[boxedart]

PART 1 - The history of the world. (With applogies to Mel Brooks)

I will take this a step further - as I said over in that VH thread most people that are involved in restoration of visuals and audio do a lot more than simply do a transfer from "master" source to new "master" source. It is easy for me because I sarted off on film - working with film. Yes film is still film and video is video however in both cases there are dedicated indivuals who do nothing more than sit and, frame by frame, do restorations using whatever technology is available to them to do so. Certianly the technology that was available 30 years ago is not the same that is available now...meaning that an old u-matic, quad, or 1 inch duplication master may not be the best version that could exist - but it may be the only "useable" version for the massses that does exist. This is where restoration comes into play.

It is hard to talk shop without loosing some people but here is the basic scenario - and will use film but if you follow you will better understand the concept for video. So call this first part a very brief "history" lesson of sorts. In film something is shot on film - for those old "music videos" it was mostly 16mm. Keeping in mind MTV was not around and even when it first came into being it was not like it is now, and really "music video" was not a term used. It was more "promotional films" or the like. But the actual format is not my main point - it is that you would take an unexposed roll of film, load it into your camera and shoot. That film was processed at a lab and if it was negative a one light work print was made and sent to an editor. If it was postive the editor held thier breath and hoped they didn't fuck up. When the editing was done, in the case of negative, a negative cut was done and a screening print made. From that the color timing would come into play and than, from the same negative, a release print would be made. Now here come the variables - for something that was mass produced an interneg would be made to save the orginal neg. As video playback became more common the release print would be telecined video and a dupe would be made from that to be used as a duplication master. As technology grew the line between film and video became more blured. Matter of fact a film that I supervised post on was one of the frst to use, at the time, "new" process to allow an editor to cut using an offline system and than dump out and EDL and bring a VHS dump, along with the EDL, to the Neg cutter and they would conform the negative. I was very sceptical at first because film edge number and SMPTE time code are not that same, nor is 24 fps of film vs the inherent telcine addition of frames to conform to NTSC - but I sat down on a D/Vision system and, after ingesting all the telecined dailies that were on u-matic, I edited and dumped out the EDL and brought a VHS dump over to them. That process, known as match back or frame matching, became very commonplace and now, taking this all a step further, the need for EDL's or the use of "offline" are things most newbies don't bother with due to the current world of digital.

So what does any of this have to with " VHS Transfers & Quality"? A lot - because for video the process starts off mostly the same. Something is shot but instead of going to film it was laid down on video tape of some sort. Keeping in mind that back in the "old days" what was done inside of a TV studio was video, whats done on location was mostly film, shot on 16mm and the process used was the same as I described - except the turn around time was insane. In the old-er days of live TV, in some cases, there was not video tape so a simple process wa sused - point a film camera at a studio montor and film it. Its why some of those old "classic" shows and performances are only out there on a kinescope recording. In the whole process there may be more than a few "masters" - a studio "master", a duplication "master", a viewing "master" and a "sub-master". When you go out and buy a DVD it is not made form *the* master - yes it is a made from an "master", one that was assembled from various soruces - the main feature, the menus, the trailers and even those "extras". But along that path from studio to your hands there are a lot of steps, including the encoding of all material and dumping the final authored DVD to a DLT, transfer to a glass master and lots of quality control going on along the way. It is not simply a dub from some videotape to a stand alone DVD recorder.

This somewhat brings us up to now.

PART 2 - Quality, oh Quality how i knew thee.

First of all when talking about VHS one has to remember it was a more modern consumer format - and of less quality than another consumer format - beta. Studios used Quad tape (2 inch) or 1 inch to record to. Consumers didn't have those maching in their homes - the concept of a home VTR was not part of the equation. U-matic came about later and became a more portable format in the world to television. If you were in the industry or a geek and, had the money, it would not be unusual to have a u-matic deck in your home - with a tuner built in to record over the air broadcasts. When MTV first went on the air they accepted 1 inch and u-matic, betacam was still a new format. Those early MTV videos were being played back and sent out on what we think of now as obsolete gear.

For those still with me the question here is about VHS quality and the current state of things. The issue of quality can be a subjective one and at times it has to be weighed against things like "historical" value. In recent times two events come to my mind - before 2001 most of the industry never would have felt consumer camcorder, cell phones or webcams would be used for mainstream news and most of the "casual viewers" would have been banging their TV sets and calling their local stations to complain about the images in their sets. But September 11, 2001 changed that perception. And again, when the coalition forces were crossing into Baghdad, almost every major worldwide network had someone embedded and broadcast live via a most unlikey source: a cell/sat phone linked to a webcam. Viewes around the glob watched choppy web cam video being streamed live. If a full show of one of the Oakland '81 gigs turned up as shakey handheld super 8 film transfer I think most, but not all, true CVH diehards would be fine with that "quality" due to it's "historical" value.

The term "camera original" or "camera master" used to imply it was the best source and quality - now it could mean it is from a cell phone in dark club. This is what, as someone who does film and video for a living, has to deal with on a daily basis. "Why should we hire a pro when we my brother in laws 7 year son could do that?" With that kind of feeling anymore how can somebody be expected to fully grasp the difference between a basic dub and restortion, or even authoring for a DVD? If they grew up (or are gowing up) in the digital age I don't think they fully can. Hey, for under 100 bucks you can buy an HD camera and with less than one hundred more buy software that will allow you to edit and turn out a DVD. In those terms, yes, "quality" is very much subjective.

So, as AAR.oner pointed out, as as I too had pointed out, the quality of what sabkisscrue/deuce8pro/Matt has done in regaurds to the Van Halen show is fine for what it is. However the arguments made here, and on other forums, by sabkisscrue/deuce8pro/Matt is not that it is that it is not good for what it is - but that it *is* the best. Why? One reason given is the use of a "1 Gen" source from a "master" and second is that thier equpiment does more than creates another dub. From the start, and I still maintain this, that this was not made from the venues "master" as is implied in the sources - it was clearly, at the least, made from a dub of a dub. In the world I live in one does not call a VHS dub a "master" nor does one call a dub to another format from a VHS dub a "1st Gen" dub, no matter what kind of gear you use. So the first step to "quality" is to use correct terms. The "quality" is based on the source - no matter what format it is in. Hw the image go onto that source would be a true "master". In the case of raw footage that would be the original negative/camera master and the final product would be the "edited master" and after that would come a "duplication master" and even a "broadcast master." But, in the professiaonl world, even a dub from a broadcast master would be better than a consumer dub made from a consumer dub of another dub.

Next I would say to be realistic in expectations. In other words back in the day when I was doing tape trading we all basiclly were making dubs. The difference is someone working at Warner Brothers who made a dub was not nessecarly using the same gear the fan who tapped a show in Buffalo would be. Likewise the in house video feed was not using the same gear as the fan who shot the show from the handicapped section with his VHS-C cam corder. These figure into "quality" as well. So, for example, if what you are presenting is a show sourced from a 30 year old hand held VHS camera do not pretend it was shot by professionals, fed through some Quantel sytem and mastered at IVC. It is what it is - don't try to sell anyone on the idea that it is more that what it is.

PART 3 - Oh gear, I dropped a frame

This is where you go "But what about gear?" and I say "I already explained that". Which I did - sort of. Most of the traders are not pro - in other words they are doing this as a hobby, not for money. If you are making money from this you are a bootlegger and we don't take too kindly to your type in these here parts. But seriously - ask yourself very simple qestions - "What do I want out of this? Why am I doing it?" The answer should help to guide you to the best gear for what you want to do. And this is where my little "history lesson" should come into play - 30 years ago the abilty to do what most everyone can do now at home was non-existant. There were no 25 dollar DVD players, 40 dollar ebay DVD recorders, 99 dollar HD cameras and such. Back in the day somebody said they wanted a copy of something and they hit play on one machine and record on another. Those with more money had better gear and other tech heads had TBC's running. And that worked - and frankly that still works for many. The gear may be more advanced but at it's core, and another part of why this thread was created, somebody hits play on one machine and hits record on the other. At anyone can do that...and with most of the gear available today you can do a decent job of it - so if that is all you want to do than that is all you need. Something to playback and something to record on. It is not brain surgery. Although some may still might need to get someone to get that clock to stop flashing at you.

Now if it is resotration you want to do than things become more complicated. Because this is a hobby you need to figure out how much time and effort you want to put into this and than it becomes ingesting into your computer in the best possible method. In the case of old video pulling it is a 4k won't matte rmuch but if it was some old film footage and yo uhad a box with processing power to do it - get it scanned frame by frame at 4k. I have to say I don't know of many, actually none, hobbiests who would lay out that kind of cash to do that or have that kind of high end system at home. In other words there is a relaity check that needs to come into play. Most would pop whatever source tape they have into whatever playback unit they have and capture it to whatever codec is common to their system. These days it is a DV codec and it gets the job done. It it the best for what *you* want to do? I can't tell you that - but I can say that for best result if you are planning on doing a lot of color correction and clean up working at the best resolution works best - meaning uncompresed.

There you have it - that says a lot but probably does not answer any specific questions. And it is for a reason. Some people swear by Kodak film stock, some by Fuji, some AGFA. Some peole swear by JVC gear, some by Sony. Some people swear by Macs, some by Linx, some by Windows. And it goes on and on. I always tell people to look at it and try it and if it looks good to them than it is good for them. here at TDD there are things that are accepted and things that are not - mostly it has to do with quality issues, such as not allowing MP3's or DIVX. As I said - does the gear do what *you* want it to do? If it does cool beans. As awolfoutwest said: "I can sense you video professionals cringing. I cannot afford pro-grade equipment, and have concentrated on doing the best I can with the gear I have." And overall - as oryo pointed out at VHT - "IT'S JUST A HOBBY!" and as AAR.oner said here - "...these are only recordings of concerts -- not the cure for cancer."