Posted by Richard Crowley on 07/02/07 19:35

"Ubertrout" <Ubtertrout@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1183403155.624280.291470@c77g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 2, 10:24 am, "Richard Crowley" <rcrow...@xp7rt.net> wrote:
>> "Ubertrout" wrote ...
>>
>> > Hey all...I posted a bit ago about transferring Umatic to DVD. Short
>> > story long, I ended up talking to the producers and they used a
>> > contractor to duplicate the series. All fine and well.
>>
>> > The difficulty is that the contractor used the VHS copies, and not the
>> > Umatic originals. And they seem to have just done a direct stream
>> > copy (albeit using good machines, so sync is fine). I also have some
>> > home movies that I copied to DVD from VHS using a Panasonic Unit, but
>> > the video quality is abysmal there too (problem there too was the
>> > source). Is there a PC program I could use to easily clean up the
>> > image quality? Money is less a concern than convenience, although if
>> > Premiere Elements can do it well, all the better. Thanks for your
>> > help in advance.
>>
>> Exactly what image quality issues do you want to "clean up"?
>> Given the source and methods you outlined, I wouldn't have
>> very great expectations for significant improvement. :-(
>
> Yeah...there was static, and generally bad picture quality for large
> parts of it. And they cut out the credits, which was half the reason
> I wanted it. Alas, given the less-than-ideal quality of communication
> with the production company, I'm neither surprised nor disposed to try
> to go at it again on this approach - the fact that I hadn't heard from
> them in months is what led me to try to figure out how to do this on
> my own. I'm sorry your very helpful suggestions came to naught (but
> not for lack of trying - I specifically asked them if they could make
> the copies off the U-matic originals).
>
> Think there's anything left I can do?

Not technically, but is this something of historic importance,
or something with cult popularity, or somesuch? Maybe you
could organize a more formal request for quality dubs that they
would take seriously enough to go the original U-3/4 tapes.

[Back to original message]