Video Enhancer Kits - Any Good ?

[Dean]

In about 1990 I brought a video cleaner-upper kit from Altronics ( I think )
which was supposed to allow you to make cleaner copies of video tapes wher
transfering from one VCR to another. Well, I built it and tried it out. It
made no difference to the picture at all - in fact you could turn it off and
the picture just went straight through it and came out unaffected ! At least
it didn't actually degrade the picture.

Well, now that I want to transfer some of my old VHS tapes to DVD, I'd like
to clear up the picture if possible. I notice that Jaycar are now selling
kits which claim to do similar things. I realise you will only ever get a
marginal improvment at best, but anythings better than nothing as some tapes
are from shows which will never be repeated.

So my question is :- has anyone here actually tried the Jaycar video
enhancer kits and are they worth worrying about ? The best ones are about
$200 so I'd hope they had some form of real processing inside for that
price.


Thanks for any advice or even abuse,
Dean.

 

[Roger Lascelles]

In about 1990 I brought a video cleaner-upper kit from Altronics ( I think )
which was supposed to allow you to make cleaner copies of video tapes wher
transfering from one VCR to another. Well, I built it and tried it out. It
made no difference to the picture at all - in fact you could turn it off and
the picture just went straight through it and came out unaffected ! At least
it didn't actually degrade the picture.

Well, now that I want to transfer some of my old VHS tapes to DVD, I'd like
to clear up the picture if possible. I notice that Jaycar are now selling
kits which claim to do similar things. I realise you will only ever get a
marginal improvment at best, but anythings better than nothing as some tapes
are from shows which will never be repeated.

So my question is :- has anyone here actually tried the Jaycar video
enhancer kits and are they worth worrying about ? The best ones are about
$200 so I'd hope they had some form of real processing inside for that
price.


Thanks for any advice or even abuse,
Dean.

Chances are the "cleaner-upper" kit you bought was not supposed to make the
picture sharper. Rather it was supposed to clean up the sync pulses which
are purposely degraded by copy protection - the cleaned up pulses allowing
a second VCR could lock in the picture. It generally doesn't do much when
playing a video through it to view on the TV - although it might help for a
few TVs which have trouble with copy protected sync.

The video enhancer you are looking at filters the video signal - at least
allowing adjustable high frequency peaking, to makes the picture look
sharper. The high frequencies contain the detailed part of the picture. So
if the edges around objects look blurred, the enhancer might help. With too
much peaking, the effect is a grotesque, "cutout effect" around objects.
Home video recorders lose the high frequencies, so the enhancer can help you
make the most of your video tapes. However, it can't fix those ancient
tapes with smears of color.

Roger

 

[Dean]

"Roger Lascelles"

The video enhancer you are looking at filters the video signal - at least
allowing adjustable high frequency peaking, to makes the picture look
sharper. The high frequencies contain the detailed part of the picture.
So
if the edges around objects look blurred, the enhancer might help. With
too
much peaking, the effect is a grotesque, "cutout effect" around objects.
Home video recorders lose the high frequencies, so the enhancer can help
you
make the most of your video tapes. However, it can't fix those ancient
tapes with smears of color.

Roger

OK thanks. It might still be worth a try. I suppose one day not too far away
software might be available for the private user which might even clean up
video using some sort of itelligent image recognition system that redraws
everything - similar to the way cheap CD players ' fill in ' the missing
bits when reading CDs. I wonder if thats what the big well heeled TV
networks use to process those 50 year old TV shows ( I Love Lucy etc ) to
make them clean as a whistle for modern day broadcast.

Dean.

 

[Fred Ferd]

"Roger Lascelles"


OK thanks. It might still be worth a try. I suppose one day not too far
away software might be available for the private user which might even
clean up video

Maybe its the phenonenal CPU power required that is the hold up on that..


(well its coming someday.. )


In the mean time, if you capture to a computer ,you can adjust the
brightness, saturation , hue and contrast levels. And may de speckle or
smooth to get rid of specs and grain and scratchy appearance, if you have a
day or two to let your 1500mhz CPU run flat out on it.

Also de-pop and de-hiss and volume fix the audio to get a clear clean sound
out of old mono tapes.




Leon

 

[Dean]

"Fred Ferd" >

In the mean time, if you capture to a computer ,you can adjust the
brightness, saturation , hue and contrast levels. And may de speckle or
smooth to get rid of specs and grain and scratchy appearance, if you have
a day or two to let your 1500mhz CPU run flat out on it.

Also de-pop and de-hiss and volume fix the audio to get a clear clean
sound out of old mono tapes.

That's a good idea actually. I should look around to see what video editing
sotfware comes with those options.

Dean.