Overscan and Crop

[James G. Brown]

Hello all. I'm new to this forum but I have been converting 8mm films to digital for about a year. I learned early on that 8mm cameras actually expose a larger area than an 8mm projector will project. And since I use a Wolverine Pro which produces a video comprised of 20 frames of film per second even though 8mm cameras exposed the film at 16 frames per second and Super cameras at 18 frames per second, that motion on the resulting video was sped up slightly. To get an improved presentation of a film I needed to over-scan the frames so I could see the edges of the exposed area, crop it to the largest size possible to remove the sprocket holes and dust that collects around the cameras film gate, and then change the speed to 16 or 18 frames per second. Not very many video editors allow for cropping a video and most of them that adjust the frames per second insert duplicate frames to the output without changing the speed or creating new frames which are a combination of the previous frame and the next frame. This can result in a slight jitter in the output video as the new frames are inserted. I didn't like either of these solutions so I have created my own application that allows the input frame rate to be adjusted instead of the output frame rate, allows the over-scanned image to be cropped accurately, allows me to select a vertical output resolution of 1080p, 720p. or 480p, and allows me to add pillar boxs to adjust the output to a 16:9 ratio for a better display on modern televisions and monitors. I have made it available for free for anyone's use and testing. It is called Fim_Crop and can be downloaded at http://instipics.com/Film_Crop/Film_Crop.zip. Feel free to download it, use it, and send me any comments or suggestions you may have. Their may be some security warnings when installing it as I have not paid for a security key.

[James G. Brown]

I have made a lot of additions and changes to Film_Crop since it's initial release. Rather than list them all, I am including the release notes below. I hope you find this application useful. Don't worry. It's still free and always will be. But donations are appreciated.

[James G. Brown]

I think I'm about done adding functionality to the app unless someone has a recommendation for something else to add. I'll summarize the abilities below.

• Loads all video types supported by Windows Media Foundation.
• Allows cropping of Top, Bottom, Left, & Right of over scanned films to remove sprocket holes and fuzz collected around film gate in the camera.
• Video can be trimmed by specifying the start and end locations to remove blank video.
• Allows adjustment of frame rate to match original frame rate of camera. Usually 16fps for Regular 8mm and 18fps for Super 8mm. Note that Wolverine scans frame by frame at 20fps.
• Output video can be saved as standard definition or high definition.
• Output video can be padded to a 16x9 ratio with pillars or letterbox.
• Brightness and saturation can be adjusted to bring colors back to life on old films.
• Multiple videos can be combined to create a longer video without having to splice films together.
• Audio files can be combined and saved for future videos and can be added to existing videos without having to recompile video.

All of this free for my fellow film converters. It's available at http://instipics.com/Film_Crop/. If you have any suggestions for additional features or need fixes, Please let me know at jgbrown54@instipics.com.

[Jason Quinn]

I think I'm about done adding functionality to the app unless someone has a recommendation for something else to add. I'll summarize the abilities below.

• Loads all video types supported by Windows Media Foundation.
• Allows cropping of Top, Bottom, Left, & Right of over scanned films to remove sprocket holes and fuzz collected around film gate in the camera.
• Video can be trimmed by specifying the start and end locations to remove blank video.
• Allows adjustment of frame rate to match original frame rate of camera. Usually 16fps for Regular 8mm and 18fps for Super 8mm. Note that Wolverine scans frame by frame at 20fps.
• Output video can be saved as standard definition or high definition.
• Output video can be padded to a 16x9 ratio with pillars or letterbox.
• Brightness and saturation can be adjusted to bring colors back to life on old films.
• Multiple videos can be combined to create a longer video without having to splice films together.
• Audio files can be combined and saved for future videos and can be added to existing videos without having to recompile video.

All of this free for my fellow film converters. It's available at http://instipics.com/Film_Crop/. If you have any suggestions for additional features or need fixes, Please let me know at jgbrown54@instipics.com.

Thank you for this James. I am new to the forum and it was just recommended to me to use find your tool. Unrelated to the too, your screenshot above and on your link, are you using the Hawkeye mod for capture.? Or doing color correction in post editing (Adobe or some other product?) Your color correction is spot on.

[James G. Brown]

I use the Wolverine Pro with the Contrast up and my tool. I drop the Brightness down a little and the Saturation up. That's it.

I tried adding Contrast and Hue into my app but I couldn't get the WYSIWYG provided by Windows Media Foundation to match settings in FFMPEG. If what you see is not what you get then it's pretty useless.

Sorry about all the updates on my app lately. Adding new functionality always seems to break something else.

Note: If you click on the Brightness or Saturation sliders then you can use the up and down arrows for a fine adjustment. Typical on old films is Brightness down 7 to 10 clicks and Saturation up 7 clicks. Of course it depends on the original film.