jedimasta
02-23-2009, 11:47 PM
I've recently taken on a project that involves capturing a hefty amount of old footage from VHS. I'm having varied results in quality when capturing, usually relating to the camcorder it was captured on and how good the cameraman was, but you can assume the worst in home movies.
I'm using an ADS Tech Pyro AV Link (http://www.adstech.com/products/API-558-EFS/intro/API-558_intro.asp?pid=API-558-EFS) and a good ole fashioned VCR to capture into Premiere, but I don't have a solid workflow for squeezing good detail out of the captures. For one, I can only capture in DV format, so 720x480 from a 640x480 source. Is there a good way to overcome that? Particularly if the final output is to DVD? I want to avoid stretching and/or black bars, particularly for those clips that end up on the web.
Second, grain and video noise are a constant problem. I can get my color correction in nicely with Premiere's Fast Color Correction effect, but I'm at a loss for smoothing things out more, particularly for older vids. I realize that the final result is only going to be as good as the original footage, but I refuse to believe there isn't anything I can do to improve the footage at least slightly.
Tutorials are a dime a dozen on the web when it comes to special effects, but practical video cleanup and workflow in Premiere and AE are painfully missing. Oh, and I'd like to avoid any third party plug-ins if at all possible. Budget is relatively small.
I'm using an ADS Tech Pyro AV Link (http://www.adstech.com/products/API-558-EFS/intro/API-558_intro.asp?pid=API-558-EFS) and a good ole fashioned VCR to capture into Premiere, but I don't have a solid workflow for squeezing good detail out of the captures. For one, I can only capture in DV format, so 720x480 from a 640x480 source. Is there a good way to overcome that? Particularly if the final output is to DVD? I want to avoid stretching and/or black bars, particularly for those clips that end up on the web.
Second, grain and video noise are a constant problem. I can get my color correction in nicely with Premiere's Fast Color Correction effect, but I'm at a loss for smoothing things out more, particularly for older vids. I realize that the final result is only going to be as good as the original footage, but I refuse to believe there isn't anything I can do to improve the footage at least slightly.
Tutorials are a dime a dozen on the web when it comes to special effects, but practical video cleanup and workflow in Premiere and AE are painfully missing. Oh, and I'd like to avoid any third party plug-ins if at all possible. Budget is relatively small.