Capturing NTSC VHS at 1080i 59.94 fps from S-Video

Does anyone have any suggestions for Blackmagic products that can capture an NTSC VHS signal from S-Video, with a native resolution of 480i 29.97 fps, to 1080i at 59.94 fps without needing to use an S-Video to HDMI upscale converter? I am unsure whether the Intensity Pro 4K, UltraStudio HD Mini or UltraStudio 4K mini can do this, or if it will just capture at the native resolution of the input. Also I'm less concerned with deinterlacing from 29.97 fps interlaced to 59.94 fps progressive, but this could also be done as an option.

I have a very specific archival application, in which I wish to record at a higher-than-native resolution and frame rate. I understand that in most cases, capturing at native resolution or upscaling would suffice. But in my mind, an analog signal should be able to be digitized at any resolution or frame rate, even those higher than the native resolution. Such is the case for capturing a vinyl record, which you could capture at 196 kHz, 24-bit, so why not for video? Because of this, I don't see why an upscale converter would be needed. It just seems like would be applying interpolation filters to enlarge the image, which is not creating any new information, instead of capturing real information from the analog signal at a higher-than-native resolution. In this case it would mostly be capturing more noise, but it would be analog noise from the source and not digitally created noise in post.

Any feedback would would be very helpful. Thank you!

The problem with 'analogue' video is that it has some of the constraints of digital systems. The frame rate is fixed, for NTSC at 29.97 fps so that is effectively its sample rate in the time domain. Also the vertical resolution is fixed at 525 lines so that is the sample rate in the vertical domain. The only part that is more analogue is the horizontal resolution but to make this at a lot higher than the vertical resolution is. I think, pointless. Film is more analogue in the spatial sense but is still limited in the time domain by the frame rate.

Thank you for your reply, Richard.
I definitely agree that film is more "analog" than video.
However for video, who's to say that each of the 483 visible vertical lines (of the 525) corresponds exactly to one row of pixels? Is the intensity of each scan line uniform in the vertical direction? While the lines tend to blend together, the edges of each analog scan line cannot have infinite sharpness as they would if they were digital, can they? I realize this may be splitting hairs, but in theory it seems to me there should still be information to be captured vertically for analog scan lines (even if not useful). I think this is especially true when broadcast from low-fi magnetic tape such as VHS.
Regarding frame rate, I agree that sampling higher than 29.97 fps may not be useful if the entire frame refreshes evenly and instantaneously, which I believe occurs. This point seems clearer for film though, as it is progressive.

Just focusing on resolution alone, does anyone know if the BM Intensity Pro 4K, UltraStudio HD Mini or UltraStudio 4K mini can capture the 480 (or 483) analog scan lines at any vertical resolution higher than 480 (or 483) without upscaling?

who's to say that each of the 483 visible vertical lines (of the 525) corresponds exactly to one row of pixels?

My guess would be the NTSC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC#Line ... fresh_rate

Good Luck

That's not exactly the way it works. To me, the right way to go would not be to try to uprez the video during the capture, but instead just capture it at the exact same resolution at which it was made. 720x480 should be just fine. (Technically, VHS can't really reproduce even 200 lines, but a lot of sources claim it can do 240 lines.)

I would capture it at 720x480 interlaced, 29.97fps, and preferably use a VHS deck with a TBC like a JVC BR-S822 (which is arguably the best VHS deck ever made). You can find them affordably on eBay if you look around; it was originally north of $9000 in the early 1990s. The TBC will stabilize the signal, which will help keep the capture clean. Otherwise, the moment the VHS deck encounters a glitch, the capture may stall or corrupt the signal for several seconds. Slow-speed VHS tapes -- LP or EP -- are tougher because the RF signal is lower and the tapes are flakier.

Once you've captured a decent file, then you can worry about how and when to uprez it if you need to use it in an HD show or something. Superscale should be able to subjectively sharpen the image, and you can use NR to taste if there's noise or any similar issues. The new de-interlacer in Resolve 17 should complete the process and yield the best possible 1080p HD version (albeit at 29.97). If you needed to convert to 23.98, then Optical Flow+Speed Warp might be able to do a decent job, depending on content.

Thanks for the reply, Marc.
I'm one step ahead of you. I already have a similar TBC VCR (JVC HR-S9911U), and also 15 years' experience digitizing VHS tapes. What you're saying is correct about stabilization, and sometimes an additional external TBC and color corrector may also be needed. Typically I capture at 480i, 29.97 fps using a lossless codec with a Canopus ADVC110, and I've always assumed this would be sufficient. However I've recently grown more curious to explore if the ADC end can be upgraded at all. In theory I think it could, but since it is not standard practice, I'm not certain without discussing with a video engineer, or maybe an erudite member of this forum (wink wink). Also I'm familiar with digital upscaling methods, but this can always be done and it doesn't create any new information, whereas oversampling at capture could gain information but can only be done once: at point of capture.

Does anyone have experience using the BMD Intensity Pro 4K, UltraStudio HD Mini or UltraStudio 4K mini? I'd be curious to know if they only capture at native resolution or if they can do higher without digital upscaling. My guess is they'd only capture 480i at 480i, but I'm interested to know others' experience with these products before I commit to buy and try. Thanks again.

Teranex would be a unit for upscaling.

Upconverting NTSC is why I'm purchasing a Teranex AV - $1695.

Yes, I know there's a BMD Updowncross HD Converter available - $155
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... /W-CONM-28

Plus the Mini Converter Analog to SDI - $195
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... /W-CONM-00

. . . but I don't know what the future holds so I'd rather just cover my bases with on purchase. Of course, I know I can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear but the results I have seen are adequate for my needs.

I don't think the Teranex AV has analog inputs.

Better off with a SD broadcast grade synchronizer, Leitch 575, x75, AJA FS1, Grass Valley 8960 or 8964. The most important stage is the A to D.

Good Luck.

Thank you to Howard and the others for the upscaling converter suggestions. In principle, I think it would be more ideal to capture at a higher horizontal resolution, then upscale the vertical resolution digitally. In any case I wanted to elaborate on this point and a few earlier ones with an update, my new questions in bold:

Richard is correct on his earlier points, but it took me seeing NTSC signal waveforms to understand why, as in this article: https://www.syscompdesign.com/wp-conten ... eforms.pdf

I realized that unlike film, video is a signal involving color (chroma) and intensity (luma) that needs decoded line-by-line and synchronized vertically, horizontally, and temporally. As a result, the height of each line can in fact be represented by a single pixel, but the horizontal resolution of each line is what is analog and technically infinite. As a result and as Richard mentioned, you can increase the horizontal capture resolution of each line, but not the vertical resolution. In this case, I'm thinking it would be useful to find a way to capture at an unconventional resolution like 3840x480i, 29.97 fps, digitally deinterlace and resample to 59.94 fps, and then digitally upscale the vertical resolution from 480 to 2160 pixels (perhaps using a method similar to the one Marc suggested). Or for HD, capture at 1920x480i, 29.97 fps, then deinterlace, resample to 59.94 fps, and upscale the vertical resolution to 1080 px. The only trick is finding a capture card that can capture at either 3840x480i or 1920x480i from an SD input. Can anything BMD offers do this?

In addition to capturing at a higher horizontal resolution, the other analog components of the NTSC signal that would need digitized are the luminance and chrominance (including saturation and hue) of each pixel. That would mean the capture card should have as high of a color bit depth and as little chroma subsampling as possible. I'm impressed to see BMD's Intensity Pro 4K capable of capturing uncompressed at 10-bit, 4:4:4 color (no chroma subsampling). That should be good enough for most archival purposes. I have in fact noticed color reproduction and dynamic range to vary across different capture cards. The only thing discouraging me from trying the Intensity Pro 4K are some negative online reviews, but there are only a couple. Has anyone used the Intensity Pro to comment on its SD capture quality?

Thanks again, and I welcome any replies. My guess is that BMD offers cards capable of capturing at only 640 pixels of horizontal resolution, but it's still worth an ask. If not then at this rate, I may as well try capturing the waveform data directly using the method in the above article, sampling at a high sampling rate. Although, I'd need to write my own script to decode the waveforms at my desired horizontal and resolution and color depth and then synchronize them into video.

I'm actually transferring vhs tapes digitally using the intensity shuttle, a snell and wilcox time base corrector, and a teranex in conjunction with the bnc black magic analogue to digital converters. I have tested converting laser disk to 4k and simple sd conversions. I can't say that the upscale to 4k was better than the sd versions with great certainty. I did realize that the amount of space that would be required for the hundreds of tapes at 4k wouldn't work out. I think the davinci superscale feature works very well but haven't done side by side tests of teranex upscale vs superscale.

The assumption that the limitations of composite image capture are imposed by a lack of depth or granularity is the mistaken premise. 270mbps, SD SDI capture, is magnitudes above whatever Nyquist threshhold demanded of VHS.

Good Luck

Well, for my part I just purchased a Teranex AV with the intent of trying my hand at upscaling a library of NTSC tapes mastered on DVCPro 25. My edit deck, an AJ-D850 deck with optional SDI card installed, should do the trick and since the deliverable is YouTube, I'll be delighted if I can make 720p look good. Especially considering half the world watches on phones or tablets! Note; I'm actually going to try for 1080p30 and will settle for whatever I get in hopes it looks decent. I'm planning on snagging a Teranex Analog to SDI Mini ($495) for the purpose of capturing off Betacam SP, S-VHS, and Hi-8 decks in the edit bay rack (along with a For.A TBC) because only God knows what the future holds but I believe the Boy Scouts have it right . . . Be Prepared! Anyway, the added capability of the analog to SDI converter strikes me as a sound investment for very little money.

Further thoughts are most welcome!

720p might be a sweet spot with good deinterlacing. You can keep the temporal resolution and get square pixels.

I think capturing in 525i apple pro res HQ allows you capture the full reference quality of every tape. You can super scale with davinci resolve later if necessary. If you have a very large library, these large resolution formats will fill hard drives very quickly. I'm not sure if anything is gained upscaling with the teranax initially. I use a terranex but i don't actually use it for upscaling at this time.

Super Scale within DaVinci requires a render pass vs. realtime with Teranex? Dunno, novice user. Also, no matter what, it's going to go into Resolve anyway, hmmm. I already bought the Teranex AV so I guess I'll get the opportunity to try the workflow both ways. May be a while but I'll try to report back.

Uli Plank, it's now been three years. Hope you are doing well since the pandemic post. Have you made any progress using your technique?

Yeah, I'm fine thanks, hope you too.
I have only been digitising Hi-8 tapes, which works pretty well in a D-8 machine I bought second-hand. And then, I'm in PAL country, but it should work the same for NTSC.
Since this discussion is about VHS, I'd definitely suggest getting a Time Base Corrector. If you can't rent one, you can buy them in the bay and sell again once you're finished.
For upscaling, DR does a pretty decent job with it's neural de-interlacer and Superscale. But after several rounds of improvement, Topaz' VEAI is a bit better.

Thanks Uli Plankfor the update.
I take it that you are not capturing at significantly higher resolutions than the original? Just in post with Topaz or Davinci. I've been using a really nice Snell and Wilcox time base corrector. I was very fortunate to get one years ago for the hundreds of tapes I'm still transferring. By the way, have you heard anything from Colin Barrett? He used to post before 2018 and had really great information on transferring but I can't find any recent posts from him.

OK, I'm going to show my EXTREME Newbie status here, but can I assume the S-Video being referred to in this set of posts will be the same "format" from a Canon Camcorder with S-Video out as with this originator's VHS deck? I have some tapes from my daughters graduation from her Bachelors and Masters Degrees as well as the Corner Stone Ceremony for the Oriental Institute (University of Chicago) that seriously need to be put on a disc for historic purposes. I've been fighting dropped frames and I'm suspecting I have the capture settings set wrong, i.e. trying to capture 1080P from a 480i input.

OK, I'm going to show my EXTREME Newbie status here, but can I assume the S-Video being referred to in this set of posts will be the same "format" from a Canon Camcorder with S-Video out as with this originator's VHS deck? I have some tapes from my daughters graduation from her Bachelors and Masters Degrees as well as the Corner Stone Ceremony for the Oriental Institute (University of Chicago) that seriously need to be put on a disc for historic purposes. I've been fighting dropped frames and I'm suspecting I have the capture settings set wrong, i.e. trying to capture 1080P from a 480i input.

Capture at the standard that it was shot in. Up-rez in Resolve when editing into a 1080P timeline.
Keep in mind that analogue video is inherently unstable so if the recording is not good enough you may get dropouts and unstable video. If the camcorder is digital, find a way to capture digitally as going to S-VHS from digital is a huge quality loss!