[Jim Arcon]

For me, After Effects has been able to handle almost any valid video I have given it.

I would guess that the probelm lies in “…ripped to a dvd, then converted to avi. with some errors( skipped)…” Whatever errors occurring in the conversion process probably cause the file to not work in AE (Maybe not anywhere else either.)

To troubleshoot, see if the file plays by itself, or works in some other application like Premiere, if you have it. A suggestion: why not go directly from tape to your computer, and skip the problematic conversion process?

Another suggestion: if you are only editing your movie, you might also find it quicker/easier to use Premiere.

[Jim Arcon]

I haven’t bought an HVX200, but my experience with the very low price folks on other equipment is something like this:

“…….Thank you for your credit-card number. While I am verifying that…. yes, it is in stock and available now. But those packages include the filter/tripod/accessory kit valued at $2200 and only adds $1700 to your price. …a savings of another $500 for you. Shipping and handling only add another $179.”

When you tell them you ONLY want the camera, then its:

“The packages with just the camera take a little longer. I will send you a card in four to six weeks with a more specific ship date.” (At this point, he’s really telling you he’ll never sell you just the camera. He’s hoping you’ll buy the package or cancel your order.)

I like B&H. If you prefer to buy elsewhere, use B&H for a comparison price. You might be able to spend time shopping around and find just as good a deal for a few dollars less (maybe 3-4%), but then again you may just waste your time, wind up with a 4-month ship schedule, or get gray-market goods. With B&H you’ll have exactly what you ordered in a few days or less and they have always made things right if there was any problem.

Mom was right – If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

[Jim Arcon]

I don’t have Encore on this machine, but I think you could make more than one slide show and then make a playlist.

[Jim Arcon]

Older consumer VHS often used a one-tube camera that performed very poorly as the light went down.

In addition to what the others have said, soften (blur) each of the colors a bit – red was usually the worse than the others. The blue channel was always very noisy, so add more noise into the blue. The camera would smear any bright highlights when it moved. Most would have a lot of image lag in very low light. You can simulate this with time displacement. Yhe edges of the picture were not clearly defined.

If I remember correctly, VHS also tended to shift the colors down a line from the luminance.

[Jim Arcon]

You’re not alone – I know I get crazy with my two-year old Panny and its “record” then “finalize” two-step process. How hard would it have been to give me one more screen-choice of “record and finalize?”

Seems like at least one of the older “pro” models did what you are looking for. My recollection was that it was a Panasonic model in the $3-5000 price range. Not exactly the right neighborhood unless you’re selling some premium product.

[Jim Arcon]

I don’t remember hearing the brand name of Certron tape, but any vhs that old might have problems. The information on magnetic tape is stored in a thin oxide layer on a flexible substrate (probably a ribbon of mylar.) The substrate can stretch, break, or get wrinkled from being used many times or from a malfunctioning tape transport. The oxide can come off the ribbon through wear or just aging. VHS (any tape probably) physically deterioriates as it ages. The impurities in some brands can accelerate the process.

Since the dropouts happen at different points each time you capture, the magnetic oxide hasn’t come off the tape (yet.) My guess is that the tape might have wrinkles, edge wear, or is stretched from being played numerous times (probably in a player that wasn’t regularly maintained.)

High-end VHS decks have electronics to compensate for worn tapes and can often track in spite of wear or stretching. You have already found the best workaround by capturing several times and using the good parts of each capture.

I pick up a few extra coins now-and-then working on those older personal videos that have become priceless as the years wore on. For what its worth, I have searched-there’s NO magic button, plug-in, or procedure that will make that wobbly hand-held old camcorder footage look as good as a $50K high-end camera on a rock-solid tripod, and run by an experienced camera op.

You can however, make it look better – sometimes a LOT better! I’ve tried to write about this idea a bit on my (rather neglected) blog at http://www.colorburst-video.com, but a half-hour of googling or here at the COW will yield tons of “how to tweak your video” information.

If this tape contains footage important to you, my suggestion would be to take the good capture and save it off to another medium. Of course, any tape will be having similar problems in another 20-30 years.

[Jim Arcon]

(I am on some cold-medication, so the following might just be a fabrication of my addled brain….)

I think that AE’s noise-reduction tool started life as an AE plug-in named “Grain Surgery” from Visual Infinity. You might also have some luck searching for tutorials from a few years ago.

In any case, the AE noise/grain tool is fantastic and for me has turned nearly unwatchable video into something viewable on several occasions.

[Jim Arcon]

I was just trialing Magic Bullet Editors for PPro and it does not specifically have a noise filter. However, using the “basic” setting on some noisy video seemed to reduce the noise quite a bit.

Probably has to do with the ‘diffusion’ part of the filter.

[Jim Arcon]

Well, I sometimes get a little crazy about these things and have also archived the original tapes to DV. ….all of them…. Even with hundreds of tapes and dozens of hours of footage, the expense (time and dollars) isn’t really significant when you consider this is the only moving pictures of that part of my family’s history. Some of the tapes are nearing thirty-years old, and I really don’t trust the analog stuff to last much longer. The oxide has begun to dust off of some of the tapes.

I archive all the viewable stuff to DVD and had even considered archiving the captured digital AVI files to DVD. But its tough to fit even twenty-minutes of an AVI on a DVD.

BTW – I also use the RTX100 and the white balance actually works with any neutral shade from medium gray to white.

Noise can be a tough one — I haven’t used Vixen for years, but it had an OK noise reduction tool for Premiere. As you’ve learned, noise reduction is sometimes a bit of a trade-off between noise and blurry image. The better filters also compare the pixels from frame to frame “averaging-out” the noise without noticeable blur.

My favorite noise-reduction filter is the one that comes with After Effects. It is nothing short of miraculous with low-light VHS stuff!

The Sapphire set of plug-ins has a pretty good noise filter, as does Digital Film Tools. I have used them on friend’s systems with After Effects, but I do not know if they are available for PPro. I have not used it, but Synthetic Aperature’s Finesse is available for PPro and has noise-reduction. I think Composite Wizard (maybe Red Giant) has a noise filter, probably only After Effects.

I talk about home-video on my blog at colorburst.com, but a half-hour of googling or here at the COW will yield tons of additional “how to tweak your video” information.

[Jim Arcon]

I don’t know how old the footage is that you are talking about, so let me assume VHS camera originals, probably shot with a consumer-level camcorder. I have done tons of old family video, some of it from the late-70’s. My opinion – it will eventually come down to how much money, time, and effort you are willing to spend to preserve your history.

Let me say this first. I have searched-there’s NO magic button, plug-in, or procedure that will make that wobbly hand-held old camcorder footage look as good as a $50K high-end camera on a rock-solid tripod, and run by an experienced camera op.

You can however, make it look BETTER – sometimes a LOT better! You can purchase some plug-ins that might help here – Vixen or Video Finesse (and others) provide proc-amp type controls within older versions of Premiere. Some of them also have the ability to do some picture noise-reduction.

Here’s what I’m doing: First, I sorted the old tapes by date and divided most of the source material into 45-60minute projects. This is manageable from a hard-drive standpoint, and conveniently fits on a miniDV tape, VHS tape, and of course a DVD. I use a capture card to capture the analog audio and video to hard-drive (as an avi file). The raw material is then opened in Adobe Premiere for clean up. I first go through and pull out all the real junk – start of the tape, low battery, crash-edits, footage (pictures of feet when someone forgot to turn off the camera), 8-minutes of the inside of the camera bag, and other distracting elements. Make this a project by itself within Premiere because you may choose to save the unedited version to DVD.

Then, you’ll need to make some decisions here about how much you want to re-write history – I’ve been careful NOT to start editing out events and people. That boat you couldn’t wait to get rid of in 1988, was the same boat you couldn’t wait to buy in 1987! AND That Nehru Jacket you HAD to have might be embarassing to think about, but everyone will enjoy reminiscing about their crazy fad clothing. Save that footage of Aunt Jeanne’s tumbling into the lake – someday even she will appreciate it.

Then I put some simple titles that indicate the event and date. You might want to identify any place or people that current/future generations might not know. I also put a billboard title at the beginning of the project to indicate the source of the video and any known technical information (camera, microphone, etc) and the date of this transfer.

Then, (and here is where the real time-cost exists), I tweak the video using levels and saturation controls in Premiere. This has to be carefully done on a scene-by-scene basis. There is significant time involved both in the tweaking of the controls and sometimes the rendering time, but with just the levels control can greatly improve some existing-light video. Premiere and AE also have tools to improve color-balance and saturation. Some versions of AE come with a very-good video noise reducing filter that works amazingly well on old VHS. You can even improve some existing-light video.

Premiere allows you to output the timeline directly to DVD, but I prefer to output MPEG2 format for DVD authoring. While you’re are still in Premiere, export some still-frames for your photo album and to use on the DVD case. I use Adobe Encore for authoring, but there are any number of good DVD authoring programs out there. If there is enough room on the DVD, I also store the project files, titles, and artwork used for DVD case and labels. Any notes I made during the ‘production’ go into a 3-ring binder.

Some of the ‘major events,’ like young Jon’s Pinewood Derby victory, older son Jim’s Boy Scout Eagle presentation, or the big Marching Band competition can also be made into a separate program, complete with titles, graphics, music or narration.

If you want to be a real hero, you can make additional copies to hand out to some of the people involved.

One thought – Set yourself a reasonable timeframe to complete each DVD. Otherwise you might tweak your footage endlessly. One other thought – look at this as a long-term labor-of-love where you’ll also learn a lot about shooting, editing, and enhancing your skills. It’ll be a lot more fun