This weekend, we set up the 8mm movie projector to watch some of the old home movies. As a quick proof-of-concept test, I pulled out my new Canon ZR45MC camcorder, pointed it at the movie screen, held it with my hand (no tripod), and hit "Record". While recording, I fiddled with the projector's variable speed settings to see if I could adjust out the flicker. After a few minutes, I shut off the ZR45MC. Then, I just hooked up the ZR45MC to the TV, rewound the tape and hit "Play".

So, how did it look? It's a good-news, bad-news situation. First the bad news...

The SPECIFIC quality was not good for a couple reasons: ALL the settings were set to automatic (exposure, focus, shutter speed, etc.) The video moved around because I was holding the camera, watching the movie screen, watching the LCD, and adjusting the projector speed all at once. Remember, this is only a test!

Now the good news...
Conceptually, this test was FANTASTIC! The image was bright, and at times, pretty sharp. When I had zoomed in a bit, the image nicely filled the screen. After I had adjusted the projector speed, the flicker SIGNIFICANTLY reduced! There were a couple vacation shots of "landmark signs" and "road signs" and they were quite readable. That was unexpected.

Needless to say, we were actually blown away by the results. In fact, the REAL test was when my wife said, "Wow! That looks much better than I expected!"

So, I am very confident that I can get quite good results if I take the following steps:

1. USE A TRIPOD
Obviously, this is a no-brainer. I just didn't have one when I did the test. I have since purchased one, and by using the ZR45MC's IR remote, I should be able to make most settings adjustments without having to touch the camera.

2. MANUALLY SET THE ZR45MC SETTINGS
For simplicity of testing, I just used all default and automatic settings. manually setting things like focus, exposure, turning off the stabilizer, etc. should significantly improve the image.

3. ADJUST THE PROJECTOR SPEED
This is very importand. By slightly reducing the projector speed, flicker significantly reduced. I don't have to do this, but the quality will be much more professional and easier on the eyes.

Oh, I almost forgot. I then captured the DV video from the tape to my PC using Pinnacle DV Studio 7. Then, I converted the captured .avi file to MPEG VCD format with the TMPGEnc program using the default VCD template. Finally, I burned the .mpg file to VCD using Nero.

The results were quite good. Once I tweak the initial film capture process, the results should significantly improve. (One note: I used Pinnacle Studio 7's "Make Movie" option to convert the file to MPEG, and it looked like garbage. Definatly use TMPGEnc, you will get much better resultes.)

I'm off to a good start! Mode updates as I do them...