adjusting the tracking and it didn't help. Does anyone have any suggestions of anything I can do in Vegas (7) or some other way to make this issue go away or at least look a little more pleasing to the eye?
Re: Anything I can do to help out an old VHS recording? by Rick Mac on Feb 23, 2008 at 8:04:06 pm
[Dave Petteruto]"I'm getting a picture, but there are wavy lines in the middle of the screen,"
Sounds like you need need to run the output of your
VHS Machine thru a (TBC) Time Base Corrector.
You might check with a local TV station to see
if they can can help you out.
Re: Anything I can do to help out an old VHS recording? by Dave Petteruto on Feb 24, 2008 at 3:30:08 am
Hi Rick, yes the sample pic does have similarities to what I am seeing. The only difference seems to be that what I'm seeing is only part of the image, where the sample has lines over the whole image.
Thanks for the info, I am going to check if maybe the local cable studio can help me out. I'd be interested in purchasing one of the TBC's if I was only sure that that is the problem. Do the TBC's boost the signal coming out of the VCR?
Re: Anything I can do to help out an old VHS recording? by Rick Mac on Feb 24, 2008 at 6:00:32 am
[Dave Petteruto]"Do the TBC's boost the signal coming out of the VCR?"
No. They correct errors.
The site that had the example pictures
has info that will explain exactly
what a time base corrector does.
In very general terms, a video signal is very
complex and small errors can have a huge
effect on your picture. TBC's were developed to
fix these errors.
In TV Production all of our video tape
machines have TBC's on them.
Unfortunatly consumer VHS does not.
[Dave Petteruto]"I am going to check if maybe the local cable studio can help me out."
Good idea since a TBC won't fix every type of
problem.
[Dave Petteruto]"I'd be interested in purchasing one of the TBC's"
If you do a lot of this type of thing it would be good
to have one, they can really clean up VHS pictures.
If you are charging folks for your services you
should have one.
Regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network - Directv 377
Re: Anything I can do to help out an old VHS recording? by Dave Petteruto on Feb 24, 2008 at 6:53:12 pm
Hi Rick, here is a link to a short clip of the capture, maybe you can define the issue a little more by looking at it yourself.
http://blip.tv/file/691230 I know the picture is really horrible, but if I could just get rid of the wavy lines the school would be thrilled.
Re: Anything I can do to help out an old VHS recording? by Rick Mac on Feb 24, 2008 at 8:26:42 pm
[Dave Petteruto]"maybe you can define the issue a little more by looking at it yourself."
It's really hard to tell.
Once again I would see if you can
have a local station play it through a TBC
for you. Even if they cannot transfer it,
you will be able to tell if a TBC helps the situation.
regards, Rick.
Rick Mac
Director of Audio Production
TCT Network - Directv 377
Re: Anything I can do to help out an old VHS recording? by Ron Shook on Feb 24, 2008 at 9:55:56 pm
Dave,
[Dave Petteruto]"short clip of the capture"
Yeah, that's time base error caused by the tape expanding or contracting in waves over time. Here's a tip that might, if not solve, ameliorate the problem. AFIK, all dual (VHS & DVD) DVD recorders have TBC circuitry between the VHS and DVD parts of the recorder. There is also circuitry to ease the chroma noise from VHS tapes. It's just a single line TBC and to really correct this may take a full frame TBC, but it might help more than you suspect. Simply play the tape in this device and take S-video and audio outputs from it to your NLE. No need to burn a DVD unless you want to supply it back to the client. Just go straight into the NLE while playing back the VHS tape, don't burn a DVD and use that to feed your NLE. You're just using the correction circuitry in the VHS/DVD recorder. If you don't have one, someone you know may, or you can probably find one cheap. Panasonic or Sony seem the best but that probably isn't critical.
Good Luck,
Ron Shook
Shoulder-High Eye Productions
CreativeCOW Forum Host for Discreet edit*
Re: Anything I can do to help out an old VHS recording? by Dave Petteruto on Feb 25, 2008 at 4:51:34 am
Ron, thanks for the info. I have a friend who works where there is equipment with a TBC. I'm hoping he can have his guys check into this for me. I'll try to post the outcome.
