-
Importing video stills from a bad VHS tape frame by frame to recover the video footage
I have a bad VHS tape that will not playback on any VHS VCR I have tried (I have tried seven different ones so far). I did notice that when I paused the tape the image was there it just wasn’t perfectly clear. But it is usable if I can capture one frame at a time.
The VHS is the original tape that was used in their malfunctioning camcorder in 2001. The footage is their only copy of taking their baby home from the hospital, first Christmas, first steps and other footage that is important to recover. Their original camcorder is not available.
My thought is to capture each frame one by one as a JPEG then create a video clip in PrPro. I was able to record the audio from the VHS tape, so I can sync them together later.
The question is how do I capture video stills into Premiere from the capture window (used to be a camera icon back in the day to capture stills). I estimate 80,000 to 120,000 stills will need to captured.
Premiere may not even be the best option but it is what I am using, primarily. I do have a Final Cut Classic (7.0) system as well.
In the ideal world, I would find a way to use deck control to advance each frame and capture each frame automatically so I don’t have to do it manually.
HomeMoviesBackToLife.com
Tim Nichols -
7 Replies
-
Tim, is it possible this was recorded on, say, a PAL camcorder instead of NTSC?
System:
Dell Precision T7600 (x2)
Win 7 64-bit
32GB RAM
Adobe CC 2015.02 (as of 6/2016)
256GB SSD system drive
4 internal media drives RAID 5
Typically cutting short form from HD MP4 and P2 MXF. -
It is not PAL. I recorded all the VHS tape segments before and after the bad segments on the same tape. When they bought a new camcorder, the problem went away on the recordings. On the first bad recording, the tape speed went from SLP, LP to SP during the same recording. It wasn’t paused. They certainly had a broken camcorder. Unfortunately they didn’t check their footage till weeks after it was recorded and didn’t know they had poor recordings till after the fact.
I am using both consumer and professional VHS decks now. JCV BR-S800U, Panasonic AG-1980, Mitsubishi D-VHS HS-HD2000U and others. To recover the audio I used the AG-1980 with TBC on and was able to record into PrPro without it stopping. The video is total shaky and unstable but the audio played back clean.
This footage is certainly on life support. I can be recovered frame-by-frame. I just need to figure out the how to.
Thanks for the responses.
-
Set up a Current camera in front of a good monitor and record the Frames, then digitize from the current camera. Definitely faster than digitizing one frame at a time into your software.
Matt Press
Machine Room Operator / Digital Assets Engineer -
Both AJA and Blackmagic capture devices can capture video to DPX files, instead of Quicktime using their free software. (AJA Control Room and Blackmagic Media Express). Not sure if that helps.
-
Try sending the tape to a professional dub house that has engineers who are set up to recover problem tape footage.
Joe
Living the SuiteLife!
Stuff for editors http://www.cafepress.com/suitelifehttp://www.facebook.com/pages/SuiteLife/1524456414462851?ref=hl
-
Yeah, I’d either send it out to a pro dub house, or I’d re-create the footage with someone else’s baby. 😉
-
Using a pro dub house might be an option, but I was hoping to gather some skills and/or equipment to be one of those dub houses. The tapes are from family members so I am actually not getting paid much for this particular project. I was hoping to gather the skill set so I could recover this type of stuff for other clients (who are actually paying for the service).
I am in no particular rush so I am trying to gather as much know how to deal with this problem of hard to recover video. I think I am going to experience more problems like this in the future.
Tim Nichols
HomeMoviesBackToLife
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up