See the Goko TC-20 Transfer Film to Video in Actio

[mcarter4121]

I've used that machine to make enough money transferring home movies to pay for all my video stuff. It looks great on tv. Sound is easy to transfer off mag striped S8. However, on low light cameras the speed was slowed also so the sound is high and squeeky so that didn't work so well. Premiere can fix that though. Just be sure to have the light bulb pushed in all the way or you get wierd moveing lights up and down in frame. It is the only way to transfer 24 fps super 8 at home that I have. I paid 300 for one and 50 for another. They sometimes show up on e-bay. they work great in daylight, just use a light shade on the lens. Focus must be locked afer auto focus sets it. Do not use manual cause it isn't as accurate as the auto thing can see. Auto exposure will cause flash frames between each scene change about 3 frames or so. Locked exposure will keep proper lighting of the film, darks will stay dark and lights will stay too light. Home movies look best at the highest speed setting available. It's best not to watch it too long.

[souper8]

McCarter,
When you were talking about moving lights up and down the frame on the TC-20, was it when the brightness was at max or less than max? I got the upgraded halogen from Goko and it seems that if I dim the bulb to a lower level, I see halations run down the frame. When you push the bulb in, does it get rid of the halations completely at all light levels?
Thanks

[mcarter4121]

It drove me crazy for the longest time till I finally pushed it all the way in. Now it works at all light levels. I need to use the light at low to medium levels usually but the finest color and grain are at the high levels. The iris on the camera I use rides up and spoils the image when the light is too high.
Anybody have a old 3 tube out there?

[souper8]

I checked my bulb and it is pushed all the way in. I'm wondering if the new halogen bulbs do not align correctly. I have pretty good luck using ND filters so I could keep the high levels up. The image is really good for because I could see all of the grain in my frames.

[Kurt]

Hello!

Do any of you have a manual for the TC-20? I just picked up one of these and although it is very straight forward to use, I'd like to have a manual. Is there any info about cleaning the unit's optics in there? I'd gladly pay for a copy, or maybe someone could upload one?

Thanks!

Kurt

[Kurt]

Sorry folks, I just scrolled up and saw that a manual had already been posted. I haven't tried the unit yet with a video camera, but looking through the glass window I noticed that the image is quite jumpy. Is that normal when viwing it with the naked eye?

Kurt

[Hanthx]

kURT

Where did you find yours?
Looking for one myself
Scott

[mcarter4121]

The manual that is the best I have ever read is posted on line in a message above.

The mirrors are front coated and need to be cleaned very carefully. Those compressed air cans should work better than a soft brush. It isn't so complicated to take apart and well worth it to clean.

Old film that has shrunken will be jumpy. It may be held back by holding it between the index finger and thumb along both edges to increase tension as it enters the left side; that helps to stablize it some. If the film is so shrunken that is jumps off the cogs then put your finger nail there to keep the film on the cogs while you apply pressure to the edges.

It works best on film from the late 50s on depending on how it was stored. New film works best.

Badly shrunken film will play best in a movie projector; it'll be steady as a rock.

[mcarter4121]

Jeff:Hi,
I just finished doing what you suggested, at least making the thing, now, where to put it?? It is a short collection of clips made on Super 8 films and transferred using a HOPE telecine system, a GOKO look a like, Hope bought GOKO or the other way around. The camera was a Sony Hi-8 trv65 with extended resolution. Premiere was used to edit the Pinnacle DC30pro capture.
The final movie is in two forms:

1. TD Sized: (trimmed, deflickered, and sized to 352x240 at 29.970fps) mpg, (avi2vcd), 30.5 MB, 3:03 three min and 3 seconds long.

2. S8telecine DivX: 13.9 MB 3min 3.35 sec otherwise the same as #1. Sound was compressed, too.

Your message on Mike Brantley's Super 8 Filmmaking:

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Any chance that someone who owns one of these TC-20's could create a VCD-compatible mpeg file and post it someplace where we could download? This would give us a much better idea of the quality of these machines. I for one am interested in them for their compactness and convenience. I believe I can get a better transfer with a home system I've rigged up using condenser lenses (looks almost as good as a Rank transfer in my opinion). However, my home system takes a lot of effort to set up and use. I think that if I had one of these Goko's, I could transfer films quickly for other family members and friends, and the quality would probably be acceptable for them.

Do you know where to put it? My ISP only allows 5 MB total.

Michael

[mcarter4121]

I don't mean to hog up the board on anything. But, I just burned the movie to a VCD disk and it looked great. bbMPEG was the try out encoder, avi2vcd was used as well. The film looked great, bb was a little lighter and avi2vcd had more darks or contrast; I think bb was finer, too. Sharper. Andreas was asked to host the video for downloading and he should since there are only 2 movies up there in Oslo on his site.