how does one capture 8mm film ?

[itchione]

I have some old footage on 8mm film and i am interested to hear what options exist to capture the film and convert to a modern format like dvd ?

Are there cheep automated scanners i could buy and scan each frame of the film ? What about some s/w to reconstruct a video stream from these scanned frames and automatically correct common film artifacts from the captured frames ?

Cheers, itchione

[FlimsyFeet]

There was a long discussion about capturing film, in this thread here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=94532

[Mug Funky]

the above is probably your best shot.

there's not much around for 8mm these days. at work i use an Ursa telecine and an Arriscan (ie: ludicrously expensive and high quality film gear), and neither have 8mm gates, though i think the Ursa can be fitted with one. generally it's not worth dealing with 8mm these days except as a niche thing.

[edit] OMG, the only 8mm gate for the Ursa on google was about 12,000 pounds. that's stupid - no post house could ever make that back from 8mm transfers.

[setarip_old]

@itchione

If you're in the U.S., there are many outside conversion services available...

[laserfan]

Here is an interesting article I saved, that at least gives you some ideas of the issues one faces if attempting this yourself:

http://www.dvdhomevideoeditor.com/ARTICLES/TUTORIAL_howto_trans_8mmfilm.htm

I would be very careful about selecting an outside service to do this--the conversions I have seen, including our own family Super 8s that my cousin had transferred, were just awful. And of course if you don't grab the frames properly to begin with, trying to fix them later is an exercise in futility.

[itchione]

thanks to all for replying.

from what i have now read, a frame by frame capture coupled with image cleanup and color correction yields the best results.
it's time consuming, and it takes time :)'

using a flat bed scanner looked promising but for the lack of dynamic range in all but the most expensive scanners.
in any case, the image clean up and color correction seemed less automated and a little more involved than what i was hoping for :(

there are some (almost) local services that can do the fxf conversion but cost $$, and i am not happy at mailing my films.

i still have some more reading to do but likely this project will be put to pasture (for the moment).

the reality was that i had hoped for a little more maturity in the consumer market allowing good quality automated DIY conversions using reasonably priced equipment.
guess were are not there yet...

cheers, itchione

[rfmmars]

=itchione......

using a flat bed scanner looked promising but for the lack of dynamic range in all but the most expensive scanners.
in any case, the image clean up and color correction seemed less automated and a little more involved than what i was hoping for :(

Cheers, itchione

If your going for a professional end product, there is no way to automate the process. In my business, its a scene by scence correction process using Virtualdub's "Jobs" working with my AVS-p script for color restoration for old 8mm film. There are many defects to deal with, its not simple.

My modified projector had the 100 watt lamp replaced with a 410 watt lamp plus other refinements. This was needed to overcome the light loss of the opel filter to complety eliminate any hot spot. Its best to remove the hotspot before capture to gain additional dynamic range.

Next is to use the best camera that you can buy. It doesn't have to be a three chip unit but it will yield more lines of resolutions ~ 750 versus 480 for a good single chip camera.

Good camera setups can be had on ebay for under $400.00, I use a Sony Medical unit 2/3" chip with an analog manual control color balance interface. Also try to do analog correction before capture.

Also the Sony block machine cameras are good but lack any analog correction and are harder to use, under $200.00 new.

Capture with high brightness with low contrast but don't clip the highlites, yes it will look washed out but will have less compression blocks in dark areas when burning.

Do your final brightness range in your NLE. With the right NLE you will not have to recompress at all except when making your final DVD. For the most important work I use Magix's EP-11 Plus UK. Why it will accept as many Vdub frame servers as your machine can support, second it excepts 80% of Vdub plugins so at the last minuite you can do a frame by frame correction if needed.

For less demanding work, because they to do not except any frameserving or Vdub filters "well you can do one with Debugmode" big hassel and time waster, a good choice would be Edit Studio 5 or Movie Plus 5, or any Vegas.

There are many other little things you can do to ensure a great final product like cleaning the film with "Film Renew" taking all kinds of stuff off like mold and smoke. This product will also take out fungus patterns from the projected image but requires a week of soaking and you must project in the next half hour or its back. Its a good wetgate too requiring a one day saoking for each reel.

I am redoing my website but a lot of examples are there for you to see.

Richard
www.photorecall.net

[laserfan]

I am redoing my websiteHey Richard you are redoing yourself right out of business--there is not a single page that I could find that suggested any way to make contact. :confused:

[rfmmars]

Hey Richard you are redoing yourself right out of business--there is not a single page that I could find that suggested any way to make contact. :confused:

Your right, I need to put back in "contact the projectionist". I just started to do the complete revision a week, learning a new web page program as I go, so Monday I will correct that omission. At this time I am having a problem with the E-Commerce page which as of of now hasn't been uploaded

Thanks

Richard

[2Bdecided]

thanks to all for replying.

from what i have now read, a frame by frame capture coupled with image cleanup and color correction yields the best results.
it's time consuming, and it takes time :)'


But JohnMeyer's technique is real time with fairly automatic (slow, but unattended) post processing. The results are very good. You'll have to search for the threads where he posted (impressive) results.


You can always point your film projector and camcorder at a project screen and see what happens! This is what most companies who charge for their service will do.

Cheers,
David.

[kakomu]

At the video capture company I worked for, we used two methods for films sent to us. In the first and cheaper method, we would play the film on a very dark surface with a very bright bulb and use a high quality camera to record the video from the wall. The other method used a specially designed projector, coupled with a digital camera connected to a computer. They would be synchronized and large photographs of each frame would be taken and eventually spliced together.

[reepa]

There was an article about digitizing amateur film in the latest Mikrobitti (a Finnish tech magazine). Digitizing (to DVD/DV/Digibeta/Harddrive) with a film scanner (Rank Cintel Ursa Gold or BTS) costs 3,20-4,30 eur/min at Reel One (www.reelone.fi) for example.

[Mug Funky]

@ reepa:

that's a really good price. is that charged by running time or operator time? if it's running time then that's definitely a good price (you can barely keep an old Ursa running for that :) - parts are very expensive, and the Ursa is a 15 year old machine).

[reepa]

The article is ambiguous. Another company's price is quoted as euros per meter, so the eur/min price might refer to operator time. Btw, here's some digitized Super 8:
http://www.mbnet.fi/nettijatkot/2007/11/kaitafilmit/mba1.avi
(from http://www.mbnet.fi/nettijatkot/2007/11/kaitafilmit/)