16mm film transfer project using digital still camera

[travismoran]

Since high quality transfers of 16mm film are very expensive (i.e. Rank Cintel, etc.), and the quality from the little Elmo telecine projectors is not really the best...and the film registration leaves a lot to be desired since they use the claw-type pulldown mechanism, we have thought of designing a system using a digital camera to capture each film frame and store the result as a series of still images which can later be processed with Adobe Premiere or a similar programme.

What we want to do is setup a device to advance the film one frame at a time on demand, and instruct the digital camera to capture each frame and save it to the computer's hard disc. This must be set up to run unattended as it will be much more time consuming than real-time capturing. The frame registration needs to be extremely accurate as this was one of the major flaws with the Elmo system.

My personal knowledge of digital camera innards is almost non-existent. So if anyone here has any suggestions, they would be extremely welcome.

We have a lot of old 16mm projector parts, and several working projectors which can be destroyed if necessary to this end. We only have one digital camera to waste however, but may be able to beg one or two older ones.

Anyone with any experience with controlling devices thru com ports, etc. or anyone with any knowledge of how to go about getting the best image transfer to the digital camera, your input would be very valuable.

We had thought of direct contact imaging with the film frame actually in contact with the camera's sensor since the lenses necessary for such a small area seem to be costly.

Another option mentioned was the use of a flatbed scanner to capture each frame.

Once we have the system set up, making changes to accommodate 8mm and 35mm film should be fairly easy.

Please give us your ideas.

PS: I hope this was the right forum for this question. It seemed to be the closest for the topic.

[BJ_M]

it would be a whole lot cheaper to build a high quality telecine system and rent a d-beta or even just a HDV camera as needed ..... we have electronic film projectors what can control frame by frame via rs232 , but you are talking close to $75,000 .....

scanning (as per digital camera or laser) is super expensive to do --

a commercial 1 light telecine of 16mm is pretty cheap as far as i am concerned .... a 4 light or Davinci system type setup is going to cost a lot more , but not as much as scans ..


a lot of people build thier own telecine systems -- not that hard...

[tdan]

I am in the process of design/build on an 8mm/Super8 telecine. I also investigated using a canon digital camera for frame capture using some remote capture software. The issue with using a camera is definitely not technical or quality (which I would expect to be fantastic). The real problem is speed. The fastest remote capture from a digital camera takes in excess of 1 seccond, if not 3 - 5 seconds. Multiply that by the number of frames and the math says that it's just not practical.

Since I wanted a DV camcorder anyways, I ended up buying a 3CCD Panasonic PV-GS200 which I plan to use with a program called CineCap (you can Google it - old name is Dodcap). Once I get the stepper motor set up for proper film advance, I should be able to capture at something around six FPS.

[MovieMan000]

You can get frame by frame transfer setups Right Here :

http://www.moviestuff.tv/index.html

Richard

[thecoalman]

Another option mentioned was the use of a flatbed scanner to capture each frame..

I would think this would be an ideal method, suprised there isn't a consumer based product such as this on the market. I would even be suprised if there wasn't a professional product. I've done many negative scans with my scanner and results are very good, considering this it would seem that it would be a very cheap alternative and possibly better alternative than running it through a projector. I'm sure it would be slow though. The only trouble I have had is even the littlest piece of dust is vastly magnified. Most are easily removed using the despeckle filter in my image editor.

The trouble I would forsee in trying to set up a "homemade" way of doing this is that there's no software for it. The biggest hurdle would be advancing the film..... You would have to build mechanism and develope software to run it. Good Luck!

[pjotrek]

There is already a software out there that is doing exactly this, although for 8 mm film. Maybe it is adaptable or a 16 mm version could be made?:
http://8mm2avi.netfirms.com/

[greymalkin]

that looks soooo tedious!
I'm sure you get excellent results with it, however. I too will soon be taking on a 8mm project but I think i'll just rig up the box with a mirror and rear projection screen :P

edit: Actually I just talked to my dad and he already has a box made for doing 8mm transfers...sweeeet. looks like i'm off the hook for now..

[travismoran]

This is great info. Thanks for the useful ideas.

That 8mm2avi solution seems interesting since it is VERY cost effective. Of course it would be awfully time consuming and tedious.

That sniper outfit mentioned in Movieman000's link would be wonderful, but it's beyond our budget right now.

Oddly enough a guy I know has that dodcap programme and I might just try it out if I can figure out a way to cannibalise a projector to advance one frame at a time from computer control.

"a lot of people build thier own telecine systems -- not that hard..."

Maybe not for you...but I'm not that smart yet. Please enlighten me as to what it takes.

[thecoalman]

There is already a software out there that is doing exactly this, although for 8 mm film. Maybe it is adaptable or a 16 mm version could be made?:
http://8mm2avi.netfirms.com/

<coalman filling out patent and replying at the same time>

I was thinking along the lines of something a little more automated, something you could feed the film into onto one side and let it do it's thing. That would take ages....... That really would be a good idea though, like I said before I'm suprised there isn't anything on the market for just that purpose. If I knew anything about software I'd even consider building one myself, you really would need to make it automated.

[BJ_M]

there is - they cost 200k

[BJ_M]

but you could use this for $1400 and works very well

http://www.moviestuff.tv/wp_xp.html

[thecoalman]

but you could use this for $1400 and works very well

http://www.moviestuff.tv/wp_xp.html

I'm talking about a scanner based one, how expensive would it be to make one really? It would just be a scanner, the only additional cost would be some sort of mechanism to advance the film and the software to drive the machanism. I would think the quality would be superb because I know my negative scans come out great. Just a simple little dedicated scanner that would automatically advance the film.... No? Like the ones that auto feed slides...

[BJ_M]

yea -- thats the one that costs 200k , but does do color correction .. thats the low end of the scale.. a high end film scanner with all the hardware, software and 35, 70 heads is 600k+ ... the operators of these get fairly high bucks also --

i have seen some used ones for under 100k though - fairly old ..

i bet there are cheaper -- i just don't know of that genre of scale though ..

we don't have film scanner - but we do have a laser 70mm film printer .. which costs about the same .

why it costs us so much to get our films scanned ..

[BJ_M]

we have (we build) a projector that can advance one frame at a time and is totally computer controlled ... thats the one we sell for 75k ..

mechanical projectors just can't do this...


you could modify a flat bed scanner i would think that has negative feeder to do this -- you would have to manually advance and register the film ... basically adding a film winder and a modified splice block for registration ..

3 min. of film going to take you awhile though -- 4320 frames ,,,,, by hand .. ouch ...

[thecoalman]

why it costs us so much to get our films scanned ..

That really makes no sense why they would cost that much.... It's a scanner It doesn't scan in real time right? Why would it have to anyway. Probably some jackass has a patent and oly licenses it to a few.

Edit: Someone ought to build one cheap....

[BJ_M]

there is a lot that goes into these machines ... a lot of the cost is in the color correction/matching area ...




this is just one type .. (btw - for the LoTR saga - they bought 2 scanners)

http://www.cintel.co.uk/docs/datamill.pdf

[BJ_M]

these ones are real nice here - and more money for some of the models .

they supplied LoTR equipment ..


http://www.imagica.com/index_e.html

this is a 4k scanner (resolution)




our 70mm stuff has to be scanned at a much higher resolution ..

[travismoran]

BJ_M is really into the high-end of this eh. Nice things to dream about, but no way in our budget.

I also noticed that the Imagica unit takes 1 sec/frame or more to capture. It was mentioned that you could almost achieve that speed with a digital camera. As for colour correcting & matching; why can't that be left to filters in Premiere or its equivalent?

Why couldn't one take an old 16mm projector and run the mechanism from a computer controlled motor. Have a sensor (or whatever) indicate when the shutter & claw machanism rotated once (which would equal a 1-frame advance). The motor would stop. The digital camera would shoot & send image to computer. Then the process would be repeated.

I'm thinking this could maybe operate at about 1 frame every 2 seconds. (maybe less if you used a high res video camera instead of a digital still camera). I'm thinking this is similar to what that Sniper/Workprinter system does.