8 mm film conversion

[kisrum]

I've come into possession of ninety (90) 8mm film strips of my wife's extended family, doing whatever they did 30-50 years ago. I'm never going to do the conversion to DVD myself and I see dozens of vendor websites for this service. Anyone have suggestions on who does this conversion well or poorly? Are there practices in this industry I should be careful of?

I'm not all that interested in having them edit or add music, etc. I can do that between now and my 80th birthday. Just hoping to get them converted to digital before they spontaneously combust. Should I just have them dumped to non-encoded mpegs or have them encoded for DVD? Guess that's up to me.

All suggestions appreciated

[guns1inger]

If you want to edit them later, look for someone who canvert them to mini DV. Might be a bit more expensive, but the most flexible in the long run. How long does each reel run ?

[kisrum]

Hadn't thought of mini DV. I guess that would be more flexible for future technologies.

I think its been several years since they've been viewed, but I'm guessing 5 minutes in length. Thanks.

[redwudz]

I dug around a few 8mm to DVD, DV transfer sites. The price ranges from about $ 600-800US for 90 4minute films. Amazed me too, but it takes time and good equipment to guarantee good results. Low tech version would be to buy a used 8MM projector, smooth wall or screen, video camera (DV preferred) with DV pass through and do them yourself. Sure, the quality may be lower, but you will have a new DV camcorder to play with and if your computer is modern enough, you may only need a Firewire card and a decent editing program. Seems like a lot better way to spend $700 (Or hopefully less) You can edit the DV files at your leisure and the sites I saw said that 90 4min films would fit on 2 or 3 DVD's after encoding to MPG.

[KWG22]

Howdy,
I'm all for saving money, but if you simply shoot the films on a screen, you'll have a problem with "flickering." You can test and see what you think. It has to do with the number of frames per second in video(30, or 29.97 NTSC) and in 8mm film, which I believe is 16fps, and to do with the number of shutter blades in the projector..and the fps being divisible by a common number. I read an article about this in the early nineties in which they described how to rig a projector by basicly ever so slightly slowing down or speeding up the projector. The equipment used by transfer services has this adjustment and so gets rid of the flicker.
LONG STORY SHORT: It is probably worth it to have it done by a service.
I had some done in 1997 and it wasn't nearly that expensive. I had them put them on Betacam SP, as I work in TV and was going to edit them at work. Since then, though I have an editing system at home and so am transferring them via S-VHS from Betacam to capture at home to edit.
The idea of putting them on Mini DV is a good one. Good luck.

[kisrum]

Well I pondered the "videotaping the wall" method, since I have a low-end mini dv camcorder. Living in a large city, I think I can still rent a 8mm projector. Wonder if I should project small sharper image and keep camcorder close or project big image and move camcorder back? Hadn't thought of the flicker issue, although the guy that built my beige box has done some 8mm transfer this way. I haven't seen the results.

I might try to get some far-flung inlaws to throw in some money.

Thanks for suggestions.

[redwudz]

I'm not sure about the 'flicker' problem either. Maybe do some web searching on '8mm to video' transfers for some tips. I suspect a small picture might be better as you have better brightness levels. Check yard sales for a good used projector. By all means, check transfer companies. If they can do it for a reasonable price, it would save you a lot of headaches.

[penamty]

I did a lot of research into this type of conversion about 18 months ago, because I too have about 10 hours worth of 8mm film footage covering my family from about 1954 to 1984. since I still have a working projector I even did some test transfers using a DV camcorder; by doing some adjustments to the camera itself and the projector, and using the antiflicker filter in virtualdub, I did manage to produce modest results, but to be honest I was never satisfied with the quality.

Although I haven’t send any of my 8mm reels for professional transfer yet, according to the research I did, the best results are achieved by companies that use a process were each individual frame is captured full frame as an individual, uncompressed still image, and then after doing any color correction needed, they use those images to produce a high quality movie with zero flicker, in whatever format chosen by the customer.

[proxyx99]

Every camcorder has aperture and shutter speed adjustment. You can play with the projector and cam shutter speed so that the flicker is minimized or eliminated. Postprocessing can also smooth out the picture. Capture process is similar to slide transfer to film. Use matted white glass as a screen and you can even capture from the opposite side to later correct side reversal in NLE. I've seen results of my cousin's work and they were very good. Worth experimenting.

[regular8mm]

I used to have a small business doing this kind of work. My equipment was paid for by doing it, and doing it, and doing it. My equipment grew from a single tube video camera directly into a VHS deck to a Hi-8mm video camera into a PC; the transfer methods used were: direct projection - large then later very small, a variable speed projector(s), a Goko TC-20 spinning prisim transfer machine(s) in real time, rear projection, and now a Work PrinterXP by MovieStuff that works at about 6 fps. directly off the film plane, no paper or screens are needed.
Some of the things that I have learned are:

clean your films, clean your films, and do it again
remove blank film lengths, light or dark
put 6 feet of leader on each end on each reel, white at head and black at tail
label the leader heads
fix the splices, check them, remove tape splices that are yellowed
check for torn sproket holes fix or remove if bad
totally torn sprokets in long lengths can be captured upside down and backwards with no jumping and flipped in the PC
mount all the films onto 400 ft reels
label the reels and keep records in a book, record what was on the boxes
check the films for irregular splitting, varying widths can jam the film
remove the wide bits or film will get eaten
clean the projector, mirror, lens
use the lowest compression for capture (yuy2)
use a raid dual Hard Disk for no dropped frames or smeared frames
compress with Huffyuv
get a 3 ccd broadcast quality video camera
use firewire for transfers into the PC
save as avi not mpeg so you can edit later (miniDV not mpeg)
your camera must have focus lock, manual white balance, over 12X optical, 18X is what works for me
use a newer OS than Win98SE
PAL is higher quality than NTSC
they both will play on a PC
keep all your films and never throw them away
film lasts longer than video
link your camera to a TV during transfer using a variable speed projector in order to see any flicker, you can't see it well enough on the tiny screen
get big hard drives, hot swappable is best

I'm not up to date on DV or editing in MPEG and still use a Hi-8 camera and AVI. I AM burning to DVD, though.
This work done in this way takes forever but looks heavenly.

Since HDTV is coming perhaps it would be best to wait for the larger format cameras, though, since the format is 4:3 anyway it may not matter. HD should be higher resolution even in 4:3 than miniDV, so, wait?

[kisrum]

Wow. I can barely handle minidv and Studio 8.

regular8mm, that sounds like more than just a small business. I may take your last piece of advice and wait. The film has held up this long and if I take care of it, I guess it will continue to be okay.

Thank you all. This has been amazingly helpful.

[proxyx99]

As you see this can be done and even succesfully. Experiment a bit. All good NLE's will give you an edge that was not available to an amateur just few years ago (cleanup issues). It is easier then you think. Try syncing the shutter speeds first, the rest is just an NLE issue.

[Skynet107]

You may want to check this out:
http://www.moviestuff.tv/8mm_telecine.html

[regular8mm]

http://www.8mm.filmshooting.com/scripts/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3709&highlight=
http://<br /> <a class="contentlink" href="http://www.8mm.filmshooting.com/scripts/fo...ine/</a><br />

more and more

[handyguy]

Most photo shops should have a mirror thing you can use instead of a white card.

[regular8mm]

The "mirror thing" bounces onto a rear projection screen which is very grainy, unlike the smooth flat white paper, which is better - smoother.

[energy80s]

Actually the "mirror thing" is better than the "paper" route. For one thing you don't need a very dark room and also it gets rid of hotspots. If anything the grain is less with rear projection, but it really depends on the projected image size.

[regular8mm]

I have two different rear projection screens, one very small that clips onto the projector and is VERY bright, and the other is a 1 foot wide stand alone one which is much darker. The larger one will show a hot spot. Reading somewhere, the hot spot depends on the distance the projector is from the mirror and the mm of the camera lens?? I could never get it to change much. The very bright small one is too bright usually for the video camera to record from. Grain comes from the screens, some are finer than others. Grain also comes from dim images where the video cam gain goes up. It is nice to work in a room with 'some' light in it. These grain differences are very slight anyway. It is when you shoot directly off the film with NO screen that quality goes out the roof.

That said, real time captures are the only way to do this kind of work and make any money. With single frame capture systems you pay a premium, or should. They are for sound sync work where every single frame must be accounted for. Real time captures are for easy viewing where some frame blending doesn't matter. Prices can be lower for real time captures.

When I had the Goko TC-20 spinning mirror transfer machine I used to crank it up to the highest speeds, 24 fps + for 16 fps films still looked good, captured faster, played faster, and actually were easier to watch. That machine intorduces lots of other visual artifacts that smooth out at high speeds. And home movies are easier to watch at high speeds because there are so many visual faults in home movies, ie, no tripod, fast pans and zooms, shakey camera. If all those and more are removed in editing home movies will look much better at the correct speed. Editing plays a BIG part in how home movies look after a capture to video.

I took a customer's8mm film home movie tape, 2 hours of it,and edited it. Only the best bits were retained. It took me a week to do it. Some color correction was applied. Not much. That made a much larger difference than how it was transferred. You get used to the transfer during play back but bad photography just makes you wish the movie would end soon.

[grace]

I did these steps for flicker free transfer.

1. Modify the projector to run at stable 15fps. Projector has ac motor runing a belt to pulley. Used duck tape to change size of pulley so speed changes from 18 to 15fps. Speed is adjusted by diameter changes of pulley with duck tape. It is easy to make small changes. Speed checking is done by using video camera on projector parts. Final tuning is done with film and bulb on projector. Speed is set 0.2 percent fast.

2. Use best non glossy (real flat) photo paper taped on wall. Use four sheets , seams are not visible to camera when projector is on.

3. Camera Sony trv17 has setting to "SLOW 1" which 30 frame per seconds seems to turn interlacing off.

4. Camera is "stabilization" set off. This allows shutter speed to be real 1/30 instead of 1/25. (these two setting greatly reduce projector flicker as many projector speeds)

5 camera focus is set to manual. Old films moves in focus and camera will fight it. Camera is on tripod. Focus is done once.

6. Synchronization is manual. Drift between camera and projector will occur. This causes the appearance and disappearence of flicker every 10 seconds or so. Projector is set a tiny bit faster. The application of extra projector load by my hand on the take up real-clutch will slow down projector by .5 percent the flicker goes away in 1 second. I let go and wait 10 seconds for flicker to start to appear. I re apply the extra projector load by sight. The unattended drift appears as 3 groups of flicker before a film frame slip occurs. Which takes about 30 seconds?

7 Video camera is dumped to computer.

8 The video file appears as 2 video frames per film frame. One video frame is during the projector frame change and appears double exposed. The other frame is fine. I use the editor to change the speed file to 200 percent. This causes every other frame to be thrown out. The new file is an exact frame by frame capture of film with no flicker.

9 Normal posting processing of reducing the speed of the new file to a normal viewing speed causes flicker free telecineing.

10 next time would again look at sending it in. but this was a fun hobby effort.

[regular8mm]

Here is another way:

http://www.filmshooting.com/scripts/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5753&sid=2aa6a6f4b1e114c83bc77cc1e3fb1656

(this is soooo cool)

AND there is info on Film Guard cleaning and scratch removal:

http://www.sonicequipment.com/filmguard.htm

Michael Carter

[proxyx99]

Great idea, simple and yet ingenious. One more proof that anything can be done very effectively with a bit of creativity. Worth following the thread. Thanks regular8mm.

[regular8mm]

My pleasure, thanks for acknowledging me.

It is my hope that more folks will transfer their home movies, edit them, and distribute them on DVD. There is great history on those reels.

Further, I hope that will stimulate new use of the film format. My camera collection has Regular 8mm, Super 8mm, and 16mm film cameras, Projectors, editors, splicers dicers and so on. Lots of stuff. Film is, it is! I use all the formats. You can even get Single 8 and 9.5 if you really want to use those formats.

I shoot film more than video. It is fun. I like old home movies; I have a huge collection from my previous customers. It is like some kind of viewable time machine.....

[penamty]

I agree, film is the ultimate archival format, I dare anybody to put in a box all they digital movies, open the box in the year 2054, and try to play them; They would probably have to go to the museum of technology just to find hardware that will accept the media, let alone finding the right codec. With film as long as you can shine a light to the film and pass it through some lenses you will be able to play it back, or at least transfer it to any other format.

[kissvid]

Hello,

I used to do Movie transfering for a living. Alot of the suggestions that everyone is giving is valid to some degree. But there are simpler ways of getting soemthing done. 1st I would like to offer my services if you don't want to use a professional service. They do get quite expensive and I would give you a very good rate because basically you are a part of this forum which happens to be one of the best forums and people around. Now basically here's how to do it yourself easily...

You can look on ebay for older movie projectors.

Depending on what you have Super 8mm or regualr 8mm the same concepts apply.

You need a prjector with 2 main items. You need 1 that has an actual shutter where the film goes through. (Projectors have 2 types..the actual metal shutter and the second type is like a rotaing fan with blades...if you ever saw a fan going really fast it would appear as if you can see through it..something like that) Anyway you the fan method is a major part of flickering. This brings me to the 2nd item that is needed which is your shutter speed control. To have the exact numbers for everyone...8mm film was always filmed at a fixed rate of 24FPS. This is the reason for flickering...in the old days you may have heard stories where people tried filming the TV with an 8mm camera and they got a rolling effect the frame rate was the reason. Basically if you have these 2 main components you should be able to get this done pretty decently. I liked doing it in a dark room and doing a couple of test runs. This process does get fine tuned with every new reel of film. If you would like to contcat me privatley you may at kissvid@aol.com. If you go on your own i wish you the best of luck and if you have any more transferring qustions feel free to e-mail me on that as well or just post it here.

Marc

[SaSi]

kissvid,

I've shot some 8mm film with a Canon S8 camera back when I was a kid. I also have lot's of stuff I want to convert and look at. I've never seen it, as we never owned a S8 projector (!!!).

The S8 camera (Canon 814) could shoot at either 18fps or 24fps. It also had a Slow motion mode that shot at 40fps causing slow motion during playback.

My stuff is filmed at either 18fps or 24fps. For some reels I've even used both speeds Remember, I was a kid.

I've enjoyed the suggestions and links. Very good insight.

Some comments:

I remember the problem of broken notches during playback. The film stuck and the heat from the bulb would burn the substrate. I am worried about playback at 1fps (as suggested by some ideas).

I am thinking about a home-made system that would use a S8 transport mechanism backlit by a strong flashlight coupled to a digital camera. Film can advance one frame at a time, the transport would trigger the camera and take a shot at a time. Or, several cameras offer the facility to be remotely controlled by a PC program and take frames at preset intervals.

Another issue I don't understand is the use of the mirror. I understand it's use (to rotate the exposure by 90 degrees and offer a shooting plane) but wouldn't that distort the image by doing so? Unless the lens in front of the mirror is in the proper angle to fix this. Is this why the lens is used?

[regular8mm]

Today I just finished making a DVD of some Regular8mm home movies I'd made in 98 shot at 16 fps and transferred with a variable speed projector onto a rear projection screen. The Hi-8 video camera was used and the variable speed dialed out the flicker. Simple. The DVDs look great.
Most old Regular 8mm film was shot at 16fps not 24. Later, when magnetic stripe was added speeds were upped to 18 because the sound was better a little faster. I still shoot at 16 fps even with 16mm. It lasts longer!

[FOO]

I don't have much useful information to add , but
transferring old film to DVD was the entire reason I got
into this hobby. I had 30 years worth of old film to transfer.
I looked on all the websites and most of them wanted to
transfer to VHS tape.... or charge millions of dollars
Even if you wanted a DVD it would go to VHS first . Yukk No good. I finally found a local mom and pop shop
where I could actually go talk to the people.
They put it on DV tape directly for fairly cheap.

I then went and bought a whole new video capturing computer
with the savings and did the rest myself.
After the project was done , I joined the forum in order to irritate people
which has been moderately succesful since I have 2 warning thingies .

[LSchafroth]

After the project was done , I joined the forum in order to irritate people
which has been moderately succesful since I have 2 warning thingies .

It's good to know your goals and priceless to achieve them!!

LS

[TambourineMan]

I just bought an old Bell & Howell 10MS projector and want to try to capture my old super 8mm movie film using my Panasonic PV-GS250 (3CCD and manual shutter control). I have done one quick capture to try it out and flicker does not seem to be a problem even though I never set the speed on the projector nor took the camcorder off automatic.

My question is regarding projecting onto an old movie projector screen versus projecting on some flat white paper or cardboard taped to a wall versus onto a rear projection screen. I am not interested in trying the expensive $1,000 mirror systems.

Noone seems to recommend the more reflective movie screen. Why? Wouldn't that enable the greatest contrast?

Is it better to film in a dark room, or one that is dimly lit? I should think dark would be better, but some messages imply a dimly lit one is better.

[ozymango]

No one seems to recommend the more reflective movie screen. Why? Wouldn't that enable the greatest contrast?

Is it better to film in a dark room, or one that is dimly lit? I should think dark would be better, but some messages imply a dimly lit one is better.

I used to do this stuff professionally (transfer 8mm, S8mm, 16mm film to videotape) and we had an aerial image projector, so no screens were harmed in the creation of the movie , but I've worked with doing the "camcorder off a piece of white paper as a projection screen" method on the cheap and yeah, it can usually work pretty good.

As for what kind of screen to use, my own experience with using movie screen material runs hot and cold -- you can get some really good images that way but one thing I encountered was a lot of "light falloff" depending on even small shifts in the angle between the camera and projector. Oddly enough, plain paper is sometimes more "forgiving" of shift in viewing angle (not as sharp a light fall off).

When you do the aerial image thing, you've got the projector at 90 degrees from the camera and a mirror or prism to make the image "flat" on the screen -- there's no parallax between the angles of the camera and projector. When you're shooting an image reflected from an external screen (or piece of paper), there's a small (or even somewhat large) parallax angle between the projector and the camera -- and depending on the screen, you can get "hot spots" on one side of the screen or the other depending on how many degrees off you are on the angle. If that made sense.

In practice it's more a matter of nudging things rather a bit to get things just right, but it certainly can be done. Frankly, the resolution of 8mm film isn't all that high to begin with (S8mm is a bit better and 16mm can be extremely impressive) so you tend not to lose much detail in the process because the video camera has pretty high resolution to start with. I prefer going straight to computer instead of tape because you can capture at maximum resolution that way for later editing purposes, but that's just me. Also I've got lots of hard disk space.

I've never tried to work in a "dimly lit" room, I need dark, dark, dark! but as long as you don't have any shadows across your screen, you should be okay. My home transfer "system" is a couple of old Elmo 8mm/S8mm transfer units, they have rotating prisms that give a flicker-free transfer and a built-in close-up lens for the camera, rather nice quality actually, and if you do a lot of this kind of stuff it may be worth searching on ebay for 8mm telecine "converters" or the like (on a name search) because sometimes you can get these for cheap (they were state of the art for about 1980 or so!).