[MacDV] Re: Super 8 -> miniDV transfer

[Richard Brown]

All of the "Fotomat" style companies offering Super 8 to video 
transfers are using film chains. Depending on the particular film chain 
used, the results go from acceptable to atrocious. We had a 16mm film 
chain, consisting of a couple 500 pound boxes which stood 7 feet tall. 
One side was the projector with 2400' reels. The other, the (tube) 
video unit. It was only acceptable for late night television or to make 
a video offline for editing. The neat thing about the good ol' days was 
its massively mechanical nature.

This all boils down to what you need out of your material. If your 
intention is to preserve nostalgia, you have to determine how close to 
the PROJECTED Super 8 experience you want the video to be. Just about 
all film chain systems feature hot spots, whereas finding a Super 8 
gated Rank would yield the closest to "broadcast quality" possible.. 
Now, for OLDER Super 8 films, there may be an issue as to fragility, 
and if footage is brittle, the "hen's tooth" to look for would be a 
Bosch transfer system tuned to this type of "heritage" transfer. It all 
has to do with the tension used by the systems. Ranks are generally 
drum tight, whereas certain Bosch systems can ease off on this 
"sprocket ripping" pressure.

In this increasingly digital age, all this seems like a trip down 
memory lane. At warp factor 8.

Richard Brown (with 2" Quad reels in the attic... somewhere...)