How to enhance old video quality

Help/How To
1

Hi all,

I have old video captured on Sony V8 tape >30 years ago. 2 weeks before I sent the tape to a profession shop ripping it to DVD in VOB format.

I found the video a little bid dark and some section not very clear, Please advise how to enhance the video quality on Shotcut. Thanks

Regards

1 Like
2

In Filters

  • Use Color Grading, Levels, and/or Hue/Lightness/Saturation to improve the color, brightness, and contrast
  • Use White Balance if you have neutral colors like white and light grays that have a color cast either from the old analog technology or indoor lights.
  • Use Reduce Noise: Quantization or others to clean the image a bit
  • Use Sharpness (just a little) to improve clarity
  • If there is shaky handheld footage use Stabilize
1 Like
3

Hi,

Thanks for your advice.

Import a .VOB video
How to drag it to the “time line” ? Thanks

4

I found it.
Clicking [+] on the timeline.
But clicking Filters without response?

5

I found the solution as follow:-

Above Timeline menu
There is another menu bar → “Playlist Filters Properties”
clicking “Filters” starts another menu bar
Moving mouse pointer over [+] on that menu bar popup “Add a filter”
Click the [+] to popup filters list
Select “Brightness” filter starting the “Level” slide bar
Move the slide bar to select brightness % (I select 119.3%)
Start the video on “Time” bar to adjust brightness, which I need, until finish playing the video

I don’t know whether this is the correct steps ? Please advise, thanks

Shotcut Version : 25.01.25

Can I apply several filters simultaneously. OR I have to apply the filter, one by one ?

6

Hi @Stephen_Liu, I suggest you take a look at a tutorial first, i.e.:

or/and:

It’ll be easier for you once you’ve seen it.

1 Like
7

Hi @SergeC,

Thanks for your advice and link.

I just finished testing an old video running following filters:-
Brightness
Color Grading
Contrast
Sharpen

one on top of another continuously on an old video. The test result is quite good. I’ll upscale the video to 4K later.

The old video was captured by me 34 years ago in Milan, Italy (Milano, Italia) on Sony V8 tape. One week ago I sent the tape to a profession shop ripping it on DVD as VOB format.

I’ll continue test another old video on the same DVD. The video was also captured by me 34 years ago in Maastricht, Netherlands. I’ll apple the same filters, but in one go, i.e. simultaneously (not one by one)

8

The darkness may be because your monitor does not support HDR, mine does. And the lack of clarity may be because it was converted to a low resolution, and you are watching it on a large monitor.
Analog video does not have pixels (it was in vain that they abandoned this technology), so you can probably convert it from a cassette even to 4k.
The best solution is to insert this DVD into the anus of these “professionals”, they should have told in more detail what the result will be or at least see what kind of work they did, what needs to be redone after them.

9

I didn’t see the last message, you need to convert video from analog video, not from digital.

10

Sorry I’m not clear of your advice.

After finishing editing I’ll export it as .mp4 file, digital video.

Also it is very easy to upscale mp4, a digital file, to 4K resolution running ffmpeg
$ ffmpeg -i imput.mp4 -vf scale=3840:2160 OutputFile4k.mp4

11

Why does anyone need cameras for 40 thousand dollars if you can film everything on a mobile phone and use a magical console command?

The theory is not complicated, but there is a lot of theory, I don’t see the point in copying it from Wikipedia or somewhere else. Shortcut is a graphical shell for commands like these, the algorithms are the same everywhere. I don’t rule out that the Masons have some other secret algorithms. This algorithm will simply draw the missing pixels using some mathematical formula. Usually, few people are satisfied with this quality and YouTube is not yet full of 4K videos.

12

Do not upscale SD to 4K; that is a waste. The player or TV will have just as good scalers.

2 Likes
13

Hi @shotcut,

Thanks for your advice.

I only play video on my 4K display. Would 2K 2560x1440 be good and sufficient, instead of 4K 3840 x 2160 ?

Another question:
Can I run several filters to the same video in one pass?

I have made following tests:

  1. Apply 4 filters, one by one, on the same video
    i.e. applying filter-1 first, after finish applying filter-2 and so on
  2. Apply 4 same filters simultaneously on the same video

The quality of the finish video seems to me better in 1) but it took longer time to finish.

Thanks

Regards

14

Hi,

I agree with you. Unless we are professional photographer our mobile phone camera will be sufficient for capturing photos and video. I only have a pocket Sony camera purchased long time ago and seldomly used.

There is advantages on camera for changing lens. We can’t attach a wide-angle lens on mobile phone

15

Here’s a video shot on a $40,000 camera.

Here’s a video shot on a simpler camera.

Here’s a video shot on a mobile phone.

Professionals are a myth, everything depends on desire and opportunity.

16

Check the video on YouTube.
The video quality decreases with each pass, you need to try to do everything in one pass, but this is not always possible.

17

No, he said don’t upscale at all. That means export at the original size (SD).

18

Hi @PoisonedSlice

The original size of video on DVD ripped by the profession shop from my old V8 tape?

19

Hi all,

Throughout my testings in these 2 days, to enhance the quality of old video, my finding is;

To achieve the best result;
We need to trim the video into sections.
Apply the necessary filters to each section.
Even the same set of filters, apply different value on each filter through testings.

No one set of filters, with same value, is suitable to the whole video

There is no easy way !!!

Regards

20

Yes Sir!
So when you start a shotcut project, it will automatically set the video mode based on the first video you add (which should be one of your DVDs). More on video mode below: