Transfering sound super-8?

[Scott Spears]

I know how to get the picture transfered, but I have some old film with a sound stripe and was wondering what's the best way to get the sound, in sync, to viedo?

Some of these are films I made in high school and early college career. The memories just flood in when I look at these films.

Scott

[Alex]

Film and Video Transfers in Northridge California has done some extensive research and development into offering TWO-TRACK sound transfers.

I would specify if your film has one sounndtrack or two. I'd also be nervous about shipping it. Perhaps you should do a cheapie transfer yourself before you ship your one of a kind films across the country.

[Alex]

If you can get your hands on an Elmo projector that has a plus minus speed knob...(plus minus 10%), you can get the transfer done silent, then sync up your video transfer to the film projector, and carefully slow down and speed up the projector to keep it in close sync...

Then make the final adjustments on NLE...

Or just do the overall sound speed adjustment in NLE.

Which way are you leaning?

[Mike Buckles]

On the other super8filmmaking forum, this question is addressed also, and it suggests having a tone to go with the transferred soundtrack...but if you transferred the soundtrack to your hard drive, and set the speed properly, shouldn't it sync up anyway..what's the purpose of the tone? Also, I have a plug which allowed me to transfer the super 8 soundtrack to my minidv camcorder...although the soundtrack has the same "hum" as my Bolex projector makes when I turn on the sound...not sure why the "hum" transferred also...are super 8 soundtracks inherently noisy and have hum?

[Alex]

It turns out that the "old" tried and true analog methodology of a beginning beep tone and an end beeptone is a timeless method that should ALWAYS be incorporated when transferring the audio portion of a film, slide, or video project to another media.

Should you lose "sync", a mathematical equation can be incorporated to re-create sync. Determine the exact amount of "drift" or lag between video and audio and divide by the length of the movie.

For instance, if a project has audio that drifts one second from the front beeptone to the back beeptone, and the movie is 5 minutes long, or 300 seconds, your drift is one second divided by 300, or .033 percent. Alter the sound by .033 percent in NLE, or alter the movie via "fit to fill" by .033 pecent.

Probably it's better to alter the audio versus the video, although everyone may have a different opinion on that.

[Mike Buckles]

I guess I'm not understanding, if you transfer the avi file of your film , and a wav file of the soundtrack to your NLE, and match the speeds, why it wouldn't sync up without the use of the tone that Alex describes. but i haven't tried it yet, so I guess I could be in for a surprise! mike

[Alex]

Heres a simplistic answer. You can look at a frame of super-8, you can't look at a bit of digital info.

Everything should stay in sync if you transfer both the film and video together at the same time... but if you don't transfer them both at the same time, all bets are off.