VHS Preservation

Hey there, fellow Lains. I've been thinking about a project I've wanted to work on for a year or two now but haven't had the time or equipment to actually see it through. I've been thinking about the inevitable adoption of microLED & 4k/8k in monitors in the next 5-10 years. Already, without OLED technology, a 4k monitor is able to replicate something like a Sony PVM extremely well. At these high resolutions, a monitor 24-32" can accurately represent individual phosphors. On to what I'd actually like to ask, though. It's in two parts and I was thinking someone on here may have the knowhow to at least have an answer for me to work off of. >porting CRT filters I've always wanted to see about having a fork of something like MPV which utilizes a shader used in Retroarch called "crt-royale kurozumi" which is made to replicate the look of a Sony PVM. The file used is either a .cgp, .glslp, or .slangp file. the -p at the end represents a shader which uses multiple filters & shaders within Retroarch to accomplish this look, and I'm pretty sure it's only usable within the software. That being said, I was wondering if it'd be possible to port these shaders even if individually into something usable in MPV (it'd probably have to be .glsl) to achieve the same effect. I've never worked with shaders before so I'm a bit clueless on that front. The shader work through ffmpeg in Retroarch, and I do have some screenshots of what it looks like if anyone on here has a 4k monitor and would like to see how it looks. >recording of VHS tapes The reason I'm interested in accomplishing something like this is because I collect VHS tapes. I own quite a few, but the ones that inspired me to start looking into sort of putting the VHS experience onto a modern computer was my collection of Serial Experiments Lain on VHS. They are the NTSC US version, and the condition they are in is so good that if recorded from proper equipment it could look fantastic. There's actually a VHS rip floating around the internet right now, but it's the Spanish version recorded on what I assume is a really shitty VCR with a basic capture device. Does anyone here have any knowledge of what would be the best possible equipment available now to both play the tapes and record them onto a digital format? As of right now all I've been looking at are VCRs, and the one which I think will be best is the Panasonic AG-1980/1980P due to having their superior TBC for more stable playback. Perhaps a JVC SVHS recorder with an external TBC would produce higher quality results, but the cost would be much higher too. I'm very paranoid about the preservation of things and especially the actual experience people had with them at the time. VHS is being left in the dust compared to other mediums such as retro games or films/shows available in a digital format. I don't think that these tapes in general have much time left and I feel that I'd have failed at preserving pieces of history if I let this aspect of media that I feel so nostalgic for go without some form of future.

Aren't those shaders designed to replicate a 240p picture? Because 240p wasn't used much outside of video games. The scan lines are prominent because 240p only uses half the screen, leaving the other field constantly blank. But your NTSC tapes would be 480i, so putting that filter on it would not give a realistic representation of the original media. As for archiving equipment, the ATI All in Wonder cards are well regarded, especially the AGP models. It really depends on your budget, because getting the best results will be extremely expensive when it comes to VCRs and TBCs. Really, you should look on DigitalFAQ. They're extremely autistic, but their guides are well done and informative.

>Does anyone here have any knowledge of what would be the best possible equipment available now to both play the tapes and record them onto a digital format? I'd mostly just be concerned with the VCR destroying the tapes. This isn't my forte, but would using the best VCR, instead of more typical hardware, really preserve the feeling from that time? Wouldn't a more standard VCR be fine? I don't know how typical the TV you mentioned was, though. >I'm very paranoid about the preservation of things and especially the actual experience people had with them at the time. VHS is being left in the dust compared to other mediums such as retro games or films/shows available in a digital format. I don't think that these tapes in general have much time left and I feel that I'd have failed at preserving pieces of history if I let this aspect of media that I feel so nostalgic for go without some form of future. That's commendable. It's very satisfying to find something that has largely been ignored and breathe some new life into it by preserving it in a modern way. The only thing that comes to mind is pointing a high-resolution camera directly at the TV in an otherwise entirely dark room, the same method that was used to get screenshots for magazines and other publications.

>>17558 Testing them in retroarch yielded decent results at 480i (first image) and a Blu Ray rip encoded to 240p (second image). It might need some tweaking to be specifically for 480i specifically though. >>17569 That's difficult, because while you might be right, the only VCRs that have been properly taken care of at this point were ones used for production, if that makes any sense. Even if it's in "mint condition" the lower end were just not meant to work for this long. While the literal shakiness of playing VHS back then may not be preserved, image-quality wise there's only so much you can squeeze out of these things. If anything, it's probably possible to emulate a shitty VCR in post with a good enough rip on it's own.

If you wanted to preserve how it it looked is just recording the VHS tapes and uploading them, the filters usually don't work all that well, the issue of course is finding VHS tapes for the more obscure stuff, but that's the most accurate way to do it. I don't know why you want to preserve an objectively inferior way to watch your movies and shows, but you do you lain.

>>17573 The same reason you'd do it for anything that's irrelevant now, for preservation. it's the same reason anybody runs a museum. There's no reason to not keep it around in some form if the technology is there. >>17569 >The only thing that comes to mind is pointing a high-resolution camera directly at the TV in an otherwise entirely dark room I didn't respond to this earlier but that actually could work out well. Panasonic is coming out with a consumer-level camera that can capture 6k and with the right equipment (macro lens, decent polarizing filter/neutral density to reduce glare) you could get some good results.

>>17574 Fair enough, I would just prefer to watch all of my stuff in HD through my HDMI cables and my modern graphics card.

>>17570 >That's difficult, because while you might be right, the only VCRs that have been properly taken care of at this point were ones used for production, if that makes any sense. That seems about right and aligns with my concern of keeping the tapes unmolested by a faulty reader. You could make the argument that you'd get a quality similar to broadcast quality, then. >If anything, it's probably possible to emulate a shitty VCR in post with a good enough rip on it's own. I don't know what you mean by in post. Anyway, emulating an undesirable quality of VHS playback from a VHS playback that doesn't contain the quality seems odd; the emulation of curves in TV sets, apparently in ways that are grossly exaggerated, comes to mind. >>17574 >I didn't respond to this earlier but that actually could work out well. Panasonic is coming out with a consumer-level camera that can capture 6k and with the right equipment (macro lens, decent polarizing filter/neutral density to reduce glare) you could get some good results. I'm glad my advice helped. I'll try to remember to look back in this thread every now and again to see your progress.

With a pc you can just use different filters to get what you want. But if you ever wanted to use your vcr on an lcd or maybe you trust hardware over software and pass your video through, but in either case just put a video processor in line with the signal cables. Open Source Scan Convertrer or xrgb, but those can cost over $300. It can process 240p or 480p signals.

>>17545 >I've always wanted to see about having a fork of something like MPV which utilizes a shader used in Retroarch called "crt-royale kurozumi" which is made to replicate the look of a Sony PVM. The file used is either a .cgp, .glslp, or .slangp file. the -p at the end represents a shader which uses multiple filters & shaders within Retroarch to accomplish this look, and I'm pretty sure it's only usable within the software. This is actually not too difficult to achieve in theory. I believe this could easily be achieved through basic SDL calls, which I believe is the methodology behind RetroArch's approach. I am interested to see if anything comes of this idea. Good luck with your rips Lainon!

>>17574 This technique reminds me of something like this: http://paulorenato.com/index.php/92 By the way, this was actually standard procedure for taking recordings of utilitarian vector CRTs like oscilloscopes, videoscopes, radar screens, etc for decades. They manufactured legit hoods which were often included with the unit, plus some lens adapters. https://www.flickr.com/photos/youraccount/sets/72157600181106312/ Note it has an image-splitting prism and a viewport angled upwards on top so you can observe it while taking the screenshot. You can still find these oscilloscope cameras on ebay from time to time. With a proper adapter to fit a modern video camera and a smaller-screen CRT monitor like a Trinitron PVM it could be a very high-quality solution.

>>17956 good to know, I'll look into it >>17965 I wonder how adapting one of those lenses to a newer Panasonic or Sony camera would go. This looks like a good middle ground compared to what I'm looking. Both are possible. With the recent news of SEL becoming "open source" in terms of distribution I might look towards accomplishing this more than before. Even though it's technically not for the original material, I'm curious as to how much the announcement may have laxxed potential legal consequences.

>>17993 >With the recent news of SEL becoming "open source" in terms of distribution I'm curious to read about this, do you have a link?

>>18006 not OP but this is what he appears to be referring to https://www.otaquest.com/serial-experiments-lain-open-source/

>>17575 The graphics card has absolutely nothing to do with video quality you fuarrrking /g/aymer. Also anything other than VGA will have the exact same image quality. And you're probably too stupid to even be able to distinguish a well-configured VGA or BNC connection from a {DVI,HDMI,DP,etc}.