Scanner dilemma : What's the best move ?

[Mark Wesley]

Now that I have retired, I have recently dug out my MovieStuff DV8 Sniper Pro and got it rehabbed and functional again. Although it only has an SD camera (a Hitachi HV-C10A), it provides fairly decent resolution. In the ten years since I had it mothballed, the 32 bit pc that I used to do the captures and processing with has long since bitten the dust. Per the instructions on the MovieStuff website, my pc has to have a 32 bit processor to make things work again.

Reading the thread on the Wolverine Hawkeye mod has got me a little excited to say the least. If it were you, would you buy a used pc and/or possibly an HD camera and revive the DV8 Sniper or opt for the Wolverine Hawkeye mod option for a few hundred bucks more ? Would the higher resolution and still frame stability make enough difference to warrant the move ?

I'd love to get input from some of the seasoned pro's out there ...

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

I'm probably not a pro but...

If that's me I'd get a dedicated 2nd hand pc for capture process. Nothing fancy, just enough to get going.

Then pour the rest of the budget to get a new camera. A retired prosumer cam (even SD) can easily outpace those infamous "Full HD" Wolverine scanner. Mine is Sony TRV950 (completed with dead tape mechanics ) still capable of this outcome.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x58...ew?usp=sharing

You probably can go fancy upgrading to other HD camcorder with HDMI capture card instead. Hadn't tried that however.

[Mark Wesley]

So, the firewire connector is live even when not recording or playing back a tape ? If this is this case, an upgrade from my current s-video to firewire should be a huge leap forward.
Moviestuff has fitted a black lens cap which screws onto the lens filter threads into which two lenses are inserted, one for super 8 and one for regular eight. Are the lens filter threads a standard size ? It would be great to attach my existing lens setup directly on a new camera.

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

(Sorry for the very late reply.)

Yes, all camcorders known to me does have "live feed" from its firewire output. This will be probably the best connection (in terms of quality) for the camcorder too.

My setup is pretty plain. Just a heavily modified projector+a 2" projector lens+a good used prosumer camcorder. Works OK for me however. Have a look at nearby topic - 8mm at the gate; need help!

[Lee Mannering]

Hello Mark. Your Hitachi will delivery better results than any Wolverine piece of plastic. The best results will come from a professional scanner of course and you can be guided by how good you would like your films to be preserved digitally. A professional system will deliver superb results with the like of a MWA Data Scanner. I also do film transfer but not to that standard.

There was a time I was constantly getting asked by local movie making friends to transfer films but I just didn't have the time so I made up this basic REEL time 8mm HD system which even now I loan out locally particularly to the odd film media student. This little low cost system can transfer regular 8, Super 8 sound and silent film to SD card, results are quite reasonable and quick. I made up my own LED light block to replace the 100 watt lamp and fitted variable power to it.
Its all self contained no nuts or bolts visible and can be carried around with one hand. HD picture quality can be ramped up to 35Mbps with 600ft of film at a time.

Have fun and here's the old girl sat in my media studio.

[Stan Jelavic]

Going back 12 years I put together several systems very similar to what you guys are doing. Here are pics of some of them.




In my humble opinion the frame by frame system based modern camera beats them all.
The proof is in the pudding they say.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1ym1HtvWJYu2cRvq7

Look at the resolution, cloudy sky. I have more examples and can share if interested.

Here is another example of frame by frame, raw tiff images and post with VideoFred. But it is more money, cannot beat the price of an older video cam and modded projector and quite frankly some of the videos I have seen are pretty decent. If you are happy with it, what am I to say
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1ym1HtvWJYu2cRvq7

[Mark Wesley]

So I picked up a Canon HV20 camera with firewire (and HDMI) outputs. I have a Raynox DCR-250 macro lens attached, and the setup looks like this :



With the lens as close to the front of the projector as possible and the optical zoom set at maximum, the image size appears on the display like this :



Is this a large enough image capture size for me to continue, or do I need to make the image larger ?

[Janice Glesser]

To fill the sensor you will have to kick in some digital zoom. Use the lowest setting on your camera for digital zoom. My Vixia 200 lowest setting is 60x... your HV20 may differ... and turn off image stabilization. Don't worry the little bit of digital zoom will allow you to fill the frame and won't be noticeable.

[David Brown]

If the content is compelling, you might not notice imperfections of the capture!

I cannot stop seeing the flashing shutter from a video/projector capture. If your camera offers control of the shutter speed, you can parse through the speeds until the flashing is minimal or seems to stop. But it is not sustainable. The projector and camera are running independently.

Telecine projectors with a 5 bladed shutter increase the flash rate and are harder to see, but a rolling shutter adds irregular shapes that catch your eye.

I prefer single frame synched capture.

Or is there another solution to realtime wild sync capture?

I'm sorry if you never noticed the flashing before, and now you can't stop seeing it too!

[Janice Glesser]

David Brown The MovieStuff Sniper is a frame by frame capture projector. Hence the flicker. The individual frames are combined after capture.

[Stan Jelavic]

I share the same experience. I could never get a 100% flicker free video using unsynchronized method. It may not be apparent at first but when I looked carefully it pops up like a very little flicker on the top or bottom of the image barely noticeable. Do not want to discourage anybody, just sharing my experience.
One potential solution would be to use a stepper with the geared drive and run at precise sub multiple of the camera frame rate and that is what I did with the Wolverine. You can check my thread in interested. The disadvantage is cost, complexity and slower scan time.

[Mark Wesley]

I tried playing (successfully) with the camera settings yesterday, but now I have an issue with the DV8 Sniper projector lamp driver circuit. When the projector is powered up or the 'Motor' switch is turned on, I only get a brief flash from the projector led. This has happened once before and I'm thinking that given the age of the unit, one or more of the filter capacitors associated with the lamp circuit may have the electrolyte dried up. Each new solution provides another problem. If I can't repair the projector, it may be time to invest in a Wolverine with the Hawkeye mod ...

[Stan Jelavic]

Should not be too hard to fix Mark. Is the rest of the unit in good condition?

[Mark Wesley]

Not knowing how many miles were put on it by the previous owner, I would say that the unit is in pretty good shape. Years ago, I scanned lots of film reels and never had an issue. I got the filter capacitors out this morning and will replace all of them based on their age.

There is a IRFD9120 power MOSFET (U7 in upper right corner) which is driving the projector LED through a 27 watt power resistor. After the capacitors, my money is on that horse.



https://www.vishay.com/docs/91139/sihfd912.pdf

[Stan Jelavic]

I suggest to get the DVM out and see what is going on with that 555 timer. Not having the schematic I would guess that the timer fires for a certain duration and then it turns off waiting for the trigger signal. One possibility is that the timing cap is bad causing the pulse to be too short or the trigger is missing. If you take a hi rez shot of the top and bottom board I can probably reverse engineer the schematic for you.