Damaged Footage

[Alan Okey]

Imagineer Systems’ Mokey can fix this, but it’s not cheap, and there’s a learning curve.

https://www.imagineersystems.com/products/mokey/

Check out the “Mokey at work” section for example clips.

[Joel Peregrine]

There are two options:

Recapture the footage with other cameras or decks to see if there was an incompatibility between the camera it was shot with and the camera that captured it.

Send the tape to SonyMediaServices.com . They’ve been able to completely eliminate artifacts on tapes I’ve sent them. I don’t know how they do it, but when it works its amazing. Only $40 per tape and you’re only charged if they can fix the problems.

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

Did you try to play any of these tapes in a different machine?

Some may be due to mis-tracking of the heads.

[David Bogie]

You are probably in the habit of reusing your tapes.
Time to stop doing that.

DV artifacts that are recorded with dirty heads in the camera are impossible to resolve, the data simply does not exist.
DV artifacts caused by dropouts are impossible to correct, the data simply is not there.
DV artifact caused during playback with dirt on the tape or dirty heads in the playback deck can be corrected by cleaning the tape (never tried that) or using a different deck. if you make two passes at the same material and the artifacts move in time you have a good chance of salvaging the shot since they are related to playback issues. If the artifacts remains stationary in time you must move on to deep witchcraft because the tape is damaged.

If you send your tapes to Sony, please let us know how that works out for you.

You might try researching time base correction for DV that includes dropout compensation circuitry. I have never heard of such a thing but you never know what has turned up since NAB.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Tim Herrold]

Well if you had read my post carefully, you would have noticed that we did not shoot this footage. And that is why we are searching for a post fix (if we had filmed this we would have made sure our tape heads were clean). Unfortunately, we are stuck with what we were given, but thank you for your input. I believe that this was caused during the recording process because our tape decks are well maintained and we have tried it on multiple decks. We are thinking of sending the tapes to sony to see if they can fix them, however that seems like a lot of expense for this project because we are doing it as a charity case for a minimal charge. What we are really looking for is a plug-in or software that can make these problems less evident (we have pretty much given up on a total fix).

Thank you for your suggestions thus far guys, and if anyone else has more ideas please keep them coming.

Thanks,
Tim

[Bouncing Account needs new email address]

I’m going to speculate that this may have shot on a Canon camcorder.
These artifacts look like what I have seen when I tried to work with certain Canon-recorded tapes (the XL-1 was particularly problematic.)

My best luck in such cases has been to bring in the camcorder that shot the tapes and either dub each tape to another DV tape via FW (preferable) or use the original camcorder as the source “deck” for the capture (not as good, but can work.)

[Ed Dooley]

Joel suggested to send them to Sony. If that works it’s $40 per tape, which you think is expensive because it’s a charity. You want a plug-in or software that will do it instead. How much do you think plug-ins and software cost? Chances are, Joel’s suggestion is the cheapest idea (if you only have a couple of tapes). CHV makes a plug-in that includes a drop-out remover. The guys who put the first 5 years of Saturday Night Live to DVD from 1″ tape used it a lot (it’s $95):
https://www.chv-plugins.com/cms/FxPlug/QC-Integration/QC-Integration.php?navanchor=1010038
Ed

[Tim Herrold] “We are thinking of sending the tapes to sony to see if they can fix them, however that seems like a lot of expense for this project because we are doing it as a charity case for a minimal charge. What we are really looking for is a plug-in or software that can make these problems less evident (we have pretty much given up on a total fix). “