Cheap Trick: Live at Budokan: 2″ Quad Scan Lines on DigiBeta Dub

[Paul Harb]

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….

Paul Harb

Paul Harb-Producer/Director
Wrong Beach Multimedia
Dual 3.2 GHz Quad/10.5.2/4GIG RAM/FCP 6.0.2/QT 7.4.1

[Bob Flood]

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?

“I like video because its so fast!”

Bob Flood
Greer & Associates, Inc.

[Tom Matthies]

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

[Kevin Monahan]

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.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro