VHS conversion

[Selur]

Over-sharpening usually happens during capturing.
Only sharpening in your Vapoursynth script, seems to be:

clip = core.cas.CAS(clip=clip, sharpness=0.700)

Source doesn't seem oversharpened, gut has tons of other issues.

• The whole thing is not properly captured, tons of track issues causing a wobbly image.
  
• Clip seems interlaced (tff + bob shows clear movement between frames in the first two scenes)
  
• Thick black halos in the frist and second scene
  
• Chroma is shifted, but shift seems to be different in some scences.
  
• Scene change to the third scene (the rotating stone beach thing) causes spotless to go crazy
  
• The whole pirate scene seems like a mess. Partial telecined, blends in the fields, duplicates. (sRestore, in mode pp3 and later applying FillDuplicateFrames might help, if the source is denoised a lot before)
  
• General: Whites are blown out.
  
• General: Tons of chroma noise. (mostly in the even fields)
  
• General: Saturation is too high.
  

So is it a bad capture: Yes
Could it be 'restored': With lots of scene-by-scene filtering, probably.
(especially color grading, shifting, denoising)

What looks 'okay' in for one scene, doesn't look so good for another.
=> lots of work if you want to get this on an 'okay' level.

# Deinterlacing using QTGMC
clip = qtgmc.QTGMC(Input=clip, Preset="Fast", TFF=True) # new fps: 29.97
# Making sure content is preceived as frame based
clip = core.std.SetFrameProps(clip=clip, _FieldBased=vs.FIELD_PROGRESSIVE) # progressive
clip = clip[1::2] # selecting previously odd frames
# adjusting color using Tweak
clip = color.Tweak(clip=clip, hue=0.00, sat=0.50, cont=1.00, bright=-20, coring=True)
# adjusting color space from YUV422P8 to YUV444P10 for vsSoftLight
clip = core.resize.Bicubic(clip=clip, format=vs.YUV444P10, range_s="limited")
# color adjustment using SoftLight
clip = core.Argaricolm.Softlight(clip, mode=1, yuvin=601, yuvout=601)
# Chroma adjustment using ChromaShiftSP
clip = chromashift.ChromaShiftSP(clip=clip, X=-4.00, Y=4.00)

Seems like an 'okay' start for the coloring,... (the 0.5 saturation is probably too low, one some chroma denoising is applied too; I would suspect 0.8 might be okay then)

Cu Selur

[lostsnowboardvideos]

Thank you so much. Will try these after work tonight. Would some of the color restoration help with the tree and snow detail? Or is that also a capture issue?

[Selur]

I just noticed, the clips luma range is wrong.
Maybe something like:

# adjusting color space from YUV422P8 to RGB24 for vsLevels
clip = core.resize.Bicubic(clip=clip, format=vs.RGB24, matrix_in_s="470bg", range_s="limited")
# adjusting color using Levels on RGB24 (8 bit)
clip = core.std.Levels(clip=clip, min_in=32, max_in=255, min_out=16, max_out=235, gamma=0.70)

for the snow scene:

Messing with colors (color grading) isn't really my thing.
Cu Selur

[lostsnowboardvideos]

These are working great in some of the tests I have been doing.

I think the wobbly frame issue I am experiencing is not having a VCR with TBC capability. Need to pursue one of those.

[Selur]

I agree, missing TBC is probably the main issue.