How can i digitally restore a film ? ?

Question

i mean i have it on vhs and after i transfer it on dvd with the help of a combo how can i make look better. i mean are there programs and stuff. i wanna make it a criterion at home

Answer 1

You could use some video editing software like Adobe Premiere or Sony's Vegas Pro. They aren't cheap, but help simplify and speed things up for you. There are other freeware programs out there too if you search http://www.download.com for "Video Editing".

You will need a lot of practice to get things to the "Criterion" level. Remember too that for those Criterion DVDs they probably took their original movie frames from a 1080p or higher source and shrunk things down preserving and enhancing color while eliminating dirt and smudges from the original. You'll be going from a low resolution 320×200 up to 720×480. It's harder to make more from less.

Both those software packages can upsample a do a nice job of it. The also give you a lot of other tools for polishing the video up.

Answer 2

You may be able to make a little improvement, but the quality of standard VHS is so poor that little could be done.  You can't put back what was lost in the transfer to VHS.  There are two main problems: sharpness and noise.  Whatever you do to help one makes the other worse, so the options are limited.  You can increase the "appearance" of sharpness, but you will not add any more detail (resolution) to the picture.