Advice on what filters to use when converting VHS to AVI

This topic has been discussed so many times...

I am in the process of converting my numerous VHS tapes to AVI files. I use a Super VHS recorder to play the videos. (These videos are in the VHS format and are not Super VHS). I use a JVC HR-S8960 which has a Time Base Corrector with Digital Noise Reduction.
My VHS video library consist of VHS videos which were copied from VHS-C cassettes, various cameras with a wide variety of quality were used. I also found some original VHS-C cassettes, which I also recorded now in AVI. It is therefore clear that the quality of the videos vary greatly. The input therefore varies between very bad and relatively OK. (Please see the clips)

My capture card is an AverMedia capture card which I used to capture these videos. I captured with Virtualdub, compressed with Lagarith codec.

The problem that I encountered was that I had to do a lot of editing, just to get the sequence correct and then I also inserted as much as possible of the original VHS-C videos as the initial quality of the VHS-C was better. For example, I made a series for every child way back and then cut out certain scenes that were not applicable to that child. (This was a bad move!!)I am now combining all the scenes of the three children, holidays, etc. into one file/ film per year- heaps of cutting and pasting, adding titles, etc.
I found that the editing was too much for me in Virtualdub, but the problem was that I struggled to open these captured AVI files with many editing programmes, for instance, I usually use Pinnacle, but Pinnacle could not open these files that used the Lagarith codec. So, I used PowerDirector.


http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/352796-Unable-to-load-AVI-files-into-Pinnacle-15-fo...ighlight=avz10


After editing in PowerDirector, I again saved these files as AVI.

I cut a few clips on VD last night, but forgot to compress it. These are the ones that I attach:

Unfortunately, due to space constraints, after editing, I deleted the original files that were captured in Virtualdub.

1. As the quality varies so much, I realize that I cannot use a lot of AviSynth or VD plugins, but would appreciate a comment on one or 2 filters that might just be helpful. I suppose these will probably have to do with VHS artifacts, sharpness, noise and color.
2. Before I save these files as my final AVI's and before encoding them to mpeg2, should I run them through Virtualdub with specific settings?
3. It is difficult to see if there is some distortion in the frames: 4:3 in stead of 5:4

Apologies for the long post
Albie

Attached Files

• 1.1.avi (23.89 MB)
• 3 (1).avi (35.83 MB)
• 3.avi (35.83 MB)
• 5 (1).avi (35.83 MB)