I am working on some 60+ year old home movies, which have been converted now to a digital format. Since they are so old, some are too dark and some are too light, contrast faded, etc. While there is Color Correction functionality in Video Studio, this impacts the entire clip. Unless I break the movie (1+ hours each) into small parts, then the entire clip is adjusted. Is there some software that some one could recommend, that does batch remastering, that does not cost a fortune, and does not require a super computer?
Thanks
Digital Remastering
Moderator: Ken Berry
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Terry-G
I have done some 8mm from the 30s and 40s and I know that I had the tendency to want to preserve every frame, and that is what you have done with the original conversion to digital. Save the original conversion as a family heirloom and make an edited DVD to show to everyone.
So, yes you need to break the movie down into small clips, cut out the really bad stuff and then use the color corrections that are need for each clip. This is a lot of work of course, but necessary. I also found a few clips that had great pictures, but were only a few seconds long. I was able to use slow-motion to stretch these out.
The fun part was finding period music for the background. Good Luck.
So, yes you need to break the movie down into small clips, cut out the really bad stuff and then use the color corrections that are need for each clip. This is a lot of work of course, but necessary. I also found a few clips that had great pictures, but were only a few seconds long. I was able to use slow-motion to stretch these out.
The fun part was finding period music for the background. Good Luck.
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Ken Berry
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Not sure if you have missed this, but the Video Filters in VS9 at least can be customised to vary specific properties time and again within a clip. (can't recall about VS 8 or 7 but think they worked the same in at least VS8). I have in fact just done one clip, from an old 8mm analogue tape, where the photographer (not me) kept playing with the camera's white balance, so that some parts seems excessively dark and others excessively light. I could of course have chopped them into smaller pieces, but IMHO this would have destroyed the continuous actions being portrayed (walking around a beautiful national park in Brazil). But the Brightness filter allowed me to vary not only the light intensity (brightness) up or down, but also the contrast and, importantly, the gamma for the various parts of the one clip that needed fixing.
Once you have selected the filter and dragged it to the relevant clip in the timeline, the area to the left of the preview screen changes, and includes a button to 'customise filter'. Click on that. You are then presented with another little preview screen, with your video in it, and under that a calibrated scale for the entire time-length of that clip. There is a little red diamond at the left hand end and a clear diamond at the right hand end. The draggable scales for Brightness, Contrast and Gamma are below that. You simply drag the pointer on the calibrated time scale to a point where you need to adjust the lightness or darkness etc of the clip.Then above the scale, there is a little button with a + sign in it. If you click on that, then it inserts another little diamond into the time scale. With that highlighted by your mouse, you then drag the Brightness, Contrast and/or Gamma scales to what shows the best combination in the preview screen. Then you move on in your video until you need to go back to the original brightness/contrast/gamma level or else insert a new variation, click on the + sign button again, highlight the new diamond which appears, and again adjust the brightness/contrast/ gamma levels. And so on throughout the clip. Then click on OK and all the changes are applied to the clip in the main timeline. Most of the other video filters are similarly adjustable.
It is still a tedious job, and it takes a bit of practice to get the points in the video just right with the small controls which are provided, but it sure beats cutting the whole thing up into small bits just to adjust the characteristics of that one bit!
Once you have selected the filter and dragged it to the relevant clip in the timeline, the area to the left of the preview screen changes, and includes a button to 'customise filter'. Click on that. You are then presented with another little preview screen, with your video in it, and under that a calibrated scale for the entire time-length of that clip. There is a little red diamond at the left hand end and a clear diamond at the right hand end. The draggable scales for Brightness, Contrast and Gamma are below that. You simply drag the pointer on the calibrated time scale to a point where you need to adjust the lightness or darkness etc of the clip.Then above the scale, there is a little button with a + sign in it. If you click on that, then it inserts another little diamond into the time scale. With that highlighted by your mouse, you then drag the Brightness, Contrast and/or Gamma scales to what shows the best combination in the preview screen. Then you move on in your video until you need to go back to the original brightness/contrast/gamma level or else insert a new variation, click on the + sign button again, highlight the new diamond which appears, and again adjust the brightness/contrast/ gamma levels. And so on throughout the clip. Then click on OK and all the changes are applied to the clip in the main timeline. Most of the other video filters are similarly adjustable.
It is still a tedious job, and it takes a bit of practice to get the points in the video just right with the small controls which are provided, but it sure beats cutting the whole thing up into small bits just to adjust the characteristics of that one bit!
Ken Berry
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Terry-G
Thanks Ken, now I understand the Customize Filter a lot better.
But, it looks like to me that when you use the Brightness & Contrast Customize Filter and add several red diamonds along the clip and adjust the brightness of each part of the clip, VS9 will blend these adjustments together as the clip plays. That may be good for a continues scene, but when your long clip cuts to a new scene you don’t want the blending that VS9 does, you want the brightness adjustment to change precisely where the new scene starts, so that is when you need to chop the long clip into smaller parts so VS9 will not do the auto blending.
And, I hate that little preview screen.
But, it looks like to me that when you use the Brightness & Contrast Customize Filter and add several red diamonds along the clip and adjust the brightness of each part of the clip, VS9 will blend these adjustments together as the clip plays. That may be good for a continues scene, but when your long clip cuts to a new scene you don’t want the blending that VS9 does, you want the brightness adjustment to change precisely where the new scene starts, so that is when you need to chop the long clip into smaller parts so VS9 will not do the auto blending.
And, I hate that little preview screen.