8mm Forum: Can this also happen for 8mm?

This is topic Can this also happen for 8mm? in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on February 19, 2006, 02:35 AM:

Guys,
While collecting 8mm is one of my hobby, I am doing also the same for LP (vinyl). I almost have 800 records now and once I got a new release album from s/h market, I would have similar feeling if I got M&C on 8mm [Wink]

. Yes, some labels are still releasing albums on vinyl for a die harder like me, but mostly they are very segmented genres.

Now, eventhough the below information had been obtained 6 years ago, but it just came to me this evening, that one day 8mm projector could also do the same.

Laser Turntable

This is an exampley how can we satisfy a die harder to keep the vinyl's touch by taking the advantage of digital/laser technology.

So instead of using needle, which many of digital minded people are saying that needle creates noises, someone in Japan had invented an optical laser to read the grooves ("data") and from there, generating the sound. So there is no any physical touch happening here.

In this case the die harder records collector will proudly say that he gets the purest sound (in terms of "sound quality" analog is considered better than digital) from the record without any clicking or noise.

Now, with our 8mm projector, do you think, oneday there will be a kind of innovative invention?

My mind is running wildly on the possibility that (one day) there is a very sensitive scanner that can read micro picture in a highest resolution and at the same time project it.

If this thing happen, then, what we have discussed earlier about bringing the color back from the faded prints, would be possible. Or anything related with re-coloring, changing the color temperature, (digitally) sharpening the picture, etc, etc will also possible.

It will cost a lot of money, but who knows....

O yeah, BTW, the cost of a laser turntable is about US$ 13,000 each! But still 1000 units have been sold!

You can see how it works at the National Library of Canada or the National Library of USA.

Cheers,

[ February 20, 2006, 10:46 PM: Message edited by: Winbert Hutahaean ]

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on February 20, 2006, 10:41 PM:

Hi all,
This forum has been so quiet lately. I wake you up with the above post, what is your opinion? Let us think the future....

cheers

Posted by Knut Nordahl (Member # 518) on February 21, 2006, 02:48 AM:

Hi Winbert
You are almost doing a telecine, so if you look at the simple principle for a telecine set-up with a mirror, condenser lens and a camcorder, you would actually almost get what you’re asking for, right? Now, if you go ahead and tinker a little bit, is there any reason to suspect that with the right CCD and lens-setup in some sort of arrangement you wouldn’t be able to connect to a LCD projector and correct for fading?

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on February 21, 2006, 03:23 PM:

Hi Knut,

That's true what I was talking is similar to the telecine element. But my future mind was that this "telecine" has much further progress. Similar to the Laser Turntable above that what the basic system is being used is basically digital technology, i.e laser beam reads the data (grooves).

For the vinyl collectors, the same hated problem with fading print is clicking ("pop-corn noises"). On the above laser turntable website, they had invented what they called "declicker" i.e a device to minimise the clicking records. I believe this machine has used digital technology to reduce those cliks. So in my mind, to bring the faded color back, of course, it will use the digital enhancement.

Knut, I agree with you but we are in a traditional telecine. I was thinking someting high-end telecine by using the scanner like what they do in the industry level. What I found now that the most sensitive scanner (commercial products) can only provide low resolution from 8mm size. I was thinking something high resolution and high speed computer to read 24 pictures in one second! (real time or delay 1-2 seconds) and not counting yet the speed to correct the pictures!!

Some of you guys here may think that I was crossing the border to become a digital minded person. But that is the reality of the future.

Cheers,

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on March 08, 2006, 01:06 AM:

I remember reading a detailed review of this laser turntable many, MANY years ago in a German high-end audio magazine (right around 1990, I think). I have a fairly good recollection of many of the points that were made; basically the thing was said to sound good but not great, and it certainly could not hold a candle to some of the very best conventional analog turntables made back then. It went on to explain, in detail, the technical difficulties of tracking the grooves of a vinyl disc with a laser, such as physical imperfections in the (angled) groove walls, extremely low reflectivity of the vinyl itself, etc., even adding that (for some reason related to tracking of the groove) the signal being picked up had to be digitally sampled about 50,000 times a second, then converted back into an analog audio signal... and that's not even mentioning the need for a declicking algorithm to further affect the audio signal in the digital domain... long story short, the device was, at best, a proof-of-concept unit. I'm pretty sure any serious vinyl enthusiast/collector would tell you there was no point whatsoever in touch-free laser reading of a vinyl record if you could get much better (and 100% pure analog) sound with a conventional stylus, particularly as long as you took very good care of both your records and your turntable.

The same applies to film... we could scan film at high speed into digital images, then project these with a video projector in real-time, even using digital image-processing algorithms to filter noise (grain) and enhance colors, even perceived sharpness, before projecting the images. But you'd simply no longer be watching real film. Why bother if you could just watch a DVD using the video projector instead?

The only way to experience the true magic of vinyl is a conventional turntable... the only way to experience the true magic of film is a conventional projector... and as they say so eloquently here in the USA, 'nuff said. [Cool]

Now I will add one more thing, though... they used to make some mighty fine super-8 editors with flicker-free screens, using multi-faceted prisms that would rotate in sync with the film moving across them, enabling a steady image to be shown on the screen without flicker at any speed... no intermittent motion, no claw mechanism, no nothing... just run the film through smoothly and be in awe of what's on the little screen.
I've long wondered why they never made a PROJECTOR using such a rotating-prism setup instead of a claw mechanism? There would be NO shutter wheel (= vastly increased light throughput), no potential for perf damage or jumping images, and a near-silent projector with a very simple, steady transport mechanism... now THAT would have been something. [Smile]

Posted by Carlos Plaza (Member # 578) on March 14, 2006, 08:34 PM:

Hey Jan...In the 1950's when I was a kid, I remember a 16mm silent projector that my aunt owned that had the very multi-faceted prism you mentioned. I remember it because I thought it was wierd compared to my Dad's, which had a conventional gate/claw, etc.. I can't remember the make/model, but I do remember that the projected image was blurred at the top and bottom and was not very steady. Perhaps that was because of its 'cheapness', but I don't know.

Posted by Jan Bister (Member # 332) on March 16, 2006, 12:01 AM:

Interesting!!! I'd love to hear more about that projector. Not too surprised on the top/bottom blurriness thing, though - the same thing happens on my Hahnel super-8 editor (which uses a flicker-free prism setup) and I'm guessing it's just the result of some inevitable optical distortion caused by the prism itself, no matter its quality. Perhaps, though, this could have been perfected over time to lead to quite acceptable results when projecting on the big screen. It sure would've been nice to see more such machines, in particular for the super-8 format. [Smile]

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