[HELP] Tear line across top of VHS tape

[Miranda]

Is there any way to remove a horizontal white tear line from a VHS tape capture?

[Selur]

You are probably speaking of tracking issued during the capturing. Ideally, such content should be recaptured.
As far as I know, usually the tape need to be is readjusted, the vcr needs a decent tbc and the track control of the vcr might have to be readjusted during capturing.
Folks over at https://forum.videohelp.com and https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-restore/ usually can help there with suggestions&co.

That said, if the tracking issues are not huge and constant using SpotLess with a radius of 3 or 4 might help. (DeSpot&KillerSpot, RemoveDirt and similar might also work)

Cu Selur

Ps.: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/4072...pe-fixable was a recent thread over in videohelp about the issue, but there the tracking lines were too serve for software removal.

[Miranda]

It's not a tracking issue, their is a crease/line along the edge of the tape.

[Selur]

25 years ago, we would have ironed out wrinkles and creases. (no joke and a lot of work)
Don't really know how restoration services would do it nowadays.
Best ask over at https://forum.videohelp.com and/or https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-restore/ those guys will know.

That said, since playing a wrinkled/creases tape can easily cause the tape to get stuck, fixing that or getting that fixed would be recommended before trying another capture.

How bad are the artifacts? If you can share a short (few seconds) sample with me, I can probably tell you whether there is hope to fix it through software. (screenshots of a few consecutive frames might also be enough)

Cu Selur

[Miranda]

Here's a sample clip with an example of the horizontal VHS line tape damage.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ioeZlk2...share_link

Any suggestions?

[Selur]

It's too stable to be removed by SpotLess, KillerSpots or similar filters.
The only thing that I can think of is:
a. create a region and color based mask for the wrinkle
b. apply inpainting to it
Sadly, none of the filters Hybrid supports will remove that.

Cu Selur