8mm Forum: Comparison of Digitizing Methods, YouTube vid

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Posted by William Norman (Member # 6565) on September 16, 2018, 06:28 PM:

I compared shooting a screen, using an Ambico box, and using a Wolverine Film2Digital scanner. Some of the footage is low light. Constructive criticism is welcome.
https://youtu.be/g93dNpjcG7Y

Posted by Kev Morrison (Member # 6338) on September 16, 2018, 08:39 PM:

William,

NICE job! You made an objective, professional video demonstrating the different projection techniques.

Looks to me that the Wolverine took the checkered flag in this comparison.

Funny thing - I had the original Wolverine and did some digitizing of my Super 8, but after seeing all of the performance and reliability issues with that version, I sold it & bought the Wolverine Pro.

Now, the Pro records at a slower rate than the original which makes the movement of people in the movie much more natural, but I also noted that something seems to be lost in the quality of the recording.

Anyway, nice comparison video - very useful!

Posted by Nantawat Kittiwarakul (Member # 6050) on September 16, 2018, 09:03 PM:

A solid proof for Wolverine film scanner - not perfect,but DEFINITELY BETTER than any off the wall/copy box approach. [Smile]

Posted by William Norman (Member # 6565) on September 16, 2018, 09:47 PM:

The Wolverine seems to turn scenes blue when they are especially dark. I will try to fix the white balance in post.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on September 16, 2018, 11:14 PM:

You can just about eliminate the projector flicker on the screen by adjusting the shutter speed on the video camera. I project onto a 10 ins wide sheet of matt white printer paper using a Bolex 18-5 with the HI-FI lens, and slow the shutter speed on my Sony video camera to get rid of the flicker. In my opinion, I get much better results than any of these test samples shown here, including the Wolverine.

Posted by Mike Spice (Member # 5957) on September 17, 2018, 09:42 AM:

The issue of the Wolverines producing 30fps or 20fps scans is very easily sorted for free.

It requires My MP4Box GUI which can be downloaded from videohelp.com

It contains no adware or virus. (windows only)
It is completely free.

This software will change the frame rate of a Wolverine video file in a flash, without any re encoding.

A 50ft reel takes less than two minutes to process.

I couldn't live without it now.

If you look in the long 'wolverine to digital' thread in this forum, you will see it discussed there.

If you have a wolverine pro or regular, you do need this software in your armoury.

I frame change every thing, very happy with the results and it does not alter the original scan files.

As for the comparison, well done, but I am not sure it is a fair comparison, Wolverine is bound to come out better as it is frame by frame scan, despite it's mp4 compression issues.

I understand not everyone can throw £400 at a scanner and may only have a projector and camera to try and save thier reels, in which case, your video is an excellent starting point for folk to decide which way to go.

If you need a tutorial with My MP4, let me know, I will gladly guide you.

My MP4 Box GUI link

[ September 18, 2018, 09:44 AM: Message edited by: Mike Spice ]

Posted by William Norman (Member # 6565) on September 17, 2018, 12:38 PM:

I will explore manual shutter speed setting on my camcorders to see how slow any of my Panasonic HD cams will go to reduce flicker. I will also try the matte white paper instead of projecting onto the Da-Lite silver screen.

My video allows for a comparison between methods, but I don't see how anyone could accurately judge how faithful any of my transfers are to the original source material without seeing the condition of the source material in person. If someone gets "much better results", they may be working with much better source material, and not amateur-shot home movies that had focus, aperture, and white balance issues to begin with.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on September 17, 2018, 07:24 PM:

Yes, obviously the results can be no better than the source material, and 8mm film shot on a high quality camera such as the Bolex's is going to look way better than those using the lesser cameras (and projectors).
I hope you will try copying a small 10 inch or so picture projected on matt white paper, and slowing the video camera shutter speed to minimize flicker. You may find it a great improvement on the Ambico tests that you have run. I don't like the blue tinting produced by the Wolverine, but maybe this can be corrected in video editing software.
Good luck William, and let us know your results.

Posted by William Norman (Member # 6565) on September 18, 2018, 06:58 PM:

Plans are already in the works to try the shutter adjustment and projection on matte white paper instead of the old Da-Lite screen.

The issue I'm having with Shutter speed is that all of my Panasonic camcorders are locked in at 60fps, and have a maximum shutter speed of 1/60 second. I will try this, but I think even a lower rate might yield better result. I also have an old JVC GZ-HD5U with two frame rate options, auto and 1/8, but 1/8 of a second is way too slow, and designed for extreme low light videography.

Paul, do you have a suggested "ideal" shutter speed for shooting 18fps film? I have been exploring digital DSL cameras for still photography, and many of these have excellent video options these days, with more manual adjustment options than my Panasonic camcorders, including frame rate adjustments.

Also it makes sense to shoot on a white piece of paper. This will yield a smaller, yet brighter, flatter image for the camera to pick up compared to the Da-Lite silver screen across the room.

Posted by Nantawat Kittiwarakul (Member # 6050) on September 18, 2018, 08:27 PM:

A brief tried&tested guide for off-the-wall approach.

-Use plain A4 white paper as a screen.
-Set the projector as perpendicular to the screen as possible.
-Set the camcorder right next to the projector,lens to lens - as close as possible.
-Dim the room light,please. [Wink]

-Zoom the projected picture to the longest throw to keep the keystone distortion minimum but still filling that A4 "screen".
-Manual settings on the camcorder. Zoom,focus,white balance,shutter,iris,literally everything (stabilization off,too).

Now the fun part...
- For NTSC region,set the projector's speed to 20 fps,camcorder's shutter speed at 1/60 for either 60i,30p,or 60p frame rate.(1/30s might work better for 30p)
- For PAL land,set the projector's speed to 16.67 fps,camcorder at 1/50 either 50i,25p or50p.(1/25 might be better for 25p also)
- If your camcorder have 24p frame rate,then use it. Set the projector's speed to 16fps,then shutter speed at 1/24s.
- In practice you might have to tweak the projector's speed a bit until the flicker is totally disappeared. Some camcorder might be more tolerable to the flicker than others,don't know. [Roll Eyes]

The real important point is the FIXED SHUTTER SPEED. That's the reason for flicker-free transfer. I even tried doing this with my cellphone (manual mode,1/50s shutter speed) which resulted in flicker-free transfer,too. [Big Grin]

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 892) on September 20, 2018, 06:23 PM:

GREAT job on the video.

It would be amazing to see a pro 1080 scan of some of this footage for comparison, as it would be slightly sharper and tremendously cleaner than the Wolverine transfer.

But overall the Wolverine has the best sharpness and contrast. By miles. What bothers my eye is the amount of blocky compression "noise." Or is it aliasing? Or both?

Is there any way to get the Wolverine to record an image more cleanly?

Posted by William Olson (Member # 2083) on September 22, 2018, 11:13 AM:

I have yet to experiment with digital transfer/scanning in either SD or HD. I do have many years of experience in real time SD transfer using a Eumig dual 8 projector, a diffuser glass between lamp and film gate, Buhl multiplexer, an old professional Sony video camera with 3CCD chip (any video camera can be used) and a Sony DSR 11 to record on DVCAM digital tape. Capture can also be done directly to computer. This would be beneficial for a number of reasons especially if using an HD camera. I mention all of this because my results appear to be better than results I see online using digital scanners.

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