Cleaning up 16mm film from 1941 on VHS?

[Wile_E]

I have a VHS tape, that has a copy of a 16mm silent film on it. It looks like the 16mm film was projected onto a screen, and then videotaped to VHS. The quality is rather poor in some scenes, color is tinted, it is blurry, and it is not centered on the screen at times. There is also flickering of the film, that I would like to try and remove. Was color 16mm film available in 1941? My dad thinks that color may have been added, but I don't think so. Is there any way to check if it was colorized?

I have captured the VHS to DV using a Canopus ADVC-300. The built-in color adjustments of the Canopus really couldn't do anything for the tape, so I left them at default. I'm using Sony Vegas for editing. What would be the steps involved in cleaning up this tape? Is there anything that can be done? I've already tried adjusting the color using the vectorscope in Vegas and it only helped a little.

This film is about a small town here in Texas, and has images of my grandpa and my dad on it. That is why I would like to try and fix it. If nothing can be done, I may be able to find out who has the original 16mm film, and maybe pay to have it professionally transferred. That would be my first option, but I really don't know WHO has the 16mm film. And if I do find out, they would probably be reluctant to let me borrow it. This film should've been given to a professional in the first place, to have it transferred correctly.

[lordsmurf]

Color film was indeed available in the 1940s, there are even some WWII documentaries out there that SOLELY used varying color film reels (so it was available for non-studio use, but more expensive). It could have been colorized, but the transfer is so degraded it's hard to see THAT much detail. The WIZARD OF OZ was a color film from 1939.

If I had this tape, I'd run it through my proc amps to tweak colors. Maybe play with detail settings to try and curb some of the blur. Then capture AVI and run through VirtualDub with the anti-flicker filters. As far as software corrections, maybe try some color filters at the same time you apply anti-flicker in v-dub. Kill the magenta a bit, maybe lighten the gamma some.

[thecoalman]

The first thing I have to say is WOW, what a great thing to have. A film that old and in color yet. I think your Dad is wrong about the color being added, that's way too natural without it being done by a studio.

I'm just getting into doing a little restoring myself and I'm finding out that the best way is using hardware solutions before it gets converted.

Anyhow to start with try using 0 ire on the Canopus which sets the black levels, I have a video here that is quite dark from a band on stage. I captured a sample clip where one of the players was off to the side and barely visible, I captured the clip at both 0 ire and 7.5 ire. The 0 ire video appeared washed out on the computer screen a little compared to the 7.5 but once burned to DVD and viewed on TV the subject nearly became invisible with 7.5 ire but remained quite visible with the 0 ire setting.

The flickering is caused by the different frame rates between the video camera and the film, I really can't help you there perhaps someone else has some advice.

As for centering the footage I'd put the video on the overlay track and move it over a little to the right and maintain the original dimensions, then add an additional black frame to clean up the edges.

If I was you though I'd see if I could track down the original, there's not many people that are going to have such a treasure. Having said that you may want to consider the same for the VHS.

[Marvingj]

For 1941 its looks pretty good. You could restore this by simple means & it could even look better.

[Oscar wallace]

1935 - KODACHROME Film was introduced and became the first commercially successful amateur color film. It was initially offered in 16 mm format for motion pictures; 35 mm slides and 8 mm home movies followed in 1936.

From Kodaks website.

I use to use Kodaks Kodochrome 25 slide film, the American forces filmed a lot of world war two using it,the best colour film ever made in my opinion,give me a few boxes of Kodaks TRI-X black and white film and some KODOCHROME 25 slide film and I will show you a happy camera.

[lordsmurf]

Good chunk of info there!

On an tangent...
Fuji slide outperforms Kodak, but TRI-X is my B&W film of choices too. Nice grays, not as contrasted as TMAX (can be a bit destructive in regard to contrast).

[Wile_E]

Ok, thanks for the suggestions. There are always helpful people here. The VHS was produced back in 1991. But my dad bought this copy, brand new, maybe three years ago. My dad said it was available to buy, at the town's small museum. That is one place I can call for info. The tape has narration but the narrator never says his name, nor are there any credits. The person who shot the 1941 16mm film is in the first photo, with his grandson. It also stated a name of a church that he belonged to. I found a website for the church, and emailed them about it. Hopefully someone there will know what happened to the original 16mm film. Maybe they are the ones that are keeping it.

The 16mm film part runs about 1.5 hours and covers one year in time. Then they show the town in 1978 and 1991. Those parts are equally bad and blurry. But I'm just interested in the 1941 16mm film. If I can find the owner of the 16mm film, I would gladly pay to have them send it off to be professionally transfered. It should've been done professionally in the first place. But then again, it was 1991, and we didn't have the technology we have today.

What is the best way to transfer it to digital format? Are there any professional photo labs that can do it? Do they scan each frame and digitize it? I don't want it compressed down to DVD, but would like at least a DV copy or better quality to keep as a master.

[justinluck]

Hi Wile_E,

My grandfather has tons of 8mm and super8 film reels that I want to have professionally transferred as well. I have been looking at various online companies and this one seems like it might provide the best quality for the most reasonable price: http://www.integratedphoto.com/vidtran.htm

They transfer the film to miniDV. Take a look at their FAQ and you can see what they do for the transfer process. They also have a price estimator. I haven't been able to convince my grandpa to send his films yet, but hopefully I can get some sent soon.

Keep us updated on the status of your film!

Justin

[vhelp]

@ wille_e

I see you are (or, were) working on the VHS copy. Perhaps you
gave up on it

It looks like you applied a filter on it already (in your pics
above) and from what I can see.., too much filtering. I'm guessing
too much blue or something else.

I would that since you don't have the 16 mm tape (yet) then, its
safe to assume that whatever noise *is* on that vhs tape is partly
due to the VCR used, and whatever VCR or Equipment was used in the
"original" transfer from the 16 mm tape. That means, if there were
some "original" noise on the 16 mm, those you want to keep.., if
for any other reason, then for posterity and flavor.

I think that if I were in the possition of that VHS tape, I would
first capture it whole, with all the noise. Of course, assuming
that I felt comfortibale with my current VCR's performance. And,
I would consitrate on the folowing:

* VCR -------------- First
* Capture device --- Second
* Encoder ---------- Third
.
* Encoding Methods and Process -- Last.

And start with high bitrate encode that most DVD players will
allow (and play smoothly)

Especially for VHS source, you want to use a high bitrate, and
eliminate (if possible, per your skills/knowledge/technique level)
any pixelation (commonly refered to as, macroblocks) in your final
MPEG.
.
IMO, applying too much filtering can have an effect on the macroblocks
count, *or* could make these blocks look worse. If anything, you may
not have as much of these blocks because of the large amount of the
filtering being applied. The *effect* I was mostly refering to, was
the output looking more like a "masked" painting, much like what you
pics above seem to show. IMO, this is from too much filtering.

I don't know what bitrate you used, because you did not mention it.
.
What was your encoding method used and resulting in those pics you
posted above ?? -- (Encoder; VBR; 2-pass VBR; CBR; BITRATE, etc)

Never the lesss.. if you could redo another few test encodes without
filtering, and use CBR with 9000 bitrate as your starting point, maybe
things will turn out better ..at least you might have something
to keep in the mean time, until you can get your hands on the 16 mm tape.

-vhelp 3385

[marksk918]

here's a link to a samlpe clip from another company that does transfershttp://www.digitaltransfersystems.net/Media/default.asp

i'm shopping around to do some transfers and have narrowed it down to this company and the one justinluck mentions above. for what i need to have done, the price comes out to be about the same.

[NoodleMaps]

Not sure if you checked this out. They only do silent films, but if you have the audio track. I'm sure you could sync it back up.

May be a bit $$. But could be a good route to go.

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