VHS video - digital enhancement

[anonymous-user]

Hi all hope you can help.

I've converted some old vhs videos to .mpg files. The videos were in. Dry bad condition having been in garages and attics for years. Took many head cleaning tapes to get any video out of them at all.

Anyway the .mpg files are pretty good but lots of random flickers, white/black pixels coming and going etc. Not too bad but I'd expect some software could get rid of some of these issues.

I bought Microsoft movie maker to do two things. Crop the videos and to apply some noise reduction filter etc. It won't open .mpg files (grrrrr) and doesn't do any noise reduction etc type filters at all.

I am after some free utility that will give a few video improvements like enhance the washed out colours and noise reduction etc. All those I've tried as being "free" only process a few mins then want payment etc. Anyone know if any plugin for ms movie maker or a genuinely free app that will do what I want? I'm not looking for perfection just something that wrings a bit better quality out of what I've got already. Many thanks

[SCEtoAUX]

Well you can have a free trial of Adobe Premier. It has many tools but ultimately VHS is just a horrible source and if you improved things by a perceptible amount you'd be doing well.

Premier takes a bit of learning, and there's probably a free trial of Sony Vegas to be had as well. Again, a complicated bit of software but it will have the required tools.

[anonymous-user]

Thanks. Do you know if they open mpeg files as the paid for ms video editor I bought to do this job did not. Also do you know if the free trials only process say 10% of the file as most I've downloaded so far do only that. Thanks for your advice.

[FurtiveFreddy]

Have a look around this site. It has reviews and links to almost all free/shareware available for doing video conversions/editing etc. You might find something which fits the bill.

https://www.videohelp.com/

I've got 800GB of ingested VHS tapes here I'm currently working my way through so I can finally send them all to the big tape library in the sky. It's a long job but with a bit of trial and error you should be able to make the end result look OK-ish.

Even with professional tools the end result will always look soft and unnatural to a certain extent.

[dozen]

This might do what you want:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davin...

Steep learning curve, but basic version is free and has good user support online.

[Weslake-Monza]

'Freemake' software is free and will convert your MPEG files to just about anything else including MP4s which you clean up software can than cope with.

[paul.deitch]

My experience is that a vhs video timebase corrector can help a lot and the quality of digitizer is important. Generally any software is ok.

[vtecsilver]

If you want to buy a decent video player to get the best from your VHS tapes, this thread lists the best video players, and those with a Time Base Controller:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-restore/1567...
This forum also has a lot of useful information, link below is the Capturing Video section:
https://forum.videohelp.com/forums/10-Capturing/pa...

Also, a Panasonic DMR-ES10 DVD Recorder can help with cleaning up the signal in certain scenarios.

Edited by vtecsilver on Friday 18th August 19:52

[FurtiveFreddy]

The problem you have now is finding a decent VHS deck in good condition. I kept a Panasonic S-VHS deck going for years 'just in case' but it finally gave up a while back. Managed to find an identical deck on ebay but that was some years ago now.

Using a TBC is a good idea, as is using a decent AtoD converter, but if you have tapes in bad condition which haven't been stored well, it's a real uphill battle to get a clean result.

[anonymous-user]

Thanks all for your advice and links.