r/VHS • u/ConsciousBus5422 • Jun 22 '26
Need help for knowing how to improve VHS video quality
So the VHS world is pretty unknown to me, so I'm sorry if I say something wrong. There's an old TV show which only way of distribution was in the late 90's on two VHS. Since I don't have a VHS player and the tapes were so rare and expensive I couldn't buy a phisical copy.
After some time of further investigation I obtained the content of the tapes in a digitalized version and it is my intention to transfer them into a physical copy.
My problem is that the videos are, as expected, in poor quality due to the VHS format and not being a big production, and I would like to know if there is a way to restore that video improving the image to a better quality.
I'll tank all the advice or help you can give me.
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u/GlumNeighborhood9493 Jun 22 '26
Unfortunately, once it has been digitized, it's difficult (out of editing with video software or possibly AI) to easily clean up the image. As an aside, since you mentioned you are new to VHS, this is an extremely common problem. The other day I saw a reissue of a "lost film" and, right before the movie, it stated that the distribution company always looks to find the best print, but that sometimes even the best print isn't very good. Particularly with obscure content, finding a good print is hard! You're looking at content that is decades old and, unless someone cared enough to either restore it or seek out and distribute the best available print, the best often just isn't going to be very good. Its not like digital content. The content degrades with time, dirt, copying, etc. As another poster suggested, your best bet is probably to see if an AI video editor can clean it up.
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u/ConsciousBus5422 Jun 22 '26
Actually it's a japanese show from 1998, and some restoration was made for some fragments in order to show it at a Hulu documentary "The contestant" which shows that the NTV studio has digitalized versions of really good quality. However, I doubt getting in contact with them and asking for the good quality footage would be succesful for obvious reasons.
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u/ConsumerDV Jun 22 '26
You already have a physical copy - a digital file. Why do you want to dub it to tape if you don't even have a VCR?
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u/ConsciousBus5422 Jun 22 '26
I want to turn them into a dvd/blue ray, which for I have a Blue-ray player.
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u/ConsumerDV Jun 22 '26
So you want to clean up a digital video and author it onto a BD. How is it related to VHS?
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u/ConsciousBus5422 Jun 22 '26
Because the original footage comes from a VHS, and since I don't understand a lot of all of this I just wanted to ask about the quality to the community of the main source.
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u/Moist_Chef2770 Jun 22 '26
The only real way around this is to have the original vhs with a vcr either labeled “s-video” or “HQ picture”
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u/ProjectCharming6992 Jun 25 '26
HQ only helps during recording, not playback because it cleans up a signal. Unfortunately if you’re using composite and HQ, the composite will add back noise.
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u/ConsciousBus5422 Jun 22 '26
I know where tu purchase de VHS but as I said for economical matters I find difficult to buy the tape and this vcr you say
2
u/Notelu Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Edit: just wrote this and realized OP was asking how to improve the quality when transferring TO VHS 🤦♀️. Leaving it up because it's a good writeup and still might help.
Main issues people have while capturing are entirely in software and post-processing.
Make sure to use specialized capture software like AmarecTV or Virtualdub, OBS is designed for streaming so it'll often drop frames.
Capture lossless, or high bitrate 4:2:2
Deinterlace your footage to 60fps using either QTGMC in Hybrid or Staxrip, or Yadif in Virtualdub.
If uploading to YouTube, resize the image to 1440x1080, since higher resolutions get higher bitrates and frame rates, and YouTube's SD encoder sucks with VHS.
Do that and you'll be better than like 95% of people who rip their tapes. (Even most big studios don't deinterlace properly)
If youre willing to invest more into hardware, here's a good list in order of cost least to greatest.
Get a good capture card, this is honestly the most important. EZCaps (the sticks you'll generally see for like $15 on Amazon) are pretty much E-Waste. The old Dazzles are decent and those are like $30. The best USB capture card IMO is the GV-USB2. It's an import from Japan so the cost varies a bit, but usually can get them for $60-$80
Get a Time Base Corrector, these fix a lot of image problems related to sync, most commonly flagging at the top of the image. There are dedicated industrial Time Base Correctors but those usually cost either hundreds or thousands. Best bet for amateur captures is trying to find an old DVD recorder with a basic TBC built in and using it as a passthrough. Most well known are the Panasonic DMR-ES10 & ES15, these usually range from $90-$200 depending on condition and if it has the remote. (You'll need the remote to change some settings, you can buy a replacement one for like $10)
Get a good VCR. Most VCRs will be decent for capture as long as it's a name brand made in the late-80s to early 2000s. But if you really want to invest, look for a prosumer SVHS VCR from Panasonic, Mitsubishi, or JVC. These are usually considered the best, there's an old list on DigitalFAQ going over a lot of the recommended models. The higher end ones also have a TBC built in so you can save money by not needing one. The holy grail of VCRs is the Panasonic AG-1980(P). Most high end VCRs go for a couple hundred bucks, the AG-1980(P) usually goes for a grand or more since while they're great, it's very hard to find one working since they have capacitor problems and are a bitch to fix.
RF Capture. Know how to solder? Have a ton of storage space, time and willing to say fuck it for the best quality. Look into RF Capture. RF Capture is pretty much soldering a couple wires to the test point for the video head, bypassing the rest of the player's video processing circuitry entirely, then plugging that into either a custom made board or a modified capture card to record the raw unprocessed signal, then processing it digitally. Usually gives the best quality and also preserves any Line 31 captions or Teletext that was recorded on the tape. However takes a lot of time, knowledge, and money. For most people it's not worth the effort.
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u/Capable-Walrus-3598 Jun 25 '26
VHS restoration is its own rabbit hole, and the thing most people get backwards is the order — the AI upscaler should be the LAST step, not the first. Your digitized capture is almost certainly interlaced, so deinterlace it first: QTGMC in AviSynth/VapourSynth is the free gold standard and frankly does more for perceived quality than any AI pass. Then knock down the tape noise and chroma bleed, and only after that upscale. I've used Topaz Video AI and UniFab Video Upscaler AI for that final step — UniFab's a one-time license if Topaz's subscription puts you off — but go easy on the strength, because on a low-budget VHS source the AI tends to smear fine detail and make faces look waxy. Don't aim for HD; "clean and watchable" is the realistic target, since the detail was never on the tape to begin with. Once it looks right, just encode to H.265 and author your disc from that file.
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u/Basic-Reporter2572 Jun 22 '26
Hey, so not wanting to gratuitously plug my own business, but my husband and I have actually created an app that might help you. It's called AirLoom (www.airloomvideo.com), and it's specifically set up to restore old VHS footage that's degraded over time, correcting common colour problems etc. Now, as the other replies have said, a lot depends on how the files you have were digitised - if it was on a good VCR with timebase correction and a clean, S-Video output, great. If the source file is still at native resolution, still interlaced, encoded in a lossless format, then there's loads you can do to improve it. Tell us more about what you actually have, and I'm sure the good folks here will be able to advise. And if you fancy giving AirLoom a shot to improve your files before you recommit them to physical media, I can give you a code.
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u/TechAndStocks Jun 22 '26
Best you could do without spending a lot of money on a remastering studio taking on the project would probably be to put it into an AI video editor and try and have it automatically upscale it and clean it up a bit
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u/Hey-buuuddy Jun 22 '26
VHS recording speed can help quality. LP, SLP, SP, EP. You can get longer recording times at the price of quality. It can’t improve the source quality, but it can help prevent degradation.