Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub
by Kevin Monahan
on
Aug 14, 2008 at 8:08:44 pm
"Hello There Ladies and Gentlemen! Are you ready to rock?"
I'm color correcting "Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan" which is pretty awesome. It was thought that the tapes were lost, but they were recently uncovered.
The original tape was shot in 1978 on 2" Quad. The dub was made to Digibeta, which is what I'm working with.
There are visible horizontal scan lines all over the place. Any ideas on how to treat these?
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Kevin Monahan on Aug 14, 2008 at 8:39:09 pm
Cannot get the image to embed although I coded it properly. Jeremy, you can see the image? I know it is rather dark, but you cannot see those scan lines?
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Ben Insler on Aug 14, 2008 at 8:48:05 pm
I see the lines - looks kinda like brown muddy streaks. Could be a number of things. Bad transfer deck. Old dirty tape. Either way, if the lines are consistent (as in not moving at all) you might be able to design a color correction mask around those lines that allows you to darken and grade only those lines slightly to match the rest of the image. This is not a great idea, and is always better in theory, but it might get you a bit closer to a balanced shot. Otherwise, I'd say use it as a style to show the antiquity of the footage and the fortune that it survived at all. Or just don't use those shots - thankfully it's not on all the footage.
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Kevin Monahan on Aug 14, 2008 at 8:55:01 pm
The lines move, so I think I will just have to live with it. I haven't started grading yet, so I may just crush the blacks a little on that shot. I noticed that they show up on Robin's white suit when the lights are bright too. That's gonna be another challenge, I'll see what I can do.
Right now, it's one long tape and I need to add edit every cut so I can re-grade it. It's usually tedious, but this time it's kind of fun to see footage from this old concert.
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Paul Harb on Aug 15, 2008 at 4:16:51 am
I do live events all the time, what those look like to me from my experience are power interference...happens all the time in live situations....not sure how you could fix that in post....
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Jeremy Garchow on Aug 14, 2008 at 8:54:13 pm
I saw the image, but really it's like a light little blob on a bunch of dark. I leveled it up in photoshop and I definitely see a lot of analog noise, but not scan lines.
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Kevin Monahan on Aug 14, 2008 at 9:08:14 pm
You don't see those horizontal lines? They are really noticeable when you brought up the levels.
The strobing on all the highlights is proving to be a bigger issue now. It's most noticeable on the wide shots of the spot lights and medum and CU shots with the white suit.
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Jeremy Garchow on Aug 14, 2008 at 9:42:50 pm
Okay, those big huge lines look like analog noise to me. Where in the process that happened I am not sure if it's originally on the Quad tape or happened during transfer (looks like they could almost be hum bars, hard to tell without a moving image).
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by bob flood on Aug 15, 2008 at 2:46:24 pm
Hi
OH MY GOD!!! YOU LUCKY DAWG!!!
here is ,or are, my 2" cents:
First some props
i started on RCA TR600 2" VTR's. AS well as shading an RCA TKP46 camera, so i know only too well waht kinda issues you can get from tube cameras and analog vtr's
soo
Judging by the close up on Rick Neilsen (can any say Huntz Hall?)
i dont think you have a lot of banding (misadjustment of the quad heads)
One way to tell is by looking at a shot with an intense color, like red or blue, on a relatively smoothe background, like a smoky wide shot with a lot of red lighting. Banding would appear as horizontal bands of color difference, approx 1/12th the picture height (64 lines) across the colored area.
The last generation of 2" machines (TR600, AVR-2) had a lot of automatic chroma equalization circuitry, so unless whoever played back the tape never set it up, banding should not be an issue. (and i would have to think that if anyome even wanted to go near a 2" machine they would know something about how to set up)
That being said, what I am seeing in the darker frame is some sort of high frequency interference. (hum is big waves) It looks like Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) It could also be caused by the volume of the sound generating Microphonics in the picture tube (although it looks like the band was not playing during the blackout).
Budokhan was built as a state of the art film/video/audio freindly concert venue, so I wonder if the noise was generated during transfer, although RFI was almost always a camera issue.
Waht does this mean to you? see if you can look at the original 2" and find out waht you can about it (it might be as good as it gets)
then look into some denoise and cleaning plug-ins (I am sure there are some sophisticated algorithms out there that can clean it up as well, for a price of course.)
oh one more thing: post "want you to want me" on you tube when you are done. DOOOOOD!!!
(btw, a show of hands on how many saw the concert on TV the First Time? that would be me! anyone else?
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Nate Stephens on Aug 14, 2008 at 9:45:24 pm
And now you know why somebody lost this footage,,,
I would seriously ask who ever owns the tape wether they had seen the original 2 inch played back. And if the 2 inch is still alive find a a damn good 2 inch engineer ( he can play golf the next day) and lay it down again... You can spend many hours and still not be happy with the digi beta.
Are the highlights strobing or more of a flare.. The old Saticon and Plumbicon camera tubes where notorious for flaring.. Your solutions will be interesting to hear...
FCP, Mac Pro, Mac Book Pro, HPX500, HVX200, Betacam, Dvcam
Write for the Edit, Shoot for the Edit, Edit.....KISS Principle
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Kevin Monahan on Aug 14, 2008 at 9:56:59 pm
Oh, they're definitely tube cameras, there are lots of trails when the lens hits the stage lights. The strobing is much worse in the Canvas than on the video monitor.
I don't know the back story on the original 2" tapes. I'll try to find out.
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Nate Stephens on Aug 14, 2008 at 10:13:45 pm
So it seems, that maybe the strobing you see is the scan lines going thru the flare...
Or another way, would the hot spots strobe if you did not have a scan line problem...
I like your puzzle.. Is it possible to make a high contrast negative and use it as a mask to reduce the scan lines. The scan line should be timeable. and you would probably need to mask the negative mask where the important stage imagery is... but your shadows and blacks could be cleaner..
Too much fun,,, and a great story for down at the local pub..
FCP, Mac Pro, Mac Book Pro, HPX500, HVX200, Betacam, Dvcam
Write for the Edit, Shoot for the Edit, Edit.....KISS Principle
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Dave LaRonde on Aug 14, 2008 at 11:22:13 pm
Y'know, I took a look at that tight shot, and I don't see a whole lot of common quad ailments. Heck, the only place I see any really noticeable banding is in the reds, right where you'd expect to see them. At least on this particular camera, the tubes look nicely aligned, too.
Not too shabby for 30-year-old oxide tape.
By the way, there's a clip of what must be excerpts from the NHK production of that concert on YouTube, and those boys were making the smoke machines work overtime. Could that be part of what you're seeing?
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Rafael Amador on Aug 15, 2008 at 2:37:22 am
Hi Kevin,
This was call "Venetian Blinds" and is what happens with any video segmented format when the video heads are not equilibrated (optimized) before recording.
In the Quad each head read-write 16 horizontal lines. Those are the bands that Cheap Trick got on top.
In the old times the first task of any editor-video operator , after warming up the VTR, was to adjust the magnetic heads so they output the same RF level. Otherwise I never worked with a Quad, but with the 1"B we had to do the same operation.
Rafael
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Chuck Reti on Aug 15, 2008 at 3:56:02 am
[Rafael Amador]"This was call "Venetian Blinds" and is what happens with any video segmented format when the video heads are not equilibrated (optimized) before recording."
This can also be caused by incorrect adjustments during playback as well. The banding in the first, dark still looks like phase error caused by either the guide position or guide height (skew/scallop) being misadjusted enough for the electronics not being able to fully correct (this is Old Fart 2"Quad Guy stuff). Also looks like at least one channel's EQ is mismatched (can see it in the fuzzy red light on the closeup shot). If there's any possibility of having the 2" redubbed, do it, maybe at a different facility, though I'd guess it's one of those tapes that survived that last dub pass but might not last for another.
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Paul Harb on Aug 15, 2008 at 4:23:59 am
Hey Kevin,
I would put money that those are hum lines....Im a live event director who has toured for years and Ive seen that a lot and is a very common issue doing live events....usually a humbucker, moving the racks, decks(might be over power in the venue that is piped underground) or as simple as moving a powercable....I supposed if your not using the masters its possible that it happened on the dub transfer, however Im afraid that it is probably just somthing that is on the masters.....
hope you figure it out and I LOVE CHEAP TRICK!!!!! Can hardly wait.....very cool project....
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Tom Matthies on Aug 15, 2008 at 5:27:44 pm
The lines are too close together to be EQ or banding problems with the tape. Anyone consider good old microphonics getting into the camera tubes. A really loud noise (ie: rock concert)) will physically shake the tubes in a camera. I've seen it many times while shooting years ago with tube cameras and it looks just like the still of the footage. Does the video noise change in time with the music?
Just a thought
Tom
Re: Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2" Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub by Kevin Monahan on Aug 15, 2008 at 6:37:03 pm
The lines in the dark picture were much more noticeable on my computer monitor. Crushing the blacks a little eradicated the problem.
The bigger issue is the strobing/ringing in bright images, which looks much worse on the computer monitor, but on the video monitor is still very noticeable. I'm going to do my damnedest to make this picture sing. I'll look around for some repair plug-ins and keep asking around. When I get back to the studio later this afternoon, I'll try and post an example.
The really good news is that the picture is coming up bang on in the scopes. Blacks and whites are nearly dead on. I'm trying to make very subtle enhancements because it already looks pretty good. There are a few shots of Robin that are totally blown out with no color information. I brightened the shots before and after, so hopefully it is not so jarring when that happens (just a few times).
I have a request to put a "film look" on the video. I'd rather leave the video as is, but the producer made a promise to the owner of the property. I'm not sure what he meant by "film look" but in a ZZ Top concert video the company did, I noticed that the editor put a Noise Generator in Add mode above the video track. That is something I don't want to do. I'm thinking about using G Film on it, which will give more the motion of film rather than film artifacts like noise, dirt and scratches. I want to enhance the picture, not degrade it. Any other ideas?
I don't remember the concert on TV. This version was for a Japanese audience as all the credits are in Japanese. It showed in the U.S.? I did see some YouTube videos already up there so check that out.
One thing for sure, Rick Nielsen is in prime form during this concert--all of them were, really. But Rick is a maniac, constantly making faces, turning up the bill of his cap as he hammers on the lick with his other hand. Flicking picks with unique style and flirting with the girls. I have a new appreciation for the guy. He's awesome.
