more basic questions

1. Is there a way to load the render queue with several jobs from different projects? I have 3 projects saved each are very long and large. They will take in the 3 hour range to render each of them. Is there a way to put all of them in the render queue and let them all render while I am sleeping? Right now they are all in their render queue in their individual saved projects, so only the open project will render.

2. Is there any worry about using the computer when I am rendering? Like in the old days you always had to worry about buffer under run errors. Does something like that go on now? or using my computer while I am rendering will just slow things down but there is no worry about a failed render?

3.I am editing converted 1980's vhs video that is in MP4 format. Almost all of the videos are a little grainy and noisy. Is there a filter or another method to clean up a video in the free version of resolve?

4. Half of the videos I am working with have very bad color (green tint or red tint). The A with a circle in it in the color tab does an ok job at fixing it, but never perfect. Fixing the color is very hard, but I have fumbled around with the color wheels and gotten some close to perfect. Any tips on working with color?

1. Yes. (Go for the free training by BM, page 460 in the DaVinci-Resolve-18-Editors-Guide.pdf.)
2. Never had an issue with that, but I'm using Apple silicon.
3. Neatvideo. But I'd rather spend the money on the Studio version.
4. Yes. (Go for the free training by BM, DaVinci-Resolve-18-Colorist-Guide.pdf.)

Link: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... e/training

1. Is there a way to load the render queue with several jobs from different projects? I have 3 projects saved each are very long and large. They will take in the 3 hour range to render each of them. Is there a way to put all of them in the render queue and let them all render while I am sleeping? Right now they are all in their render queue in their individual saved projects, so only the open project will render.

Yeah, in the Options ("3-dot") menu, choose ALL PROJECTS and it will show you all projects in that particular database that need to be rendered. This is covered in the manual.

2. Is there any worry about using the computer when I am rendering? Like in the old days you always had to worry about buffer under run errors. Does something like that go on now? or using my computer while I am rendering will just slow things down but there is no worry about a failed render?

I would not touch the computer and I'd stay far away from it while rendering. Rendering is a system-intensive process, so anything you do in the background will tend to rob computer cycles and potentially cause slowdowns. About the only thing I will do is file copying / file uploading in the background, which I don't think has much effect. I wouldn't do anything more than that.

3.I am editing converted 1980's vhs video that is in MP4 format. Almost all of the videos are a little grainy and noisy. Is there a filter or another method to clean up a video in the free version of resolve?

Free version? No. You can use the built-in noise reduction (several different methods) in Resolve Studio. You could buy something like Neat Video noise reduction, but it's almost expensive as Resolve Studio itself.

4. Half of the videos I am working with have very bad color (green tint or red tint). The A with a circle in it in the color tab does an ok job at fixing it, but never perfect. Fixing the color is very hard, but I have fumbled around with the color wheels and gotten some close to perfect. Any tips on working with color?

Learn to color correct -- there's a zillion tutorials out there, including several basic free ones on Blackmagic's own training site:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... e/training

Thankyou for the direction and answers.

more questions

5. I put clips together in a video and rendered it (.MOV file). Somehow I put 30 seconds of black screen in the beginning of the movie. I see that I can open the MOV file in Resolve and cut the 30 seconds of black, but then I have to re-render it. Is there an easier way to cut it? or do I just have to go through the render process again?

Answering your questions in order!

1. You sure can, plenty of ino on the internet if you google or look into the training material provided by Blackmagic, specifically the editors guide.
2. I have never had an issue with that, but I've only used BM software on Apple hardware.
3. Take a look at Neatvideo, a lot of people speak highly. Also a company called Topaz Labs.
4. Again there is a tonne of info online, also a lot provided by blackmagic. They even had a colourist guide, give that a whirl!

You probably left an empty space at the beginning. You can use Shutter Encoder (free) to cut that off quickly, but if you rendered into a GOP codec (like H.264/265) it may not be precise. If you need precision, open your project again, correct it and render.

more questions

6. Everything I am working with is in MP4 format. When I am done and I render I just used what was in the render screen, quicktime .mov. Is there a positive or negative to using .mov? say as opposed to keeping it in MP4?

Both are just containers. It all depends on what you put inside. MOV can hold more than 50 different codecs, MP4 not so many. A codec can be very high quality and needing much space or very compressed and not so great.
For distribution, like showing on TV, MP4 is the most compatible. But if you need to use it for further work on it, MOV is more flexible and has more reliable timecode.

Thank you for the information.

7. I am starting to have storage issues. I am trying to get a grasp on exactly what I need. If I convert a high school football game it will be around 60GB. After I edit it and render it now its another file that's at least 60GB. In theory I could delete the original file, but I am learning how to edit and I want to be able to go back an use the new things I may learn to re edit and re-render.
I don't know how many hours of converted VHS tapes I will have but my guess is maybe 200 hours. somewhere along the line I will set a limit on what I do and save.

I think I will have no choice but to get a very large external drive. One in the 10-15 TB range. Is there a trusted brand or specific drive that stands out?

If I am going to archive some of these videos, it seems like an SSD external drive would be the way to go. Is there a brand that stands out for this?

So now I am in at least $500 for drives.

Did you already check Media Management and it's trim function?

A few hints by Marc Wielage before you go that route:

"Some Media Management tips that work for the way we use Resolve:

1) limit your session to just the files actually used in the session (that is, make sure no unnecessary files are sitting in bins)

2) Render-in-Place all H.264, JPG, TIFF, and PNG graphics clips to ProRes or DNxHR so that now the clips have embedded timecode and (preferably) unique file names

3) for camera clips with embedded audio, my opinion is you're better off if you strip the sound out as a WAV file that lives in the session

4) be aware that Titles can be a bit dodgy and don't always survive the changeover with Media Management. (I would say the same thing with Fusion sequences, which I would render out and treat as a separate transcoded element.)

The simpler you make your session, the better the potential for successful Media Management. The moment you have a filename clash or a timecode conflict, it can fail."

7. 10 years ago I moved my digital camcorder videos from the camcorder tape to my computer. The files are in an AVI format. I can't put the videos in the media pool or on the timeline of resolve. I don't get an error message, the videos just don't go in.

So I guess I have to convert the avi videos to another format?

What would be the preferred file type?
What would be the preferred program to convert the video?
I will loose some quality in the conversion?

Well, AVI is just another container, you need to tell us what is inside (the codec). Probably some flavor of DV or MPEG2.
First thing you could try is a re-wrap into MOV without changing the codec. That’s fast and lossless.
You can do that with Shutter Encoder (donationware).
If that doesn’t work, convert to ProRes 422 HQ. Needs more space, but is visually lossless.

It looks like my codec for video is DV video (DV )

my audio codec is PCM S16LE (s161)

Does that change anything?

Will shutter encoder work for this? I don't want to buy it if it wont work.

Shutter encoder is free. However; the auther/writer does appreciate donations

re wrapping it to a mov worked.

Thank You.

8.
When I capture an old VHS tape I deinterlace it and switch the framerate from 29.97 to 59.94. I am not sure why I do this, but I think it has something to do the the deinterlace process.

the DV video clips I have are not interlaced and run at 29.97.

Does switching the frame rate when I render in Reslove get me anything (except larger files)?

How do you know for sure they are not interlaced? If they are truly progressive, you don’t loose anything leaving them at 29.97. But if they are, de-interlacing into twice the fps will preserve the temporal resolution.

1. Is there a way to load the render queue with several jobs from different projects? I have 3 projects saved each are very long and large. They will take in the 3 hour range to render each of them.

Yes, option ("3-dot menu") in the render queue, "Show All Projects." All covered in the manual.

2. Is there any worry about using the computer when I am rendering? Like in the old days you always had to worry about buffer under run errors.

My opinion: don't touch the computer during a render. Renders are very stressful and use just about every resource on the machine. If you have a very beefy machine, you can do "little" things in the background like copying files or writing a text message. I wouldn't do anything else. Whatever you do, do not play any audio or video file (even in a browser). Better yet, do all that stuff on a separate machine.

3.I am editing converted 1980's vhs video that is in MP4 format. Almost all of the videos are a little grainy and noisy. Is there a filter or another method to clean up a video in the free version of resolve?

Yes, quite a few, plus optional ones you can buy, like Topaz or Neat Video. None of them can turn manure into shinola, but in some cases, it at least can be improved. H.264 formats are ugly and "stomped on," so the problem is that most of the damage was done when those VHS tapes were digitized.

4. Half of the videos I am working with have very bad color (green tint or red tint). The A with a circle in it in the color tab does an ok job at fixing it, but never perfect. Fixing the color is very hard, but I have fumbled around with the color wheels and gotten some close to perfect. Any tips on working with color?

Learn to color-correct and how to use scopes, and you can do a much better job yourself. It is hard initially, but it gets easier over time, after a lot of practice.

My opinion: don't touch the computer during a render. Renders are very stressful and use just about every resource on the machine. If you have a very beefy machine, you can do "little" things in the background like copying files or writing a text message. I wouldn't do anything else. Whatever you do, do not play any audio or video file (even in a browser). Better yet, do all that stuff on a separate machine.

+100%. i used to warn my students about using their pc / mac for doing anything else during a render and often had them complain; all i did was a bit of surfing, perhaps watched a youtube, etc., etc.,
leave well alone - i always try to arrange my renders for overnight if they're going to take more than an hour..

I think I will have no choice but to get a very large external drive. One in the 10-15 TB range. Is there a trusted brand or specific drive that stands out?

If I am going to archive some of these videos, it seems like an SSD external drive would be the way to go. Is there a brand that stands out for this?

So now I am in at least $500 for drives.

The one on sale. There are only three HDD makers left. Seagate,WD and Toshiba. I don't think Toshiba makes consumer external drives. There isn't a huge difference between the other two. Just watch the USB type. Get at least USB3.0. OTOH don't pay a lot extra for USB3.2.

I wouldn't use SSD for cold storage. The things like being powered up every now and again.

HDDs like to rotate every now and then.

How do you know for sure they are not interlaced? If they are truly progressive, you don’t loose anything leaving them at 29.97. But if they are, de-interlacing into twice the fps will preserve the temporal resolution.

You are right, I don't know they are not interlaced. In fact they probably are. With capturing a VHS tape you could see the lines of the interlace. These DV tapes look very good, with no lines, but they are probably interlaced.

I have rendered both in 29 and 59 and see no difference except file size. I'm not sure what's going on, but most of the times I cant switch the FPS any way. I'll keep the DV video at 29.97.

Thank you.

I think I will have no choice but to get a very large external drive. One in the 10-15 TB range. Is there a trusted brand or specific drive that stands out?

If I am going to archive some of these videos, it seems like an SSD external drive would be the way to go. Is there a brand that stands out for this?

So now I am in at least $500 for drives.

The one on sale. There are only three HDD makers left. Seagate,WD and Toshiba. I don't think Toshiba makes consumer external drives. There isn't a huge difference between the other two. Just watch the USB type. Get at least USB3.0. OTOH don't pay a lot extra for USB3.2.

I wouldn't use SSD for cold storage. The things like being powered up every now and again.

Thanks. I got to pull the trigger on some storage soon. I am doing a lot of work and will have a ton of videos. I feel like a 2 or 4 bay raid enclosure that will back up and duplicate the stored information is in order.
or
Do you thing that is over kill? (I have 3 hard drives in my computer, 3 external hard drives one of the drives are more the 10 years old and I have never had a unrecoverable hard drive failure)

How are people cold storing their stuff?

Two bay NAS is likely more pain than gain. Even four only gives you one spare drive for protection. A two bay is for larger size or for speed. Not for safety.

If you're going to do it then go up to six with two parity drives. This way if two drives fail you're still okay.

The other option is just a bunch of copies spread out. One large external drive at home. One in the garage. One stored at a friends house. One in a safety deposit box. The odds they all go bad is pretty low. It also protects you in case of theft or a house fire. Keeping those copies off line also protects against viruses/malware.

You need to weigh the value of the files vs the cost and effort.

Even with spares, a NAS can still go down if the controller fails.
I second the idea of KISS, so several simple drives in separate places.

Regarding interlace:
VHS was always interlaced for original recordings. In DV some cameras offered the option to record progressive.

I got to pull the trigger on some storage soon. I am doing a lot of work and will have a ton of videos. I feel like a 2 or 4 bay raid enclosure that will back up and duplicate the stored information is in order.
or
Do you thing that is over kill? (I have 3 hard drives in my computer, 3 external hard drives one of the drives are more the 10 years old and I have never had a unrecoverable hard drive failure)

How are people cold storing their stuff?

If you never had unrecoverable hard drive failure consider yourself extremely lucky exception to the rule of "he won lottery ... three times in a row" kind. All hard drives fail, only question is how soon how often.

I'm using Synology NAS for backups and strongly recommend it to everyone that cares about their data (look for models that support Synology Hybrid RAID and at least 5 bays). Synology can also automatically backup its content to cloud.

Also, disk model used for NAS matters as much as which NAS is used. If you search on YouTube there is a guy that compares various models based on statistics from Backblaze. I use Seagate Exos X16 in 16TB capacity.

I switched to Synology from Drobo's crap and it works really well. But I'd still keep duplicates on single storage devices in another location if you value your data and/or your income depends on it.

I switched to Synology from Drobo's crap and it works really well.

Yes, I too went to Synology as soon as I could afford it after being fed up with Drobo.

But I'd still keep duplicates on single storage devices in another location if you value your data and/or your income depends on it.

Agreed. Hence my comment that Synology can do automatic backup to cloud. My philosophy is following:

My PC has RAID of local disks so if one of them dies I can continue working without any delay.

PC gets "backed up" to NAS in practically real time through Synology "sync" (Drive Client) so I can (relatively) quickly recover in the case whole machine gets foobared or if I need to go back in time.

Synology can do backup of what is on it to cloud as fallback location.

question 9

20 years ago I used a dvd/vcr combo to capture vhs tapes to dvd.

Those files are in VOB file format. (people call them dvd format)

How do I deal with those?

Can shutter encoder help me with that?

Yes. Again, try to re-wrap to MOV.

Yes. Again, try to re-wrap to MOV.

these are different then the DV video camera tapes.

the DVD format when opened has a video TS folder then inside looks like this. (there are several files of these types)

VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB

it's several files used to get it to play, i think?

Can I put 6 files into Shutter encoder and re-wrap it?

edit.
I am trying to re-wrap it. I put all of the files in Shutter Encoder. Its moving very slow. Maybe I should just put the VOB files in the encoder?

edit 2
I re-wrapped it and ended up with 4 MOV files from the 4 VOB files. My regular media players could not play the files, but resolve did load and recognize them as video files. They play in resolve, but I get a "media offline" error that flashes up when the video is playing.

question 9 20 years ago I used a dvd/vcr combo to capture vhs tapes to dvd. Those files are in VOB file format. (people call them dvd format) How do I deal with those?

You will need a 3rd party program like Wondershare UniConverter (Mac & Windows) to convert the files to something that Resolve / Premiere / FCPX / etc. can read. VOBs are just for DVDs. UniConverter is pretty bullet-proof, cheap, and easy to use.

I didn't do any VOBs in a while, and they did work re-wrapped up to DR 17. But unfortunately you are right, in 18 (and 19 too) they are flashing "media offline", like it has been reported for some other codecs. Interestingly, QT Player is just playing them fine.
So, you need to convert to a mezzanine codec, like Cineform, DNxHR, or ProRes, and Shutter Encoder can do that. Don't use a GOP codec to avoid degradation.
BTW, Topaz Video AI can open the VOBs and is pretty good at enhancing them, like de-interlacing and upscaling.

BTW, Topaz Video AI can open the VOBs and is pretty good at enhancing them, like de-interlacing and upscaling.

Ah, I didn't even try Topaz -- that's a good suggestion.

I also see that DVD Decrypter will work and I have used that in the past.
In hindsight the vcr/dvd captures are very lacking. It may be better if I can find the original vhs tapes and recapture them on my current set up. (SVCR with built in TBC)

10.
not sure what is happening and I bet I don't have enough information for someone to help me.

I grabbed a short segment from a large video, edited it and rendered it to a MOV file.
I realized I missed something so I opened the MOV file in resolve and fixed it and re-rendered it.
I still didn't like it so I used resolve and re-re-rendered the MOV file.

when I looked back on the files, every render made the file smaller (file size) and each file displayed smaller when played.

Why did this happen?

I am rendering in H264 MOV

and

The more I look into this I want to make sure I am rendering correctly. I upscale my captures from a VCR to 1440x1080P. should I be rendering to 1440? So far I just used 1080. I put the resolution to 1440x1080 in the render.

Does H264 compress and loose quality every render?

Is there a better option?

Yes, repeated compression to H.264 (or H.265) is degrading your quality.

A better option would be CineForm or DNxHR on a PC, or ProRes on a Mac.

An even better one would be re-editing based on your originals, which is the usual workflow in DR. Remember, it is non-destructive.

Your size of 1440 by 1080 is fine for 4:3 footage. How do you upscale?

I software upscale in OBS. (my capture software)
CineForm is not an option for me, but I do see DNxHR


I would love a critique of my process, especially before I get to far into it. I sort of Forest Gumped my way to where I am now. I am getting an acceptable result. I started with a low bar. I had the goal that the videos would look good on a phone or a small computer window. I do see now that I have videos of relatives and friends that have been dead for 30 plus years and I should try harder to get a better product.

I have a Mitsubishi HS-HD2000U SVHS high digital VCR with a built in TBC and DNR (I don't know what DNR is). I am using S-video cables. My capture "card" is the GV-usb-2 by I/O data. I am on a PC, using OBS studio as the capture software. I software upscale to 1440x1080 and deinterlace with OBS. I am capturing at a video bitrate of 2500KPS, video encoder NVENC H264. I have a Nvidia 1070 GPU. I use Resolve to edit.

What could I be doing better?

– DNR probably means digital noise reduction. I'd keep that off or at minimum, since you have more tools and better control in post.
– If your TBC is delivering stable analog video, you are lucky, not all of those in VHS machines do.
– Now, digitize your sources in their original resolution in DNxHR HQ if OBS does that, or ProRes 422 if that's offered under Windows (it's what I use for archival sources).
– OBS has pretty limited tools for de-interlacing and upscaling. I'd rather do that in DR, just like NR. Its enhanced tools for both of these are better, but slow (Studio only).
To get even better quality needs time and money, but have a look at the demo version of Topaz Video AI, it can do miracles to archival SD.

– DNR probably means digital noise reduction. I'd keep that off or at minimum, since you have more tools and better control in post.
– If your TBC is delivering stable analog video, you are lucky, not all of those in VHS machines do.
– Now, digitize your sources in their original resolution in DNxHR HQ if OBS does that, or ProRes 422 if that's offered under Windows (it's what I use for archival sources).
– OBS has pretty limited tools for de-interlacing and upscaling. I'd rather do that in DR, just like NR. Its enhanced tools for both of these are better, but slow (Studio only).
To get even better quality needs time and money, but have a look at the demo version of Topaz Video AI, it can do miracles to archival SD.

Thank you for the information.
it looks like OBS only has H264. there are 7 presets of H264 in the program, with the last one claiming to be lossless.
I did get a demo version of Topaz video AI. It did let me denoise a 5 second section. I need to look at it a little more.

What is another good capture software I should look at?

DR will upscale during the render? or is it done before that?
How do I deinterlace with DR?

I can get all the other codecs too in OBS (see attached screenshot), but unfortunately only in their lite version.
So, you may need to compare, that high quality H.264 version might look better.

Topaz is not only for denoising, but most of all for de-interlacing and upscaling. Look at this article (sorry, in German, use DeepL for translation):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ee4z2h12we7bg ... I.pdf?dl=0

Settings in OBS:

Bildschirmfoto 2024-04-22 um 11.35.27.png (252.48 KiB) Viewed 1523 times

thanks for that info, over the next week I am going to do some test captures and edits using a couple of programs and see what produces the best or noticeable results. So I am not trying to reinvent the wheel, I just want to confirm some of the things suggested in this post.

Capture a vhs tape at 720x480 to a lossless format or in DNxHR HQ, do not deinterlace.
Edit it, color correct it, etc, (still in 720x480)
render it, upscale and deinterlace it in that process.

When would I noise correct it if I don't use DR? before the edit and render? does it matter.

I'd de-noise after de-interlace, since any good algorithm is looking at neighboring pixels.
But if you decide to use TVAI, it'll take care of de-noising, de-interlacing and upscaling all by itself. Even if de-noising is not as good as NeatVideo (but close), it makes things easy and is actually very good for old analog footage.

With better sources, like 'small' HD in 720p, you have diminishing returns and DR Studio will normally do as well.

If you post a small sample to a cloud service, I can give it a try. Right now, I have to deal with quite a bit of archival.

Thank you. I have been busy on other issues and haven't started to test a better way to capture vhs footage.

I have been playing some footage thru my VCR to a big screen LED tv and I am blown away at how good it looks. The tv's I am using are old 10 to 20 plus years old. I assume the tv's are doing some processing to make the images look better, upscaling?

Is it possible to get a digital capture of a VHS tape and have it look like it looks when I play it from the VCR? or is that just not possible?

You can make it look even better. No TV has the processing power of a decent computer plus AI.