Capture quality of Super 8mm film

[sjmaye]

I had my film transferred to MiniDV and successfully captured it to my PC. In review of the film it appears grainy. Not really much worse than the original, but grainy.

Was I expecting too much? How good or bad should it appear? I am previewing the captured video in a small preview window. Won't it be many times worse looking when the DVD is made and put up on a 32" TV?

Are there filters that can be used to augment the grainy look?

[Tommyknocker]

The prevailing wisdom is usually garbage in, garbage out. You may want to try this guide to see if it helps.

[sjmaye]

You may want to try this guide to see if it helps.

What guide?

I transferred this same footage to VHS 10 years ago. I was in hopes that transferring the film to DVD would produce a clearer finished product. Is that safe to assume? Or am I asking too much?

[Tommyknocker]

Did you click on the link I gave you? It is an article to set certain settings in TMPGEnc to try and get a clearer video, once you have finished capturing.

Is that safe to assume? Or am I asking too much?

'Fraid so. The reason your video is grainy is because it is missing information that is on the true image you recorded/filmed. You cannot replace this information, because there is no where to get the missing information from.

If you still have the film available, you may want to try to buy a used telecine box (I have seen them on eBay), and try and see if you can get a better transfer yourself. Hope this helps.

[sjmaye]

[quote="Tommyknocker"]Did you click on the link I gave you? quote]

I don't see a link in your post. It would just be displayed as an underlined link wouldn't it?

As far as the film. Sure I have it, but the reason I had the transfer done professionally was to get a better job than I could do myself.

Should or could I have specified some other form of transfer to have been done to get an even better quality result?

Thanks for the help.

[Gees]

The link is auto-created as TommyK types it. It is red.

I remember when you first started posting about looking for a company to transfer for you.

Too late now, but I would have asked for a sample of what it would look like, so you'd know what to expect.

You can not get "DVD quality" (like in movies you'd rent/purchase) out of old sources. The beauty and value of the transfer will be in its preservation and ease of navigation (menus chapters, etc.), not in exceeding the original source quality - which is impossible.

You can "fake" a little higher quality with filters and such, if you want to put the time and effort in. But you may forfeit a lot of whatever detail there was from the original source by doing so.

[Tommyknocker]

Click on the red word "guide" in my first post.

[sjmaye]

I normally have no problem following links, but I just don't seem to see it in his post.

As far as the transfer quality from Super 8mm to MiniDV, I know I can not exceed the original quality of the Super 8mm film.

Part of the reason I am now attempting to create a DVD was to get a little better quality output as compared to the work I did 10 years ago transferring from Super 8mm to VHS. Are we saying that it is possible that the output could be worse?

[sjmaye]

Thanks Tommyknocker. You will laugh when I tell you. I am red green color blind. I could not see that the word "guide" was red.


After you pointing it out, I can see the word is slightly different. Thx.

[Gees]

No, I did not say that. I said that attempts to try to remove "grainy look" may give you something less than satisfactory results.

Try it - on a small segments. See if you prefer those results.

[Gees]

Link mystery solved! :cD