[MacDV] Re: transfer film 2 video?

[Jim Zabilla]

Go to http://www.pro8mm.com for super 8 telecine.  They do it professionally
and can put your footage into any format needed.


Jim




> I bought a variable-speed regular-8/super-8 movie projector on eBay for
> $70 (they range from $50-$100+$20 shipping).  As I've done transfers,
> I've done the following:
> 
> 1. Aim the projector at the inside of a white binder.  You can also use
> a video transfer box (i.e., a mirror and piece of ground glass), but I
> found the binder had less "glow" around bright objects.  Some people
> also use a clean whiteboard, spray-painted piece of foam, etc.  You
> could also use a movie screen, but the contrast goes down the further
> away you put the image, and the texture starts to show if it's too bumpy
> and too close to the projector.
> 
> 2. Aim the camcorder at the image.  In the case of the transfer box,
> the light bounces off of the mirror and goes through the ground glass
> directly into the camcorder.  In the reflective methods, you just point
> the camera at whatever you're projecting the image on, and try to get
> the camera as close to the lens of the projector as you can so that
> you're not getting too much of an angle.  As long as you're pretty
> close, there isn't any noticable "trapezoid" effect.
> 
> 3. Plug the camcorder into an external TV to use as a monitor (angled
> away from the movie screen so as not to cast light on it).  I do this so
> that I can adjust the focus, zoom, brightness, etc., with more precision
> that I would be able to do if I had to use the tiny fold-out screen of
> my camcorder.  Also, on a more practical note, the projector's controls
> are on the right and the fold-out screen is on the left, so I can't put
> them close together if I open the fold-out screen of the camcorder.
> 
> 4. Adjust everything.
> a. Start playing a movie, and get the projector into focus.
> b. Adjust the position of the camcorder so that the image is centered
> (might require adjusting various tripod legs, twisting the camcorder on
> the tripod, raising & lowering the camera, etc).
> c. Adjust the zoom so that the TV (camcorder) can't see any of the
> dark edges.  miniDV will actually capture slightly around that anyway,
> so you don't have to feel like you're "losing" anything on the edges.
> Once I think I have the position and zoom right, I nudge my camcorder
> slightly up, down, left and right, and make sure the blackness is just
> beyond the borders of what I'm zoomed into.
> d. Adjust the focus on the camcorder.  You can stop the projector for
> a moment, turn on the light, and carefully hold a piece of paper with
> some printing on it while you manually adjust the focus if you want.  Or
> you can just let the camcorder auto-focus, which I've found is just as
> good.  I do like to lock the focus once it is right, though, because
> sometimes in dark conditions the camcorder can get confused.
> e. Adjust the variable-speed knob on the projector until the movie
> doesn't flicker or pulsate on the TV screen.
> f. You might want to set the exposure to manual and adjust it as you
> record, or you might just let the camcorder to its best.
> 
> 5. Rewind the movie, and start recording.  Don't forget to make shadows
> on the screen when the movie's over! ("Yeay! Shadow time!" as my
> 2-year-old says).
> 
> I've found that the movie certainly looks better on the screen than it
> does on video.  Camcorders just don't have the dynamic range to handle
> the high contrast between the bright scenes and the dark ones.  On the
> film, you can see the bricks in the shadow at the same time as the sun
> reflecting off of the lake, but on the camcorder you have to choose one
> or the other.  On the camcorder, you have a narrower range, which you
> can slide around with the "exposure" dial, but which ultimately you can
> only use to decide which part of the dark-to-light spectrum you want to
> capture.  I also notice that the colors are much less colorful when
> captured onto the camcorder.  Bright red flowers come out as slightly
> red.  Bummer.  On the other hand, once I realized that it wasn't going
> to be as good as the original, I started to relax a little bit about
> making sure this was completely archival quality, and decided to just
> capture the stuff that would be interesting to watch just to make it
> more convenient to do so.
> 
> Eventually someone will come up with an inexpensive attachment to a
> slide scanner that will allow consumers to scan their own 8mm film and
> create digital movies directly from the scans.  At that point the
> mismatch in frame rate will also not matter--you will be able to just
> set your computer to play the movie back at the original 18fps.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> --Randy Wilson
> 
> 
>>>> donhinkle at att.net 05/23/03 09:54AM >>>
> A local film store offers to transfer 8 & 16mm films to video--but
> only
> to VHS. Another transfer will be necessary to make the video digital.
> I'm concerned that this intermediate step may lose too much
> resolution,
> and would prefer a straight film-2-digital solution.
> 
> Is that possible? Any good references in New Jersey or Manhattan? or
> on
> the web?
> 
> —don hinkle
> 
> 
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