@AAProds

Hi Al.

I am not doing that much to the audio and only using the tools in MMS as I posted earlier. No more, it doesn't need more work in Cubase. I'm just listening on my studio monitors.

@Bigangbo

I agree with Al. One copy is no copy if a file or disc corrupts or a computer system goes down. Make copies of your original files as well and whatever you decide to keep on separate external drives for archiving. Maybe even leave one set of them on a cloud service like Google drive so you have one copy off site in case of theft etc.

I don't mean YouTube. Downloading a copy back from YouTube is never as good as the copy you upload.

Ray.

@Bigangbo @AAProds

One last thought.

If you prefer the audio from one person but the visual of another person. The audio person could send 16 bit wav stem files to the the person with the preferred image conversion and let them replace the audio as long as they just insert them and don't alter the audio further. Just enable the limiter to stop any potential clipping. The audio file would be less changed than a video file would be when re-encoded.

Ray.

Thank you will upload very soon. It is ok if others can see. Was my band from long ago and I have all the songs copyrighted .

@Bigangbo

That's great.

The file I have only takes me a half hour to re-render. To keep the quality I have rendered the file at a slightly higher bit rate to prevent any compression of the image content and is effectively a constant bit rate recording. It will make the files difficult to just place back onto a DVD but should play back fine on any computer / laptop.

The problem I have had with trying to change the dynamic range of the image is not so much additional noise of blockiness in the shadows as producing halos of colour around the band members due to the strong stage lighting.

This is the best I can do without producing that halo but to me it visual lacks punch. The drum kit skin looks dull and the and ride cymbal lacks shine but there is more detail around the frets and strings of the guitar and around the face of the guitarist. This is what I was saying about swings and roundabouts. You gain one thing and lose something else. I am curious as to what @AAProds has managed to do image wise.

Ray.

@Bigangbo

Tried one more conversion.

Original in the centre, newest video enhancement try to the left, previous try to the right.

I didn't try any noise reduction in any of them, just chromatic aberration control and some contrast and luminosity control.

Ray.

@Bigangbo

This is a tough one! The lighting is playing havoc with the colours and exposure. Here's my first attempt. With Virtual Dub, I deinterlaced it to 59.94fps, adjusted the colours (too much green) and boosted the low and middle levels a bit bring out the dark shadows a bit. The problem then was slight overboosting of the lighter areas such as the man's chest.

I then brought that into Movie Edit Pro and applied a very light noise reduction with neat Video using the drum as a reference.

@CubeAce

The file I have only takes me a half hour to re-render.

Ha! My Virtual Dub export was 32fps (59.94 frame rate), then my MEP export with Neat applied is something like 5fps! Needless to say, I've only done snippets so far. 😂

@AAProds @Bigangbo

Hi Al.

I too thought about the green but it could be because of front of stage spot lighting. Would be good to know if that is the case as I think de-saturating colours too much can reduce the impact the lighting is making. I'm not seeing much in the way of grain or blocks of colour. One or two areas of blown highlights here and there but on average better than I could hope for. I'm trying one more time with VPX. Settings starting from those used in MEP but used the better curve control for contrast. I've been looking at the smaller details for guidance such as the drummers mouth on the close ups. The (green) vocalists mic and the pattern of the towel (possibly drummers shirt) draped over one of the mic stands in the background. I think if I even tried Neat video, the render may take all day and I never seem to improve footage much with it. Lack of experience I guess. I am also trying to look up the camera specs for clues.

VPX version left.

Looking for details

I am rendering as I type.

Ok from what each are sending me The original though darker seems much more stable. The ones where the brighter and colors are seen look on small screen to distort the edges of person and or instruments. If can send the rendered versions to me and I will download and take better look would help. Side by side is confusing me. To also note I need to fit on DVD so of cannot fit on one DVD we need to stop on a song so I can then make 2nd DVD for the show to be full. We lost the one guitarist in September due to diabetes stroke and another Covid death , he was the larger one on right doing most of the solos, and the very reason I wanted to make a better DVD to give out at his memorial set for a few months away. Also to give to the original guys left and the family of the deceased. I will upload all three again and share very soon. Thank You all.

@Bigangbo

If you intend to put whole thing back onto DVD then I would suggest that you just do a straight copy of the original which would mean there would be no re-encoding or quality loss to what you already have. Any alterations made to a video means it needs to be re-encoded and if we don't save the files at higher bit rates there will be more degradation to the image quality. My last conversion of the file you have given is 1.27GB Your original file is 0.99GB My first attempt gives a file size of 1.03GB. Basically the more detail retrieved to view, the larger the file size gets.

Whatever you do, the files will need to be put into a program capable of making an ISO files capable of putting the files back onto a DVD in a readable format for a DVD player and therefore will be re-encoded again.

You could of course if you have the capability, burn it to a Blu-ray disc which has much more space on it but would need a Blu-ray player to play it back.

I will PM you shortly with a Google drive folder location to download the two versions I have.

Ray.

@Bigangbo

Link has been sent to your personal Message area.

Ray.

I do not have any way of converting. It was done years ago from a service and put on the DVD I used to copy to my PC. Any suggestions? I can try a direct copy of DVD but not sure if Google drive will allow such a large file to be shared or Dropbox ?

@Bigangbo

That would be a question more for @AAProds as I don't use DVDs or Blu-ray discs. Movie Studio is capable of burning to both DVD and Blu-ray if you have a DVD player / burner, but it's a function I have never really used. Google drive gives anyone 22GB of personal space free. That can be in the form of lots of small files or one big one. When any of my friends or family want a copy of anything I do I normally just put it onto a USB stick for them or upload it to YouTube and set it to 'private, anyone with a link' and send them the link. There are so many streaming services now not everyone even has a DVD player any more. Even more use their phones for content.

I have sent you a link to the folder for the two conversions. They can be downloaded from there. Don't bother playing them from Google drive as they have been processed for viewing whereas the files for download have not. I have played both in sync at my end on multiple screens and compared both to your file. There is no distortion of proportions but some of the imperfections of the original do show when I try to increase the files dynamic range.

Maybe Als conversions can do better. Dealing with old VHS video imaging is more his thing than mine. My thing is more on the audio side and dealing with 4K digital footage.

Ray.

The DVD would be converted to VTS files with no compression added by me was what I meant. I will put it all up for all to share n edit who wish to help with this memorial movie. I can yes then just send out in USB sticks rather than DVDs which may be the better way now that you mention. I will download your files and view also n get back to u on this . Thank you again.

@Bigangbo @CubeAce

Putting this back onto a DVD after enhancing won't be a problem. Join the 3 VOBs on the timeline, edit (if not already edited) then burn. Each VOB, by definition, is 1048mb maximum and a standard DVD has a capacity of 4.7gb so there's plenty of space for extra bitrate.

The issue is whether we can enhance the video enough to warrant a re-burn.

Here's another short sample. From my point of view, the colours are the main issue. The motion is quite smooth, and Neat Video has reduced the noise a bit (I have wound back the aggressiveness).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jEo2estjnAcAB_l95F0mUvna6ppnUoCT/view?usp=sharing

@Bigangbo

It would certainly make life easier if you went down the USB route. As well as distributing via USB, you can then distribute via Google Drive and even Youtube or Vimeo.

Sorry to disapear caught Covid and had very ruff time. Please tell me what you need from me again to help me . Meantime found original VHS. Should I get something to use to get better results coverted to digital? Seem Magix has something for this ?