On 7/2/2017 3:48 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
The recent thread (in the W7 'group only) about converting VHS (to DVD was in
the title of that thread, but to disc file equally) made me wonder:

What experience have people had with converting old cine film? (Or new for that
matter! But I can't imagine many people are still shooting it.)

I have a certain amount of standard and super 8 film; fortunately not sound, so
that's one less thing to worry about. I _think_ I still have the projectors (-:!

I'd be interested to hear others' experiences in converting these: do you just
set up the projector and point a video camera at the screen? I can't think of
any other way, but can see lots of problems: not only optical (getting things
lined up, do you use a large or small image, do you actually shoot from the
opposite side of the screen, do you even do something odd like projecting
directly onto the sensor), but matters of sync: IIRR (silent) standard 8 used 16
frames per second and super 8 18 [I think 24 for sound film], which don't map
well to the 24 or 25 of "PAL" or the 30 of NTSC which the video camera is likely
to be (I'm in "PAL"-land) - especially as most projectors actually cut the beam
twice per frame to reduce flicker?

What experience do people have of the (usually rather expensive) high/main
street shops which offer such conversion facilities: do _they_ just use a
projector/camera setup? I can see that the best possible method would use a
telecine machine like the broadcasters use (which does not use
intermittent-motion), but I very much doubt most shops offering "conversion"
services have anything like that.

So, generally - what are people's thoughts/experiences?

Just a random thought triggered by the VHS discussion; I don't anticipate doing
it any time soon - a project for retirement. (Though thinking about it now,
there may be slightly more urgency than I'd assumed if I'm going to do it using
my old projectors, as the longer I leave it there's always increasing chance
that belts may have perished or similar, if they haven't already [I was going to
say or electronics degraded - capacitors dried out etc. - but I don't think
there _is_ any electronics in my old projectors, certainly not the old Russian
OMO wheezer for the standard 8!].)

(A sign that it's time to think about it: my spelling checker doesn't know
"cine"! [And yes I know it really should have an accent.] I came across a .sig
or similar on similar lines - something like "You know you're old when you type
VCR and the spelling checker wants to change it to vicar.")

P. S.: I say the standard 8 was 16 frames per second, though only roughly: it
was a clockwork camera! Virtually the same as the Zapruder one, in fact it may
even be the same model; not that I'm that old!, but that was what a schoolboy in
the 70s in England could afford. But it was _fairly_ steady in speed, and I'd be
happy to accept a fixed rate for the conversion, especially as there's no sound.

P. P. S: At least when well lit, cine film - even 8mm, especially super 8 (which
used more of the film width) - was capable of better-than-SD resolution, though
I'll probably not worry too much about that.


JP:

While I've never done this there IS a product that claims to do what you want in
a dedicated package for $300 US.

http://secure.mm5server.com/merchant...Yes&Quantity=1

http://www.wolverinedata.com/videos/...ieMaker_V1.pdf

No idea what the quality is like.

HTH & GL

John

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