RetroScan Universal

[OneIron]

I've now had my RetroScan Universal for about two weeks. Bit of a learning curve but so far, I'm very satisfied with the purchase. The one thing I'm struggling with now is the film grain. The images are so sharp that the grain is very visible. I'm purchasing Neat Video today to work on that issue.

I'll soon be ready to post some examples. Stay tuned...

[JVRaines]

I envy you — I spent many, many hours slogging through at 2 fps on the old Retro-8.

[johnmeyer]

Don't get too carried away with grain removal. Most of the tools that do that end up giving you results where the residual grain sort of "mushes" around in a gooey mess.

You might look to see if you can reduce the grain by changing settings on your transfer system. I know that back when I did a lot of darkroom work, condenser-based enlargers tended to produce a lot more grain that those which used diffusers. I'm not sure if there is anything similar that can be changed in your unit.

[JVRaines]

From an archival perspective, it's a mistake to throw away information in the scanning process. Film grain is not noise; it's the actual stuff of the picture. Keep the grain in your masters and tone it down to suit your taste in copies. You may find that the grain is not a problem after all when you make compressed videos or project it optically.

[OneIron]

I'm trying to distinguish grain from noise. Some of it looks like noise to me (from my photography experience). I'll try to post some frame captures and see what you guys think. I'm also experimenting with capturing lossless TIFF vs lossy JPG. My initial plan was to always use lossless capture but it eats up storage and really slows down the rendering process.

I've also been evaluating the trial version of Neat Video to remove some of the grain/noise and it seems to do a pretty good job without too much smoothing. I've given some thought about going to the full version of Adobe CC (I currently use the $9.99/mo subscription which includes Lightroom and Photoshop only). I'm trying to determine the advantages of Premiere over Elements. Maybe Premiere has a grain reduction filter built in.

It's gonna be a learning experience but I enjoy that. This is the first transfer solution I've tried that's met my expectations. Well done, MovieStuff!


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[OneIron]

It just occurred to me that a good comparison method would be to capture the same reel in both lossy JPEG and lossless TIFF and then export each to individual images. I could then compare the images side by side in LR or PS.


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[OneIron]

From an archival perspective, it's a mistake to throw away information in the scanning process. Film grain is not noise; it's the actual stuff of the picture. Keep the grain in your masters and tone it down to suit your taste in copies. You may find that the grain is not a problem after all when you make compressed videos or project it optically.

I would agree. I always shoot RAW in digital photography to capture as much info as possible and give me maximum editing latitude. But with film, much larger capture frame size really slows down the workflow. But I'm pretty sure that's the route I'll end up taking.


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[OneIron]

Decided to experiment with a Castle Films reel. This was saved as a 720 HD video through the RetroScan Universal. Then I did minor edits in Premiere Elements and added a soundtrack. I also did very slight grain removal using Neat Video.

http://youtu.be/1uk2mHKbAwQ

I'm still struggling with the presets in Premiere Elements. This film ended up interlaced instead of progressive. But I'll get there.

[johnmeyer]

The one question your sample begs is whether the title card text on the original film was fuzzy and bloomed? For instance, the title "Are you thinking what I'm thinking" has so much blooming that all the lower-case vowels are completely filled in so that the "a," "e," and "o" look almost the same.

The usual cause of this -- if it is not on the actual film -- is exposure that is too hot. I don't know what exposure settings are available to you on the Retroscan, but if you can turn it down a little, and then gain the shadows a little in post, you might get a cleaner result.

[OneIron]

The one question your sample begs is whether the title card text on the original film was fuzzy and bloomed? For instance, the title "Are you thinking what I'm thinking" has so much blooming that all the lower-case vowels are completely filled in so that the "a," "e," and "o" look almost the same.

The usual cause of this -- if it is not on the actual film -- is exposure that is too hot. I don't know what exposure settings are available to you on the Retroscan, but if you can turn it down a little, and then gain the shadows a little in post, you might get a cleaner result.

I'll check it out, John. Thanks for the feedback!

[JVRaines]

The usual cause of this -- if it is not on the actual film -- is exposure that is too hot. I don't know what exposure settings are available to you on the Retroscan, but if you can turn it down a little, and then gain the shadows a little in post, you might get a cleaner result.

I don't know what cam they're using in the Universal, but it was a Point Grey Research Chameleon in the Retro-8. Pretty nice unit, but like most video cameras, it didn't have the dynamic range of photographic film. Manual exposure adjustment was necessary during most scans. I concentrated on avoiding crushed highlights, since I find them more objectionable than crushed shadows.

[johnmeyer]

I don't know what cam they're using in the Universal, but it was a Point Grey Research Chameleon in the Retro-8. Pretty nice unit, but like most video cameras, it didn't have the dynamic range of photographic film. Manual exposure adjustment was necessary during most scans. I concentrated on avoiding crushed highlights, since I find them more objectionable than crushed shadows.

Yes, you can never recover clipped highlights, but you can almost always gain the shadows. With my two film transfer units I use the "spotlight" function on my camcorder combined with the AE adjustment to remove most zebras from the picture. Since amateur film exposure is so poor (most older cameras had no automatic exposure control, and many people prior to the mid-50s didn't use exposure meters) you have to be ready to crank the exposure adjustments up and down.

Using this method, I still get the benefits of automatic exposure control, to set the "baseline," and then between the spotlight function and AE adjustments, I can get pretty good exposure.

[OneIron]

I looked at the frames on my light box and found the titles were clear. So I ran the film through a couple of times adjusting the LED. I finally settled on a 25% brightness and this is what I got...

http://youtu.be/H_OM7fglQGo

Thanks everyone for the constructive criticism.

[jagabo]

That got rid of the blooming text but you still have a terrible automatic gain control problem -- the brightness of scenes change as the content changes and right after a scene change the brightness pumps from dark to light or vice versa. Turn off the automatic gain and set it manually -- if you can.

[johnmeyer]

Much better.

Now you need to do a little gamma adjusting in post in order to get the shadows and midtones to not look too muddy. I do my gamma correction in Vegas using their "color curves" tool. This is a histogram adjustment tool where you create a luma input/output curve which let you apply a gain function to each pixel based on its luma value. With the curve I have created, I do not apply any gain (brightening) to pixels that are already really bright, but then apply quite a bit of gain to the midtones and dark shadows. For the really dark shadows, I don't do anything in order to keep the black point the same.

[OneIron]

Again, Thanks guys!

I'll run it through again with auto exposure off. Then a little more post processing. Stay tuned...

Mike

[JVRaines]

That got rid of the blooming text but you still have a terrible automatic gain control problem -- the brightness of scenes change as the content changes and right after a scene change the brightness pumps from dark to light or vice versa. Turn off the automatic gain and set it manually -- if you can.

Could be exactly what's on the film. If autoexposure was used for the copy, it often takes a frame or two to adjust to a new scene.

[OneIron]

I turned autoexposure off last night and experimented with manual gain. Major improvement!

I really appreciate everyone's feedback. I feel like I'm zeroing in on a good work flow.

Mike

[jagabo]

It looked like the focus was hunting on some shots. Do you have auto focus on? If so, turn that off too. In fact, turn off all automatic functions. Except maybe frame registration.

[johnmeyer]

Ditto the suggestion to turn off most auto functions. This includes auto white balance. Just do a white balance on the bare bulb and use that.

You most definitely do not want to use auto focus, because the film is a constant distance from the camera, and the auto-focus will "hunt." I re-focus at the beginning of every new reel, just in case the focus adjustment got bumped.

I don't know about turning off the autoexposure. Yes, you can sometimes get a little under- or over-shoot at scene changes, but that is a small price to pay for having the camera take care of doing most of the exposure changing. If you are transferring dozens of hours of film, you don't want to have to spend your time sitting by the projector twiddling knobs. In addition, most amateur film requires exposure changes dozens of times per reel, and you won't be able to react fast enough at most scene changes. Put another way, the autoexposure will give you a one second hiccup when the exposure changes dramatically, but your reaction time to manually react and adjust will probably create a five second glitch.

So, try doing manual exposure and then see if you think you are getting a better result, and determine if you have the time to sit next to the projector and ride the exposure knobs.

[OneIron]

The RetroScan Universal camera doesn't have white balance adjustment or auto focus. But turning off auto exposure was a huge improvement. I also found that manually adjusting the gain on underexposed film really helped.

[OneIron]

That got rid of the blooming text but you still have a terrible automatic gain control problem -- the brightness of scenes change as the content changes and right after a scene change the brightness pumps from dark to light or vice versa. Turn off the automatic gain and set it manually -- if you can.

Could be exactly what's on the film. If autoexposure was used for the copy, it often takes a frame or two to adjust to a new scene.

I am seeing exposure shifts on the film itself...

[OneIron]

So now I'm working on a 250' 16mm B&W film. When I render the film at 1080p, it takes about three hours to generate the MOV file. And the MOV file is 23GB. I'm wondering if it's worth the extra time and effort to go 1080p rather than 720p.

[johnmeyer]

I doubt you will see any difference between 720p and 1080p. Why don't you simply do a test and see for yourself?

[lordsmurf]

Don't get too carried away with grain removal.

^ This needs repeating. Too many people give video a "plastic look".

[OneIron]

I doubt you will see any difference between 720p and 1080p. Why don't you simply do a test and see for yourself?

Talked about that last night with my son. Trying to figure out how to do a split screen view in Premiere for comparison.

But I'm really leaning towards 720p for simplicity...

[OneIron]

Don't get too carried away with grain removal.

^ This needs repeating. Too many people give video a "plastic look".

I agree. I've set Neat Video at about 10% max to avoid over smoothing.

[OneIron]

Here's my latest attempt on the RetroScan Universal. Fair amount of sprocket damage and the film was warped and getting brittle. I gently cleaned it using Edwal and then used Pledge to lubricate it. It fed flawlessly through the unit. I did very minor sharpening in Premiere Elements and added the soundtrack.

http://youtu.be/Hjr0xUKESxM

[johnmeyer]

The playback speed seems a little fast, at least at certain times. 1930s amateur 16mm film had no standard filming speed. If you get film from the 1920s, much of it was "hand-cranked," so the speed can change quite a bit. I sensed that this film was speeding up and slowing down, so this might have been taken with one of those older cameras. You just have to use your judgement as to whether a slower (or faster) average speed will work better. I have set some of my transfers to play at speeds as low as 12 fps. Here is one such example:

1928 Backyard Kids Football in Oak Park, Illinois
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YekFxBYKNM

I think you will agree that, even at this super-slow playback speed, it is not too slow (i.e., it doesn't look like slow motion).

[OneIron]

The playback speed seems a little fast, at least at certain times. 1930s amateur 16mm film had no standard filming speed. If you get film from the 1920s, much of it was "hand-cranked," so the speed can change quite a bit. I sensed that this film was speeding up and slowing down, so this might have been taken with one of those older cameras. You just have to use your judgement as to whether a slower (or faster) average speed will work better. I have set some of my transfers to play at speeds as low as 12 fps. Here is one such example:

1928 Backyard Kids Football in Oak Park, Illinois
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YekFxBYKNM

I think you will agree that, even at this super-slow playback speed, it is not too slow (i.e., it doesn't look like slow motion).

I agree, John. I struggled with the playback speed, finally deciding to leave it be. It kind of gave it that silent film look. I may go back and try a slower version just to see how it looks.

Btw, love the 1928 film! I just subscribed to your YouTube feed...