Brooks's Adventures in VHS preservation (Released)

As some of you have seen in my intro thread I’m experimenting with capturing my 1995 thx widescreen VHS box set.  I captured to DV using a Sony VCR through an ADS Pyro DV converter. I’ve only captured SW so far.  Predictably it doesn’t look fantastic but I was surprised to see that it looks better than I though it would.  Here’s a link to a sample of the raw capture.  (Vimeo smoothes it out a bit when streaming, at least on my computer/connection, so you can’t really see the interlacing which is quite prevalent)

https://vimeo.com/44873938 (the raw dv capture - streaming on VIMEO)

(here it is on Mediafire if you feel like downloading it and seeing it properly)

http://www.mediafire.com/?dz10ilehutidlt0 (raw sample, H264 31mb)

After thousands of man hours and millions of dollars spent, the scientists at Brooks laboratories have tweaked the footage in Premiere to downplay the interlacing, tone down the reddish tone and sharpen things a bit.  They also used neat video to remove some of the noise.

What do you think of the color/ contrast/ saturation/ etc?  I’m doing this on my laptop and I don’t really trust the screen.

https://vimeo.com/44875509 (tweaked sample streaming on VIMEO)

(here it is on Mediafire if you want to see it in better quality)

http://www.mediafire.com/?rsnp9757q181dre (tweaked sample, H264 31mb)

Let me know what you think!  😃

Brilliant work. You've tamed the reds nicely, I think I'm seeing a slightly eased off contrast improving space in stuff like the Han cutaway shots against the cantina wall, but most off all you've somehow got such a nice texture going on, it almost borders on filmic (its really hard to see any clue of tape distortion in places, like this shot, which I think shows off what youre doing with this stuff:

finesse tweaking to get that from vhs i think

I'm wondering what the Widescreen S.E. trilogy VHS tapes might look like after being finessed by you this way.........hmmmmmmmmmmm.....

:)

Nicely done Brooks...the video preview is pleasant and easy to watch.

What stops me from fully liking this version of the film anymore is I've learnt the Death Star had subtle tints of 'space blue' that faded away ending up leaving it to look too monotone - grey model on grey model

but back in 1978...

Moth3r said:

Alarm bells ringing! 

The scientists at Brooks laboratories don't seem to understand certain video basics, such as the difference between interlaced video and video telecined with 3:2 pulldown.

I had an almost identical conversation with another new member just a couple of weeks ago:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-SWOLT-ANHV8-Preservation-Project/post/580980/#TopicPost580980

Your sample plays with no audio, however the vimeo link plays with a choppiness that suggests you have not carried out an IVTC.  

Those scientists are no good, I'm firing them all as soon as I get out of class!  I'll also read that other thread when I get home this evening, I'm not at all knowledgeable about ivtc, doesn't that involve changing the fps? I'll research it.  Thanks for the comments guys, I'll respond to more tonight (I'm in a programming class right now, speaking of "recursive" :)  )

Shows you just why there are very knowledgeable people here.....and why folks like myself would have missed this in your clip.....I still believe you have good ideas that can lend themselves to a really nice capture.

Moth3r said:

Brooks said:

... (Vimeo smoothes it out a bit when streaming, at least on my computer/connection, so you can't really see the interlacing which is quite prevalent)

...

After thousands of man hours and millions of dollars spent, the scientists at Brooks laboratories have tweaked the footage in Premiere to downplay the interlacing, tone down the reddish tone and sharpen things a bit.  They also used neat video to remove some of the noise.  

Alarm bells ringing! 

The scientists at Brooks laboratories don't seem to understand certain video basics, such as the difference between interlaced video and video telecined with 3:2 pulldown.

I had an almost identical conversation with another new member just a couple of weeks ago:
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/The-SWOLT-ANHV8-Preservation-Project/post/580980/#TopicPost580980

Your sample plays with no audio, however the vimeo link plays with a choppiness that suggests you have not carried out an IVTC.  

I tried to remove the pulldown with aftereffects (using the interpret footage/remove pulldown option) and it looked worse (to my eyes) than what I had previously.  I don't know if I'm doing it wrong??  When I say interlaced I meant the horizontal lines, jaggys I think I've seen it described in some of the threads here, what is the proper terminology for that phenomenon? 

The thing I want to fix in the sample is the aspect ratio.  It's a widescreen vhs converted to DV so the black bars of the widescreen are contained inside of the DV frame. I'd like to make it look more natural, without so much space on top and bottom, but when I try to do a simple resize in premiere it looks much worse, lots of detail lost with any enlargement.  How do you guys compensate for that when you capture the old fashioned wide screen tapes or LDs? 

frank678 said:

What stops me from fully liking this version of the film anymore is I've learnt the Death Star had subtle tints of 'space blue' that faded away ending up leaving it to look too monotone - grey model on grey model

 

 

but back in 1978...

 

I agree Frank, I wish the color on the tapes were more vibrant like the actual film.  I'm not sure how I could fix that without giving everything a blue'ish tint?  Also, that would be more true to the original but not to this version of the tape.  I remember back in the 90's when they released a blue tie fighter for the action figures it was strange to me because I always thought of them as white or gray (after all that's what the toys were when I was a kid in the vintage days).

Jetrell Fo said:

I'm wondering what the Widescreen S.E. trilogy VHS tapes might look like after being finessed by you this way.........hmmmmmmmmmmm.....

:)

Nicely done Brooks...the video preview is pleasant and easy to watch.

I wish I had the tapes to see!  I have the other thx widescreen tapes of course (a box set), and I have the standard 80's pan and scans (though those were played a lot, might not look as good as the box set which has never been played).

If you're interested I can post the effects I put onto the footage.  They're all standard premiere effects except for the neat video.  Should be easy to recreate.

I appreciate all the kind and encouraging words everybody!  This is a fun thing to do!  :)  Once I figure out how to resize this thing to widescreen I'll post another sample 

Brooks said:

I agree Frank, I wish the color on the tapes were more vibrant like the actual film. I'm not sure how I could fix that without giving everything a blue'ish tint? Also, that would be more true to the original but not to this version of the tape. I remember back in the 90's when they released a blue tie fighter for the action figures it was strange to me because I always thought of them as white or gray (after all that's what the toys were when I was a kid in the vintage days).

To be fair that PS78 still must have too much of a blue and green tint overlaying it (as it seems to have it over the whole second half of the film). The Technicolor screening video clips are better at showing the subtle levels of it. I don't know how to fix unless as you say you put a tint on it which I agree is not really faithful but also undercuts that versions integrity. It is mostly grey anyway - it seems better to work with the grain than against. I was always used to these scenes being as they are in this as a kid and it didnt bother me in the least - it was the end battle who cares about historically accurate colour fidelity when you are five! Simpler days!

the tie fighters are grey in star wars at least

I wanted to check with you or anyone else in the know this version corresponds more or less with the version on the 2006 bonus dvd a.k.a. GOUT?

I don't know, as to what source these tapes were telecined from I have no idea??

Here is a version that I did the aftereffects pulldown removal on, also resized to widescreen and ran the same premiere effects.  Though larger, I don't think it looks as good as the original version.  What do you think?

https://vimeo.com/44967046

Here it is on mediafire (20mb)

http://www.mediafire.com/?kj6fxcqqhlpq5cu

does the motion in this new clip seem a tad jerky? for example in the first clip when han moves his arm down from the wall it seems much more of a fluid movement. I dont really trust my perception this could be imagination

frank678 said:

does the motion in this new clip seem a tad jerky? for example in the first clip when han moves his arm down from the wall it seems much more of a fluid movement. I dont really trust my perception this could be imagination

It's not your imagination,now that I'm looking for it I see that too.  I think the original premiere video I did looks significantly better.  I'll keep playing with fixing the widescreen but I don't think I'm going to bother with the pulldown anymore.

If you want to make these progressive without stuttering, you may want to consider doing a manual IVTC to remove the pulldown.  This can be done fairly easily with AVISynth and VirtualDub (both free software).  It's a little time consuming, but there's less chance of error.

Assuming you're starting with an AVI file, start by separating the fields in an AVISynth script.

Example:
avisource ("yourvideo.avi")
separatefields

Next, open the script in VirtualDub.  Find an early section with some obvious movement (like the flying "Star Wars" logo)...and then get ready to start counting.  The goal is, out of 10 frames (actually fields), to figure out the duplicate "junk" frames and eliminate them.  You want to change the pattern from "2,3,2,3" to "2,2,2,2".  I'd recommend starting with a frame ending in "0".

Once you have the pattern counted, use the "selectevery" function in AVISynth to specify the frames you're keeping and then "weave" them back together.

Example:
avisource ("yourvideo.avi")
separatefields
selectevery (10,0,1,3,4,5,6,8,9)
weave

Then, just scan through your video for any combing.  When it appears, the pattern has changed and you'll need to go back and figure out a new IVTC pattern for that next segment.

Here's some Empire action for'ya

https://vimeo.com/45222127

or on mediafire (18mb)

http://www.mediafire.com/file/z5y3b97b3llzl7t/esb_premiere.mp4

except for some of the jaggy/interlacey artifacts, this looks FANTASTIC for VHS. Great work, man!

Thanks!  I've never done anything with IVTC like omegamattman was talking about before,  not sure if I'll be able to tackle that (and hopefully remove that jaggy stuff) or not.

Yeah, I'm a mac guy and have never bit the bullet to buy a pc (or make a pc boot drive for my mac), so AVISynth is still out of reach.

I am curious about IVTC using After Effects but haven't attempted it at all.

Finally, IIRC correctly, there are a few spots in Star Wars (IV) where the script needs to change, but fewer in ESB. (?) 

OmegaMattman said:

If you want to make these progressive without stuttering, you may want to consider doing a manual IVTC to remove the pulldown.  This can be done fairly easily with AVISynth and VirtualDub (both free software).  It's a little time consuming, but there's less chance of error.

Assuming you're starting with an AVI file, start by separating the fields in an AVISynth script.

Example:
avisource ("yourvideo.avi")
separatefields

Next, open the script in VirtualDub.  Find an early section with some obvious movement (like the flying "Star Wars" logo)...and then get ready to start counting.  The goal is, out of 10 frames (actually fields), to figure out the duplicate "junk" frames and eliminate them.  You want to change the pattern from "2,3,2,3" to "2,2,2,2".  I'd recommend starting with a frame ending in "0".

Once you have the pattern counted, use the "selectevery" function in AVISynth to specify the frames you're keeping and then "weave" them back together.

Example:
avisource ("yourvideo.avi")
separatefields
selectevery (10,0,1,3,4,5,6,8,9)
weave

Then, just scan through your video for any combing.  When it appears, the pattern has changed and you'll need to go back and figure out a new IVTC pattern for that next segment.

I've been trying to do this, my virtualdubmod won't open my script.  It said "AVISource couldn't locate a decompressor for fourcc".  I looked it up and it seems it doesn't have a codec to read DV, so I installed the Cedocida DV codec and then I got the error "couldn't locate decompressor for format YV12."  This is feeling really complicated to me, is there no commercial program that can do this more simply?  Is the ivtc really a dramatic improvement?  :(

Install the official Xvid codec. That's what I install right after Avisynth.