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about to transfer 8mm for DVD’s and looking for advice
My wife’s family has a load of 8mm film and projector that they want to transfer for DVD’s. I have never done this before, but was elected to do it for thwm since i work with video. I have a Canon XL1 and a Panasonic GS400 Mini DV camera. I was going to project onto a white foam board and capture to one of these cameras. I have heard there is flicker and you need to adjust camera shutter to compensate. I am just asking for any helpful tips or techniques that may help me get through this project. Any help or direction would be appreciated.
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4 Replies
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First make sure that your frame rate on your cam is correct. A lot of 8mm was shot at 18fps and not 24fps. But ppl would often still play them on a 24 projector making it play fast (I guess like ppl watch 4:3 tv on a 16:9 screen and stretch the image and don’t seem to care.. grrr).
Anyhoo. I’ve had hit or miss experiences with converting 8mm to the digital domain. In ’94 I shot my first music video on S8mm and projected it on bright white typing paper and shot it with a Sony 300 Betacam. I idn’t need to adjust the shutter, it just worked beautifully without any flicker.
Recently I transferred my parents 8mm to digital domain. At first I called Film Workers here in Dallas to see if they can rent a 8mm gate for the Spirit and have them do true telecin
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If you decide to do it yourself and you do wind up with the “flicker” effect, there are a couple filters for VirtualDub that will do a reasonable job of trying to eliminate it. I do this sort of thing on a part time basis out of my home using a Workprinter XP. I tried the same thing you are going to attempt and was not happy with the results. So I bought the Workprinter to do the job right. If you have a projector with a variable speed rheostat it will make the job a little easier, though you will still find yourself adjusting the speed of the projector every once in while to catch up or slow down to your camcorder. Also….clean your film before you capture it. Pledge wipes do a reasonable job of cleaning film. Good luck with your project. I hope it turns out good for you.
Mark -
You can avoid flicker entirely if you project it with
a variable speed projector and set your camera to 1/60th.
run the projector with the cam on and in position and
adjust the speed until you see no flicker but white solid.You may or may not have flicker if you can’t adjust
the camera shutter.Autogain can be helpful for dark footage, but might
blow out on lighter overexposed stuff.good luck! 🙂
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Forgot to also say a 5-blade projector will work
as well as a variable speed one for synching with
a camera and eliminating the flicker.check ebay.
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