From VHS to Super 8????

[dougiedd]

I know, i know backwards.
But how best to shoot a super 8 movie of some VHS footage i have? What are my options and what would be least expensive while not too bad for quality.
TIA

[Actor]

I've never done this but the books say to shoot the TV screen and crystal sync your camera at 23.976 fps and a shutter angle of 144 degrees. I'm told that neither of these values is really critical but it seems to me that being off on either would result in at least the trace of a roll bar.

I think you can rent a Beaulieu from www.cameraspro.com that will do the trick.

[MovieStuff]

I assume you have a non-linear editing system of some kind? If so, and your camera has the ability to shoot at slower speeds like 6-12fps, then here is what I've done in the past and it seems to work fine.

A) Digitize your video to your computer and place clip on the timeline

B) If your camera will go down to 12fps, apply a 50% speed change to your clip and render it out for playback.

C) Set up your camera using the longest zoom setting you can and focus on a good TV monitor that is fed by your computer playback. If your computer won't play directly to a regular TV monitor, then record the rendered clip to tape and feed the tape to the monitor.

D) Run the camera at 12fps while playing the clip.
Now, this is all based on the notion that you will be running your final footage at 24fps. Shooting at 12fps and below is a slow enough shutter speed that the scan bar of the TV will be minimized or will not show up at all, depending on whether you have a standard shutter or a 120 degree shutter. The idea is that the camera is running at half speed but the clip is also running at half speed as well. Upon playback of the super 8 (at 24fps), the speed will be restored. For a truly perfect real time copy, running the camera at 6fps is ideal. That means that you would need to render a copy of the video clip at 25%. Again, your camera will be running at one quarter speed but your clip will also be running at one quarter speed, so everything evens out when the film is played back at 24fps.

The same thing will work if you are going to play back at 18fps but you will need to change the speed percentages of your rendered clip so that it mathmatically comes out even as it does at 24fps, or at least pretty close. A 50% speed change will work for the clip for 18fps playback but you would need to shoot at 9fps in stead of 12fps. I don't know what your slower speeds are (if any) so you'll just have to do the math. The idea is to slow everything way down so that the scanning of the image is hyper fast compared to the shutter rate of the camera.

Roger

[mathis]

that?s great tip! thank you!
(i just stumbled across this discussion forum)
but what?s the light temperature of the tv screen: day or tungsten light?

thanks,
- mathis