How To Capture, Denoise, and Restore VHS Tapes

This video will show you how to record/capture/digitize your old home family VHS tapes or any VHS tapes onto your computer in HD. It will also walk you through using software to denoise and restore the captured video (it is best to still keep the original unaltered video as a backup. What looks good now might look bad in the future as technology improves).

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Intro- 0:00
Hardware Suggestions- 0:34
Capture and OBS Settings- 2:56
The Process- 6:45

Links:

[momzilla]

Hi there Ben,
I'm following every step to set up OBS and I am finding (probably due to a different Capture Card ) is that I am not being offered CPQ. Unfortunately I will be using CRF which will create a larger file.
Do I need to install some kind of external Laptop hardware for that kind of memory need?

Anyway, I thought I might, with your permission of course, post my quick research notes on how to accommodate this very important CRF = Constant Rate Factor for the highest quality?
I do hope you don't mind some great discussion on your Chanel?


This is just what I found online to tell me how to adjust the CRF.

"CRF (Constant Rate Factor)

x264 only

Similar to how CQP gives you a range of 0 to 30, with the lower numbers being better quality, CRF ranges from 0 to 51, with around 17 to 24 being considered ‘good quality’. Approximately every 6 points will double your file size, and as you can imagine, subtracting 6 will halve it."

[neondeluxe]

I really appreciate that you went through this ENTIRE process without mentioning the BIG ASS watermark that this demo adds to your project.

[SilentOnion]

you can also fix the aspect ratio straight in obs by adding the "scaling/aspect ratio" filter to the capturecard and setting it to 4:3 and then losslessly cut the beginning and end with lossless cut

[DoubleMonoLR]

There are plenty of used VHS to DVD recorders that are very good, at least in my country those are far more common than the cheap variety.
Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Sony, and perhaps Samsung make good ones, for a start. These almost always also correct a lot of the video signal timing issues, and reduce noise via a high quality '3d' comb filter. The VHS decks in them probably aren't the best, but they're certainly not bad(and most or all are 'VHS HQ' models which can squeeze out a little more quality, depending on the recording), and most will likely have had far less use than older standalone VHS machines. I think any of these are likely to give an image at least of similar quality to the method above, while being very simple and not requiring a computer to be connected for hours.
They are steadily increasing in value, because they're a good, easy option. It won't give you the absolute best image(neither will the method above), but it's more than good enough for most.
Upscaling before capture may not be a good idea, relying on cheap converters to deinterlace and scale the image seems unlikely to give the best image. The video is then being scaled again anyway(to get back to the correct aspect ratio) afterwards. As the video is being re-encoded again(when de-noising etc) afterwards, upscaling & de-interlacing could've been done at this stage(at higher quality) anyway.
The 'downscale filter' option in OBS won't do anything, the chosen input & output resolutions are the same - there is no scaling.

[italovalerio]

The best option is use a DV cam fireware, a S-VHS VCR, S-video cable to DV cam, Record DV 4.3 interlace format.
The AVI is a strong file to make any post production without loss.

[this_time_imperfect]

I love Neat Video, I use it every day on my modem day 4K footage. But, I actually like to leave in the noise and grain on VHS footage. I guess it’s all a matter of taste.

[imprd]

I have the following setup:
1. Panasonic NV-HS1000/Loewe OC3800H
2. Mini Av2Hdmi upscaler look similar to your one
3. Avermedia EzRecorder 300 Standalone Capture box.

I have a tape that play well with two major dropouts (tape damaged by other vcr) if I connect the vcr to tv using cvbs cables.

If i use the upscaler there are more dropouts sometimes it display a blue screen then the image came back.

Do you have an idea how to solve it ? I want to capture complete image including the dropouts but not to replace dropouts with blue screen.

A workaround is to edit the captured video with premiere pro apply scene detection then delete all the blue screens generated by the upscaler. With this both video and sound are choppy.

[JamesonTylerBynum]

I recently got a Panasonic DMP-BD70v to capture some old VHS tapes directly from the HDMI output. Figured it’d be the best way to get as much of an HD capture from the source as possible.

[Helderhugo]

You could do the aspect ratio at the beginning to 4:3 - 1440x1080

[wbdA]

Thanks that was a really good video. 👍

[brapcast]

Amazing job! Thorough without being wordy!

[bargainhunter]

What about if its done been converted to DVD but is grainy and kinda pixilated. Can it be restored if its on dvd ?

[JamJells]

One of the most direct, and clear to understand videos on this subject. Thank you for this effort. Very helpful.

[corruptedsmurf]

If you plan to Upscale your video with an A.I. after it is recorded, is it better to rip the VHS in it's native 480p resolution and skip the upscaler device?

[eendagepic]

Your footage seem overal nice and clear, but do you have advice on S-VHS footage that is full of white flickering scratches? Is there some kind of software that can digitally clean up the white tape scratches? Adjusting the tracking and cleaning the video heads did not help to improve the output footage :( So I'm hoping a software solution might help; something like neatvideo but I'm not sure if neatvideo can remove the kind of white flickering scratches we're talking about.

[zeldaguy]

Hey Ben, just a quick question, any particular reason you prefer the other video recorder over the El Gato default one?

[HonestFred]

I would recommend purchasing a dvd vhs combo that has an hdmi output. Then using your capture device so your not losing any quality with rca analog.

[kendoglarson]

Often on playback a video tape will display some weird squiggly lines running across the entire screen at the bottom of the screen about a centimater high. How do you get rid of those? Can you crop out that on the video capture with software? Do you need a new vcr? Or do you need image stabilizer?

[michaelrussell]

Hi Ben - Why didn't you just use a composite/S-Video capture device connected via USB?

[dwain]

I've got a Canopus AVDC converter unit that can feed VHS directly thru the Canopus and thru firewire into my Adobe Premier Pro capture program and then after loading and building onto timeline in adobe premier pro go out thru the adobe Media encoder 2023 and trying to decide the best format for the project to be digitized for transfer to a thumbdrive the results aren't what I would consider 'good' .