Super 8 -> miniDV transfer (again)

[Randy Wilson]

We've had a lot of discussion on transferring old movie film to digital
video.  From these discussions, I've gleaned the following tidbits (and
please correct me if I'm wrong):

1. Frame rate: Silent Super 8 film runs at 18 frames per second (are
these frames flashed on the screen twice before moving on to the next
frame? three times?), while video runs at (almost) 30 frames per second.
[Sound super 8 runs at 24 frames per second]

2. Synchronization: You can get bad flicker (a few frames on, a few
frames black, on, black...) if the video and film are out of synch.  If
they are perfectly in-synch, you can get all good, but you can also get
all black if your video camera's "shutter speed" is too fast.  So by
using a slow shutter speed (e.g., 1/60 second so it never "misses"
anything) you can avoid getting black frames.  Then if you aren't
synchronized you simply get occasional frames with two adjacent frames
on them (usually one fainter than the other), which actually looks ok
while watching except on fast pans, etc., where you'll start to see the
double image.

3. Surface: To transfer from film to video, you can use one of the
following:
  a. A regular movie screen (but the further away the screen is, the
lower the contrast is; and the closer it is, the more likely you'll be
able to see the texture of the screen).
  b. A white board or some other smooth white surface, placed fairly
close to the projector for good contrast (some have complained about
bleeding of light from light areas into darker areas with this method).
  c. A transfer "box" consisting of a mirror and a piece of ground
glass (provides maximum contrast, but some have complained that on
bright shots things can get washed out).
  d. A film scanner, theoretically, but I haven't heard of anyone
except expensive professional places that can really do this.  (A couple
of people mentioned the possibility of using a slide scanner to scan
movie film, but feeding it through seems to be the main obstacle).

=====

One question I have at the moment is on variable-speed projectors. 
Some seem more "variable" than others, i.e., some go from 14-24 frames
per second, but are there some that go up to 30 frames per second?

A second question I have is on what to do about contrast.  When I shine
the film on something close (e.g., white board) and use a 1/60 second
shutter speed, there was one scene that had a rock wall and a lake in
the background.  I could see both fine with my eye, but the video camera
had either a black wall (i.e., couldn't see the rocks), or, if I turned
up the exposure so I could see the rocks, the lake was completely washed
out.  So it appears that I need less contrast in order to get a better
transfer in that case.  Any comments?