Transferring to video via projection

[disjecta]

I would love to hear from people who have shot projected Super 8mm onto video (homemade Telecine). How successful was it?

I am a videographer and have recently gotten interested in Super 8mm. One of the things that I just hate about video is the "stair stepping" that occurs with diagonal lines, not inherent in film.

If I shoot video from projected film, surely I will inherit those stair stepping problems again because of the limitations of DV? I am a total perfectionist and want the finished quality of the Super 8 film to be as good as it possibly can with little compromise.

Has anyone compared an actual telecine job to the McGyver method?

Also, I'm trying to find a relatively cheap ($100) dual projector that has variable speed but also has a specific setting for 24fps (which is the speed I shoot Super 8) Any ideas? I'll settle for just Super 8 if a dual is not available for that kind of price...recommendations?

Thanks in advance,

Steven

[BolexPlusx]

I've messed around with adjusting my projector to 20 FPS and recording the image with my camcorder. The results have been pretty good, no flickering or rolling bars. (Certainly acceptible for something done at zero cost, at least.)The only thing I'm still trying to figure out is a way NOT to also record the sound the projector makes! My camcorder doesn't seem to have a silent mode.


This fellow does a lot of DIY telecine:

http://www.siltec.co.uk/amovies/telecine/indextc.htm

[disjecta]

Thanks for the response. Did your video produce lots of tonal detail or did you find that the whites were blown out and the blacks either too black or too grey?

Regarding the sound problem while recording on your camera. I'm not sure what type of camera you have but if it has a standard 1/4" jack for an external microphone, you can just plug it up with a 1/4" jack that you can buy at a Radio Shack-style store. This will fool the camera into thinking there is a mic attached and it will disable the built-in mic, thus, recording silence.

Haven't tested this theory because my camera allows me to turn the sound recording off but I think it should work.

[BolexPlusx]

As far as tonality goes, I would say what I got was pretty faithful to the film I copied. The warning though is I was just trying it out for laughs and didn't really view it too critically. (I'm mainly a projection guy!)

I tried to find a jack for an external microphone and failed. This is a pretty consumer oriented camcorder (My wife bought it because we had a baby) and is basically setup for point, shoot and don't ask questions. It may actually not have a Mic jack.

You seem pretty serious about this. Have you looked into the workprinter?

http://www.moviestuff.tv/8mm_telecine.html

[disjecta]

You guessed right, I am pretty serious about it and I think I can get a good hit from the projection. The video camera I use is pretty sophisticated (Sony DSR-250) so I have all kinds of control over the settings.

I've spent my whole video-shooting life trying to make video footage look like film - haven't we all(I use an amazing plugin called Magic Bullet in After Effects that actually creates 24fps from video footage) but the stair-stepping and overall clinical feel of video cannot be overcome and my true passion is film. I've just never been able to afford it and, of course, I love the immediacy of video. So I'm giving Super 8 a try.

Anyway, I'm wandering here...I'll try the projection route and see how it goes.

Thanks for the information.

Steven

[wahiba]

The cheap and cheerful way is put the camcorder beside the projector. project onto roughly an A4 size screen. best to connect directly to the computer.

It is as good as any of the back projection methods, but not as good as the systems that take the image directly from the film.

MovieStuff is well regarded but is not cheap. Otherwise it is the proffesional scanning systems which are very expensive.

For my personal needs the cheap and cheerful works, then I cannot afford any better [img]frown.gif[/img]

It does for getting them onto a web page. See my site below. [img]wink.gif[/img]

[Skyliner]

Hi, the 'stair stepping' is intrinsic to video's whether you are filming film or the real world.
VHS was bad for this at around 250 lines S-Vhs better at 400. Digital is 'lined' in the vertical and the horizontal so the problem compounds.
If you have a particularly troublesome scene you could try defocusing the projector or camera slightly for it.
But his and its sister problem, the moire effect on car grilles or clothing patterns will happen no matter what you video, film or real.

[disjecta]

Thanks guys...

Skyliner, I figured as much with the stair-stepping....bummer.