1961 8mm Home Movie Restoration Suggestions Requested

[rkr1958]

1. My orignal source is 4 x 8mm home movie reels vintage 1961 - 1962.

2. These home movies were last viewed in the late 60's and then stored away in a closet and untouched until 2003.

3. I had this footage transferred to VHS tape by Wolfe Camera in November 2003. I got about 15-minutes of "viewable" footage.

4. I then did a VHS > DV-Camera > PC capture.

5. I realize because of its poor quality there is only some much that can be done but I want to improve the quality of this footage as much as possible.

6. I have a fair working knowledge of Avisynth but really don't have a clue as to which filters would help my footage the most.

7. Here are links to four screen captures from my footage.

http://www.knology.net/~benrunyan/0000.jpeg

http://www.knology.net/~benrunyan/0001.jpeg

http://www.knology.net/~benrunyan/0002.jpeg

http://www.knology.net/~benrunyan/0003.jpeg

[rfmmars]

1. My orignal source is 4 x 8mm home movie reels vintage 1961 - 1962.

2. These home movies were last viewed in the late 60's and then stored away in a closet and untouched until 2003.

3. I had this footage transferred to VHS tape by Wolfe Camera in November 2003. I got about 15-minutes of "viewable" footage.

4. I then did a VHS > DV-Camera > PC capture.

5. I realize because of its poor quality there is only some much that can be done but I want to improve the quality of this footage as much as possible.

6. I have a fair working knowledge of Avisynth but really don't have a clue as to which filters would help my footage the most.

7. Here are links to four screen captures from my footage.

http://www.knology.net/~benrunyan/0000.jpeg

http://www.knology.net/~benrunyan/0001.jpeg

http://www.knology.net/~benrunyan/0002.jpeg

http://www.knology.net/~benrunyan/0003.jpeg


If you still have the old films it is best to redo them. If not then HDRagc, LimitedSharperFast, and Virtualdub ColorMill 2.1 and EQrgb will make it better. Use AVSp as the editor.

See photos on my website

www.photorecall.net

Richard

[rkr1958]

If you still have the old films it is best to redo them. If not then HDRagc, LimitedSharperFast, and Virtualdub ColorMill 2.1 and EQrgb will make it better. Use AVSp as the editor.

See photos on my website

www.photorecall.net

Richard

1. I still have the source video. In addition to the transfer to VHS, Wolfe Camera in 2003 also did a copy of the original four 8mm reels to one large 8mm reel.

2. In your opinion could a more knowledge profressional obtain a significantly higher quality tranfer?

3. If Wolfe Camera did do a poor job transferring to VHS, again in your opinion, is the 8mm copy (large reel) also hosed?

4. Thanks for your input. This footage is very special to me. It contains 2-3 minutes of footage of my sister at age 13 in 1961 (I was age 3). My sister was killed at the age of 24 in 1972 in a car accident and this footage contains the only antimated footage of her. It also contains footage of my brother at age 15 and my mom at age 36 (both of whom are still alive). Unfortunately, the footage does not contain any of my dad (who shot it) and died in 2003 at the age of 82. I did however, get some of him later in life (2001 - 2003).

5. A major lesson learned for me at least is that if you're the one that shoots most of the family video make sure you get someone else to shoot occasionally and get yourself in some of the footage. My wife and I got our first video camera (Sony TRV320 DV) in 2001 after the birth of our son. I wished my father had taken more and had gotten himself into the shots, had not focused on me at age 3 so much (but on other family members and friends), and taken more footage. He got the 8mm camera in 1961 shot four reels (5-minutes each) from 1961 - 1963 and stopped. These are lessons I'm taking to heart in shooting video now. Sorry for the ramble ...

[Fizick]

With or without film retransfer, you may look to my filters.
My own 8mm film is not so old (70x), but in very bad condition.
But I personally still do not process my 8mm films -currently I try write perfect filters to do it. :)

[rfmmars]

Are you sure the they just didn't splice the small rolls onto a 7" reel? Some companies do that before telecine.

I only seen a sample of all your reels. A VHS transfer at best is 230 lines of resolution where my Sony DXC 755 camera that I use is 750 lines. Yes I will do a better job simply because I don't do a mass production business.

There a cost calulator on my website if your interested.

Richard
photorecall.net

[2Bdecided]

From this thread...

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=117097

Here are links to state-of-the-art 8mm transfers...

http://www.moviestuff.tv/8mm_telecine.html

http://dvisionvideo.com/transfers.htm#videos

It makes a difference, doesn't it?


As Richard said, I'm sure they didn't copy your film onto film, and what you have now is the original 8mm footage, just spooled onto a larger reel.

So if it matters to you (it clearly does) send it off and get it re-transferred.

(at least you have some 8mm film - my Dad refused to get a camera because the results with 8mm weren't good enough, and he couldn't afford 16mm. Never mind the fact that the results without either are, er, photographs!)

Cheers,
David.

[rkr1958]

Yes, the large reel is just the original 4 reels respooled. The large reel (original source) was and still is sealing in plastic since 2003 so hopefully it hasn't experienced any further deteroation.

Thanks all, I'm going to look into a retransfer of this footage.