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Author Topic: Somikon HD-XL Film Scanner & Digitizer (Super) 8mm - EU market
Georg Muller
Junior
Posts: 8
From: De Panne, Belgium
Registered: Sep 2017


 - posted April 02, 2018 07:19 AM      Profile for Georg Muller     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Dear Mike,
thank you for your quick answer.
On another topic named "Record soundtrack ..." Berend De Meyer explained that he used the line output of his projector. Since I have one on mine (5 pin DIN) may I directly connect this output to the mike 3.5 mm jack input of my pc?
BTW is it worthwhile to spend so much money(scanner) and effort(me) to digitize my movies by DIY rather then letting the job made by a lab?
I have a very bad experience with my 6 first reels?
They were digitized with the help of a camera aiming at a projector through a special lens.
Best regards.
Georg

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Mike Spice
Master Film Handler

Posts: 421
From: none of your business
Registered: Jun 2017


 - posted April 02, 2018 09:18 AM      Profile for Mike Spice     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
without doubt it is a lengthy time consuming process.
to scan 200ft of film takes around 2 hours
the sound recording process is pretty straight forward if you understand audio software.

You could by all means use the DIN output to the 3.5mm line in of the laptop, but I would consider there no difference in audio quality to the headphone socket. In my real life I connect with headphone sockets to large PA systems with ease.

The only point to note, you say the 'mic' input, this is only designed for microphone level signals so a line input from either a DIN or headphone socket will distort considerably.

Some pc's have the ability to be mic and line level in software, you may have to look in to that. My laptop is set to the line in level

A mic input is not suitable for a projector output

If you have a number of sound reels, it might be better to pay a different lab to do the job for you if you have misgivings about recording and syncing your own material.

You would probably need to spend some money on a basic video software too, mine is discontinued now, but it only cost me $30

I don't feel the need to purchase sony vegas or final cut for my little efforts.

good luck, sorry i wouldn't know which lab to suggest for having sound movies transferred.

The hardest part of the process is syncing up the audio to picture, as I mentioned earlier, a 30fps film scan, audio from a projector, which may or may not be perfectly stable in it's speed, and the task of syncing is not for the faint hearted in terms of frustration......

Getting proper 'lip sync' is a tough call if like me, your projector speeds are a bit off during the audio record......

[ April 03, 2018, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: Mike Spice ]

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Berend De Meyer
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 140
From: Leek, The Netherlands
Registered: Apr 2017


 - posted April 03, 2018 09:15 AM      Profile for Berend De Meyer   Email Berend De Meyer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Hi Georg (all),

If this 8mm sound project your aiming at will be worth the money and effort is of course up to you. Scanning the 8mm with the Somikon is rather straight forward, except for adjusting the frame rate. Recording the sound and syncing it will be your biggest quest - at least it is for me - and challenge. I had some recordings on one reel taken with 18 and 24 fps in-camera, so had a lot of switching to do.

My experience is that - although silent 8mm is already a very time consuming task - getting the soundtracks recorded and synced is even a greater one.

I see that Mike has given you some great advise and workflow to try. Good luck with yours.

--------------------
Cheers | “I am an advocate of the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" modus operandi!”

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Dino Motti
Junior
Posts: 14
From: Birmingham, UK
Registered: Apr 2018


 - posted April 05, 2018 04:07 AM      Profile for Dino Motti     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I own a somikon XL. I am struggling to understand why the compression artefacts are so severe.

I read here and on the wolverine thread that some believe it is a MP4 compression issue, some instead a JPG compression problem of the single frames.

I also read that extracting the card from the machine, before the video file is saved, will preserve the single frames of the scan and allow me to process them on a computer. Is this true?

If somebody tried that approach do we know if the problem is with the JPG or MP4 compression?

Has anyone contacted the hardware producers to see if we can improve the quality of the compression of the frames/video? I would be happy to sacrifice speed if that helped to reduce the artefacts that are so severe sometimes faces are unrecognisable in some videos...

Thank you for the effort you have been making here to improve the firmware and get to the bottom of the issues with the wolverine and the somikon.

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Werner Ruotsalainen
Film Handler

Posts: 97
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: Dec 2017


 - posted April 08, 2018 03:56 AM      Profile for Werner Ruotsalainen   Email Werner Ruotsalainen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Welcome Dino Motti,

1, I've tried removing the card while in use. No sign of individual JPG images.

2, you will need to scan in "Low" sharpness mode to minimize compression artefacts. Note that it may NOT produce different images from that of the default Normal mode. (See my earlier post on this.) Then, you'll need to install the hacked Wolverine FW, which does indeed enable it (and has no "forgetting sharpness setting during power cycles" bugs).

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Berend De Meyer
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 140
From: Leek, The Netherlands
Registered: Apr 2017


 - posted April 08, 2018 07:17 AM      Profile for Berend De Meyer   Email Berend De Meyer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Hi all!

Today I unboxed the replacement Somikon I received in September 2017. It is shipped with FirmWare - 20170421-PL07-DE - so it's an update to my older Somikon's which held PL05. Of course I'm curious what changes were made here.

Testing artifacts - photo's taken from my HP Monitor (using the TV-Out on the Somikon and component Video-In on my monitor) with iPhone - using only the Exposure Settings (-2, -1, 0, 1, 2) resulting in worst to best:

EV-2

 -

EV-1

 -

EV-0

 -

EV+1

 -

EV+2

 -

Will do some more tests today with actual footage and keep you posted on the results.

EDIT [16:31] Done some testing with the exposure during a capture without film, so just the plain sensor only:

https://youtu.be/BKzIzcnspJs

I noticed a horrible colorcast for the settings EV-1 and EV-2.

[ April 08, 2018, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: Berend De Meyer ]

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Cheers | “I am an advocate of the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" modus operandi!”

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Berend De Meyer
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 140
From: Leek, The Netherlands
Registered: Apr 2017


 - posted April 09, 2018 01:29 PM      Profile for Berend De Meyer   Email Berend De Meyer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
For those who want some post-scanning color grading (white balanced) and cleaning the video output here an example I made with my latest Somikon HD-XL.

Somikon HD-XL -> Final Cup Pro X + Neat Video Plugin

1. FCPX:
- Change FPS to 18 (original camera speed)
- White Balance
- Transform -> changing anchor point (center) to hide the bad top and bottom; you lose some of the viewing
- Crop -> Top and Bottom black strokes to hide the bad upper- and lower of the frames

2. Neat Video Plugin

South Africa 1976 - Home Video

RAW

 -

EDITED

 -

I'm quite happy with the results.

--------------------
Cheers | “I am an advocate of the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" modus operandi!”

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Werner Ruotsalainen
Film Handler

Posts: 97
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: Dec 2017


 - posted April 14, 2018 04:24 PM      Profile for Werner Ruotsalainen   Email Werner Ruotsalainen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
https://youtu.be/BKzIzcnspJs

I noticed a horrible colorcast for the settings EV-1 and EV-2.

Speaking of color casts, let me publish my experience on the aging of different color film stock. You may know the symptomps of the badly-aged stock: absolutely awful bluish cast everywhere.

Kodachrome films age wonderfully. I've scanned a lot of Kodachrome II / Kodachrome IIA / Kodachrome KM etc. material; all exhibit an excellent color balance even after these years. The (currently) oldest material I have is a scan of Kodachrome II Std8 films from 1964 (the German army stuff at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4_1cuziVtq-xA4BzygOWwI7cjPv9n4U0 ).

So do very(!) old AGFA(German) material, including even late (produced in the 80's) ORWO (East-German) stock based on the very old AGFA technology. My earliest color AGFA scans are from 1955 and exhibit no color problems. (These color films have been already manufactured in East-Germany but with the original AGFA tech.) See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v84Wd0lMU44&list=PL4_1cuziVtq-5b38a1xM8NaHSV jZ1ipv4&index=2&t=1000 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID9aRrAOrdY&index=12&list=PL4_1cuziVtq-5b38a 1xM8NaHSVjZ1ipv4&t=600 . BTW, the entirely color film collection at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb2xad5Ezi4&index=14&list=PL4_1cuziVtq-5b38a1xM8Na HSVjZ1ipv4 also show the same stock a bit overexposed (this is why I used -0.5EV during capture) during the entire run if you want to know how it behaved in case of a typical user error.

Note that, if you compare the resolution of these color films to the b/w ones in the same 1955 album ( https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4_1cuziVtq-5b38a1xM8NaHSVjZ1ipv4 ), you can easily see b/w films had definitely better resolution than these early color films.

An example of East-German (starting with the sixties, ORWO-branded) but, color keeping-wise, equally good footage from the eighties: (ORWO UT15): https://youtu.be/6f8UCBNOXoU (60p processed) / https://youtu.be/sikYV0EdGms (16p original)

And now, Kodak Ektachrome. The second and third Ektachrome 100 Super8 cartridges in the three-cartridge film shot in Riga in the Soviet Union in 1980 ( https://youtu.be/ggikR8kFU74 (60p); no 18p version available) have been made with exactly the same camera, at the same location, same time and (obviously) kept in the same environment (heat etc.) as the first one, which is a Kodachrome KM. The difference speaks for itself – the Kodachrome KM footage is wonderful, unlike the Ektachrome 100. This also means curretly available, raw Ektachrome stock may age equally badly if you use them for shooting now...

(I’ll later post late (70/80’s) Agfa footage too. Generally, it, color-wise, sucks compared to Kodachrome or even to ORWO.)

[ April 15, 2018, 12:19 AM: Message edited by: Werner Ruotsalainen ]

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Berend De Meyer
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 140
From: Leek, The Netherlands
Registered: Apr 2017


 - posted April 16, 2018 06:54 AM      Profile for Berend De Meyer   Email Berend De Meyer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Werner Thank you so much for all your additional info's and footage shared. Much appreciated!

In the box of my latest shipment of the Somikon HD-XL I received a small plastic bag with three O-rings in it. As per the manual this is apparently to guide the film on the first glider on the right side of the scanner. One on each side of the film.

Three O-rings

 -

 -

I haven't used them so far, perhaps this is a possible solution for the Jumping Jack Flash symtoms of our scanners? Do the Wolverine/Reflecta ship with the same three O-rings?

I'll test them this week, keep you posted...

--------------------
Cheers | “I am an advocate of the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" modus operandi!”

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Berend De Meyer
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 140
From: Leek, The Netherlands
Registered: Apr 2017


 - posted April 17, 2018 02:09 PM      Profile for Berend De Meyer   Email Berend De Meyer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
It seems to me that Neat Video and Optical Flow don't play together very well, because it leaves more noticeable noise and dust / scratches behind than without the Optical Flow.

--------------------
Cheers | “I am an advocate of the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" modus operandi!”

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Werner Ruotsalainen
Film Handler

Posts: 97
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: Dec 2017


 - posted April 19, 2018 03:09 PM      Profile for Werner Ruotsalainen   Email Werner Ruotsalainen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
It seems to me that Neat Video and Optical Flow don't play together very well, because it leaves more noticeable noise and dust / scratches behind than without the Optical Flow.
You need to run Neat Video BEFORE any in-FCPX framerate change. This also means you'll want to feed the originals to FCPX already in 24, 30 or any standard framerate - and definitely not 20. Then, no additional frames will be added.

After running Neat Video, reimport the now-cleaned footage and, now, you can increase the framerate to for example 60p to make the movement more fluid. Now, albeit the dirt etc. will also "spread over" several frames, the overall effect will still be much better than doing the opposite (running Neat Video on already-Visual Flow'ed footage).

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Berend De Meyer
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 140
From: Leek, The Netherlands
Registered: Apr 2017


 - posted April 20, 2018 06:39 AM      Profile for Berend De Meyer   Email Berend De Meyer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Werner Thank you for your explanation! Will test it...

--------------------
Cheers | “I am an advocate of the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" modus operandi!”

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Werner Ruotsalainen
Film Handler

Posts: 97
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: Dec 2017


 - posted April 20, 2018 10:35 AM      Profile for Werner Ruotsalainen   Email Werner Ruotsalainen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
BTW, back to the matter of the differences in the aging of different film material. Above, I've explained Kodachrome, very old Agfa and OR-WO age without problems, unlike newer Agfa (at least the stock manufactured starting in the '70s) and some other brands.

I now also have first-person experience with Fujifilm Safety Film with the edge codes '7 59' very close to 'Fujifilm Safety Film' and, separately and much farther away, '23'.

These definitely aren’t Fuji’s own date codes (see http://www.brianpritchard.com/Date%20Codes.htm ) - after all, in 1959 (assuming ‘59’ stands for 1959), Super8 didn’t even exist. Also note that Fuji’s film list at http://www.fujifilm.com/products/motion_picture/discontinued/pdf/fujifilm_motion_picture_film_manual.pdf doesn’t even list 8mm material, only 16 and 35.

The colors are OK and there's no really significant color shift in the appr. 41...43-year-old films (showing the German town Bremen) I've scanned and uploaded to YouTube: https://youtu.be/prn324LBI8w (original, overscanned 18p) / https://youtu.be/DTPkF5c9oto (Motion Flow-processed 60p).

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Werner Ruotsalainen
Film Handler

Posts: 97
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: Dec 2017


 - posted May 04, 2018 05:25 PM      Profile for Werner Ruotsalainen   Email Werner Ruotsalainen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I've purchased a 7" 16mm film spool off Finnish eBay. It's mostly shot on Kodachrome in 1942 (and probably also 1-2 years before). The film is in excellent condition: it isn't brittle and there's no sign of the VS. The film was surely kept in a (comparatively) cool environment. (Which isn't very hard here in Finland, LOL [Smile] )

I, not having a 16mm scanner, still haven't got it in a scanned format. I've, however, made some still scans of all the scenes in the film; with scenes depicting not only family life, more frequently. These scans also show how the colors have survived during all those 76-77 years.

A very small section of the spool is shot on b/w (Kodak) film. As usual with films of that age (also see my 1955-1956 East-German film scans), it exhibits far better resolution than the color footage.

I've, in addition to the auto-named image files, also added some filename postfixes for new and interesting scenes; for example, "3-PICT0033 - Helsinki from ship STARTS HERE" ( here ) on page 2 ( here ) etc.

The first page of the album is at here . Note that the first around 120 images are strictly (not particularly interesting) family images; sights only start later.

Also note that, while it was shot during WW2, there isn't anything related to the ongoing war anywhere - it was shot way away from the front lines.

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Dino Motti
Junior
Posts: 14
From: Birmingham, UK
Registered: Apr 2018


 - posted May 08, 2018 07:14 AM      Profile for Dino Motti     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Just FIY, on the wolverine thread we are exploring ways to extract the JPG and raw video files before they are compressed into MP4 to reduce the artefacts.

Everyone's contribution to crack this is welcome. :-)

http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=011395

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Dimi Velikov
Junior
Posts: 1
From: Vilnius, Lithuania
Registered: Aug 2018


 - posted August 29, 2018 04:05 AM      Profile for Dimi Velikov   Email Dimi Velikov   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Hi all,
I have a question for Berend De Meyer (however if anyone else can help me , i would be thankful) - he posted photos with ventilation holes on the back of the device (im reposting photo below).

I was thinking of buying the device from Amazon.de from PEARL.DE seller , but when i asked seller a question if device comes with vent holes (as his listing was showing back plate without vent), and got an answer :

"We currently do not sell another version of this device. Nor have
we any information about an updated version from the manufacturer.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Anthony Jenkins"

Now my quesiton is - where have you bought the device with ventilation, as i have lots of films to scan and from the forum i understood that overheating is one of the engineering bugs to concern, so would like to buy an updated version.

Would be very thankful for your help

Dimi

 -

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Dino Motti
Junior
Posts: 14
From: Birmingham, UK
Registered: Apr 2018


 - posted September 05, 2018 04:22 AM      Profile for Dino Motti     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I bought the ventilated Somikon from Pearl.de

Trying still to reduce the noise/compression artefacts.

Anyone had any luck with settings? or exporting the single frames?

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Dan Esmond
Junior
Posts: 16
From: Lawrence, KS, USA
Registered: Oct 2013


 - posted September 05, 2018 04:27 PM      Profile for Dan Esmond   Email Dan Esmond   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Dino did you try the Neat video plugin? Berend De Meyer posted about it above. It looks like it really does a good job of "hiding" the artifacts.

Being a purist, that's still not a true solution to me (because those artifacts permanently reduce resolution and fine detail that would otherwise be captured), but I think we have to live with it for now. There's nothing else on the market (that's affordable for home users, anyway) that will do frame-by-frame captures of regular 8mm, so I've had to bite my tongue and be happy that at least I'm able to share memories from long ago with family and friends far and wide. The movies from the Wolverine look perfectly fine to most people. It's just we unfortunate souls with high expectations that can't help but see the flaws.

The technology exists today to scan 8mm/Super-8 in 5K res, in HDR to get detailed shadows and highlights, with optical frame stabilization to align all the frames, in a codec that captures enough detail in the chroma to do good color correction. It's just not available in home devices yet. The Wolverine/Somikon get us some distance toward that goal (just having frame-by-frame is a vast improvement over older telecine methods), but there's a long way to go to get truly archive-worthy captures.

I hope that technology becomes affordable eventually, because I will absolutely scan all my reels again to get all the quality present in those frames. Meanwhile, my family and I are enjoying walking down memory lane and looking at films that hadn't been seen for 30-40 years.

Went off on a tangent there but do check out the Neat plugin... Berend's results from it were pretty impressive from what I saw. https://www.neatvideo.com

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Winbert Hutahaean
Film God

Posts: 5468
From: Nouméa, New Caledonia
Registered: Jun 2003


 - posted September 05, 2018 06:47 PM      Profile for Winbert Hutahaean     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
I've scanned and uploaded to YouTube: https://youtu.be/prn324LBI8w (original, overscanned 18p) / https://youtu.be/DTPkF5c9oto (Motion Flow-processed 60p).
Hi Wegner, I am sorry for my ignorance, but what does 18p vs 60p mean? and which one produces better image?

thanks,

--------------------
Winbert

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Nantawat Kittiwarakul
Master Film Handler

Posts: 280
From: Rajburana, Bangkok, Thailand
Registered: Aug 2017


 - posted September 05, 2018 09:02 PM      Profile for Nantawat Kittiwarakul   Email Nantawat Kittiwarakul   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Hi Wegner, I am sorry for my ignorance, but what does 18p vs 60p mean? and which one produces better image?
Simply put,
18p = the original filming speed,thus the exact 1:1 film scan.
60p = the original 18fps "interpolated" to 60/59.94 fps,to smooth out the jerkiness in the original footage due to the low framerate.
[Smile]

--------------------
Just a lone collector from a faraway land...

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Winbert Hutahaean
Film God

Posts: 5468
From: Nouméa, New Caledonia
Registered: Jun 2003


 - posted September 05, 2018 11:24 PM      Profile for Winbert Hutahaean     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Thanks Nantawat, but at the 18p on the youtube link above, my eyes can see the speed is faster. I feel it is not like my home movies played on my projector at 18 fps.

You can check on 0:26-0:31. The body's move of the gentleman with blue shirt and tie is not natural to me. Is it my eyes or it is actually not 18 fps as in projector?

--------------------
Winbert

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Julian Mildren
Junior
Posts: 1
From: Plymouth, UK
Registered: Aug 2012


 - posted January 25, 2019 08:38 AM      Profile for Julian Mildren   Email Julian Mildren   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Just unpacked my Somikon - not using the mounts for the film - using the free reel and bin on the floor method - and outputting to a decent 9" Sony Pro monitor form the 80's - all very nice - done over 5000' in the last few days - BUT, does anyone know how to set the date and time on this?

I have to add, for the price - it's excellent!

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Thomas Berger
Junior
Posts: 2
From: Berlin, Germany
Registered: Mar 2019


 - posted March 12, 2019 12:19 PM      Profile for Thomas Berger   Email Thomas Berger   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I will start to digitized with the Somikon and I'd like to summarize all hints in this thread.
  • Put the the somikon in a 30° angle
  • Put a clamps on the left side of the film gate
  • Stop the right wheel and let the film fall in a bin or box
  • Use the current 20p firmware and try to recover deleted original jpg from the sd card
  • OR use the hacked wolverine firmware on the somikon for direct HD
  • Use Neat Video v4 to reduce the noise
  • Use FC or Film9 or similar tools to get from 20p to 50p
Did I miss something or is there anything wrong from this list?

[ March 12, 2019, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Thomas Berger ]

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Werner Ruotsalainen
Film Handler

Posts: 97
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: Dec 2017


 - posted March 12, 2019 05:30 PM      Profile for Werner Ruotsalainen   Email Werner Ruotsalainen   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote:
Use FC or Film9 or similar tools to get from 20p to 50p
You mean artifically increasing the framerwate with motion prediction? It can look pretty unnatural. I used to do it but lately stayed with the original 16/18p.

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Thomas Berger
Junior
Posts: 2
From: Berlin, Germany
Registered: Mar 2019


 - posted March 13, 2019 03:11 AM      Profile for Thomas Berger   Email Thomas Berger   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Thanks Werner for your reply.
This means you stick with your recommendation from the last post of this thread but without transforming to 50p
http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;reply_num=000006;t=011636

This means for me the other things are good in your opinion?
Do you have opinion about Film9 vs Neat Video v4?

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