Lost Video Island

[thefilmchick]

I'm working on a video of Nowhere Man, from the mid-'90s, prior to HDTV, and with crummy quality footage. Is there any magic fix to this in Vegas? The idea is too good to just give it up wholesale, so if there is any way to improve the look of the footage (though obviously not the footage itself), I'd appreciate any tips. Thanks!
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.

[Im1oftheOceanic6]

In what way is the footage poor quality?

If your footage is washed out, I'd suggest using HSL adjust and max saturation.

For pixilated clips, I don't really know any good fixes. You could maybe try Sharpen. (My sony vegas is having an issue, so I can't test that to see if it'd work.)

If most of the footage is poor quality, then perhaps consider using the quality to your advantage and making it an effect. Would your song and video idea fit with doing the video in the style of an old film?

Macaila

[thefilmchick]

Hey Macaila!

Already did the old-film trick with the vid in waiting, so I can't repeat that. I figured out a Levels adjustment that seems to punch it up somewhat, though. I had some artifacting, and a lot of murkiness, particularly in dark clips, but there were some that were too good not to use.

Thanks for the ideas, too.
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.

[soapbubbles511]

I deal with this on a regular basis. My first fandom was a soap which only started airing in HD within the past few years and anything more than a few years older than that is all from people's old VHS tapes

There's only so much you can do and they're never going to look crisp but upping the contrast usually helps... this may sound odd but I usually boost the saturation and then add 25-50% desaturation... but old clips tend to be a bit washed out but when you boost the saturation it can pull out some weird colors which desaturating some will help... things like gradient maps and/or color curves can be used to darken the dark areas further and can also smooth over some pixelation...

if there are any parts that would make sense to be in black and white do that... you have a lot more freedom to play with brightness and contrast when you don't have to worry about colors turning weird

you can try some of the color corrector effects if the clips are too yellow or too blue or not red enough or whatever

cropping to a widescreen size can help to crop off the top and bottom edges which can tend to get static-y and weird on video ripped from VHS

dark shots can be pretty hopeless but trying to pick bits that you can turn up the contrast a lot without it turning into a dark pixelated blob of nothing
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[thefilmchick]

Thanks, Sarah! I'll keep yours and Macaila's tips in mind if I wind up vidding Nowhere Man or Due South again -- both are from the mid-'90s and so both have the same Major Issues in terms of footage quality.
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.