Moped Riders Association

[Tab]

I am wanting to send the original 16mm film off to a film-to-video conversion house. The one online was done by pointing a camera at a screen while the film played. I need to find a place that is reasonable...and can go to MiniDV instead of DVD...so I can touch it up.

[lankybits]

Whoa, Tab, you have this film in its original format? I would definitely be willing to pay a little for a DVD-quality copy of it... I have no idea what the transfer from film would cost, but I bet you could find enough interested people that you could distribute it for a few bucks a copy. Rather than burning them all to DVDs and mailing those out, someone could probably host the file for FTP download... anyway, just a thought.

[Jim C.]

Tab:
I did a similar effort on some old 8MM films, shooting at the screen. A fellow who's a pro at that said to use an 8 X 10 sheet of white paper for a screen, and project the smallest clear image on that. That gives you the best resolution when you shoot it with your video camera.

I never tried that, as I don't have the equipment.

[Tab]

The problem is the flicker you get when the 24fps film format is being recorded onto 29.97fps video. I need to find a good telecine conversion house that doesn't want $$$$$$$ to do it. I think I found one, but it will still cost about $100 to get it run.

[nixie]

Bumping an old thread for those interested in transfer of film to video. Another film transfer option is available as newer technology has become available and less expensive.

Instead of using a standard projector, screen, and camcorder in real time, a setup can be used where each frame of the movie film is projected directly onto an image sensor/camera. An image of each frame is recorded and saved on a computer. Once all the frames are in digital form, the images can be processed and assembled it into a video using video software such as Windows Movie Maker and AviSynth.

A number of hobbyists on the web have used this approach and have gotten high quality results. It involves modification of a regular movie projector to use a low-power light source instead of a high-power incandescent lamp. It also requires mechanical modifications to be able to step frame-by-frame at a rate slow enough that an image sensor/camera has enough time to grab each frame at high resolution. The original projector lens is removed. An appropriate lens is placed between the projector and the image sensor to properly project the film onto the sensor. The image sensor can be a machine vision camera from a company such as The Imaging Source which has a 1024 pixel width, an external trigger, and a firewire interface. The camera is electronically triggered by the modified projector to grab each frame at the proper time and store it on a computer using capture software that comes with the camera.

Today there is enough software and image sensor equipment to build such a system at a reasonable cost. For someone who doesn't have the expertise to do such a thing, it may be possible to find a company or hobbyist who has already built such a system and who can do the transfer process at a reasonable price. This approach yields a quality far better than trying to record off a projector screen with a camcorder in real time, even with a five-blade projector.

Here is the webpage of Fred Van de Putte. His homemade telecine setup is shown in his site and the attached pic.

http://www.super-8.be/s8_Eindex.htm