8/16mm film to video question

[spiritgumm]

As a test before I have more transferred, I had a short 16mm reel converted to dvd video by a local organization - they use a digital camera attached to a PC, using Vegas. The projector and video camera are aimed into a mirror-box, and the video is telecined 29.97 fps.
The film happens to be a beach scene, and while the motion of the waves look smooth in the mirror box, the results via the camera have a slightly incremental look. People in motion have a slightly incremental in both film and video, so I understand some of this in inherent to the film. But I'm wondering why the waves aren't playing smooth, and what suggestions I can give them for improving results. They already use antiflicker in Vdub.

[jagabo]

I suggest you post a sample that shows the problems.

But generally, 8mm film ran at 16 fps, super 8 at 18 fps. Those are inherently low frame rates and will be jerky under the best of circumstances. Neither lends itself to NTSC DVD's 23.976 or 29.97 fps. So a DVD will be even jerkier. And if the telecine machine was a realtime projection and recording you have even more problems.

[edDV]

Best to ask for frame by frame film scan transfers to a hard/flash disk (i.e. at native 16fps or 18fps) then experiment with frame repeat sequences in avisynth that work best with you 59.94Hz or 119.88Hz HDTV (50 or 100Hz in PAL world).

[lordsmurf]

Not all telecine systems are the same, either. Many are crap.

[spiritgumm]

I dont think the video looks particularly jerky - kids on the beach move abit woodenly but that's how they look in the projected film. It's possible the telecine adds a tad more jerking on the dvd.
The 10 second clip (from the 16mm film on dvd) is just of the water. The slight unsmoothness of wave motion might not seem very apparent, though I found it noticeable on my TV and their monitor. This clip wasn't deflickered, and I thought that might be the actual problem, but the wave motion still seemed unsmooth after deflicker.
Of course, the majority of the films aren't of the beach, but if the video transfer has some subtle flaw, it could still manifest itself in the other films.
beach.m2v

[jagabo]

I think the "extra" jerkiness of the water comes from the flicker and the frequent double exposures and occasional missing frames. Pretty poor telecine job.

[spiritgumm]

Thanks, jagabo. Are you saying the missing frames are missed in the capture? I've noticed an occasional jump when I've watched the whole reel, but I thought it was the film itself. I dunno if that was actually missing frames as well.

They said they usually use Vegas' deflicker, but they thought Vdub deflicker looked better. I have a copy of the original with flicker, and the Vdub deflickered. The Vdub copy looks good, though I think I see a slight increase in compression artifacts.

Do you have any suggestions I could make to them? They seem interested for any constructive advice. They aren't the high end, $100 per 2 minute reel.

[jagabo]

I thought there might be a missing frame between frames 77 and 78. And maybe another one later one. But it might just be a camera jerk, especially the second one. A really good transfer would use a camera that's timed with the film so that you get exactly one frame of film to one frame of video (or two frames of video -- for example 16 fps 8mm film can be slowed to 15 fps and each frame becomes two video frames) and each frame is properly exposed. Hence no double exposures and no flicker. Of course, you then have to telecine for TV or DVD.

I went through the first ~half of the video and removed double exposure frames by hand and deflickered in VirtualDub. I probably made a few mistakes but attached is the result at 24 fps (I assumed 24 fps for 16mm film).

[spiritgumm]

thanks again, jagabo. Aside from the deflicker, I'm not sure I see much difference between the 2 clips (on my monitor). The waves still seem odd a couple times (not to mention, making me seasick from repeated viewing).
I wonder if they can somehow sync the camera with the projector, or is postprocessing all they can do?

[jagabo]

There's a big build-your-own telecine machine thread here. It might be worth looking at.
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/279996-Having-Trouble-with-DIY-Telecine-%288mm%29-System
The link in the first post doesn't work. Here's the updated link:
http://homepage.mac.com/onsuper8/diytelecine.html

[spiritgumm]

I decided to have these guys do our home films, and got a few dvds from them recently. I started to watch them and thought they were pretty soft. It was hard to believe anyone would keep filming if the results looked like this.
I had some old VHS transfers of some of the same films (I used VHS home camera and a mirror box), and they looked significantly sharper. Could be because they arent zoomed in as much as the dvds, and the projector light seems brighter. And the dvd video was deflickered, which might have caused some softness. In any case, I'm pretty disappointed, and perplexed why they would come out softer.
If anyone would care to comment, I could post comparative samples (old vhs and new dvd).