Overscan full frame

[Graham Sinden]

Ive noticed for a while there is trend, or fashion, to put new Super 8 films on YouTube which have been overscanned so much you see the sprocket hole and the top and bottom of the frames either side. Generally speaking I think I prefer just the full frame nothing else, but I'm slightly undecided whether its a good thing or not to show it overscanned. In some ways it makes Super 8 look more unique in that its not trying to compete with digital as you can clearly see its film and it does seem to make the image look very sharp. I might even try it myself for the odd reel of silent footage, but for longer films I will stick to the frame only.

I can understand the main reason for the overscan in that if you was to scan it in 4K you can zoom and crop on an editor and stabilize the image while still retaining sharpness.

What do you think of it?

Graham S

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

The well - established camera aperture standard/projection aperture standard had just been thrown out of windows.

IMHO that underscan is a trend - possibly a temporary ones.
Just a kinda show-off that "See, it's shot on film" thing.


Hope this will not catch on and spread to other thing - imagine "underscan VHS footage".

[James G. Brown]

I made an application to crop the garbage out of over-scanned images. See my post at http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/vbb/fo...rscan-and-crop

[David Brown]

Very good James!

By default I use a video editor to correct frame rate and cropping. That can also involve color correction and audio.

So, for a very quick way to fix those two core problems when nothing else is needed, your app is fast and handy.

No one should ever use the cropping tool in the Wolverine. Their actual captured image is no where near 1440x1080 when over-scanned. Whatever is captured is then blown up to to 1440x1080, then smashed down to a small bit rate. Over-scanned is the best way to use the stock Wolverine.

I tried to use ffmeg and found it daunting to find the settings I needed. I had bad advice and when I found it was dropping frames, I stopped using it.

This is a handy interface and you seem to have found the right method for speed and size for any video from Wolverine or other!

[James G. Brown]

Most of the large editors will change the frame rate by either dropping or adding frames rather than changing the speed. Since Wolverine scans frame by frame but records it at 20 fps, it needs the frame by frame to come down to 16 or 18 frames per second so it doesn't look like keystone cops. I use ffmpeg to change the fps speed by applying it to the input video instead of the output. I have looked at adding in an automatic Brightness, Contrast, and Gamma using ffmpeg but the result was not as good as the original video. I'll keep tweaking.

[James G. Brown]

David,
I did figure a way to adjust Brightness, Contrast, Hue, and Saturation and add it into my application. My goal is to provide just what is needed in a simple form. Would those be enough to satisfy your needs for video adjustments?

As far as audio.....Are you referring to adding audio like music or using audio recorded with a film that is part of the audio track? Adding audio (music) would be fairly easy as long as it's just one clip. Multiple clips would not be too bad. I might have to add a timeline or just make them sequential. Using audio recorded with a film could be tricky especially when the speed is changed on the video from say 20 fps to 16 fps. That's probably why Wolverine doesn't consider audio with a film. They record frame by frame and encode it into the video at 20 frames a second even though it was originally filmed at 16 or 18 fps. That's why I included the speed adjustment on the input fps instead of using interpolation on the output fps which changes the frame rate of the video but not the speed.

Along those lines of thought...is there any way to pull the audio from a film short of having a projector with sound?

[David Brown]

James, I think adding the exposure and saturation is handy. If adding audio is easy, do it! If you start to add clips together, you may be on the way to too much complexity. That's up to you.

Least expensive choice is Ebay for an old sound projector. You might find an older sound capable film viewer /editor.

What is the 640_480, or where does that come from? This is from a Wolverine capture, 1440_1080.

[James G. Brown]

I've already added Brightness and saturation. Contrast and Hue are available in the video player I used but they don't match what ffmpeg outputs. Exposure is not available in my player. If I can't match what you see with what you get it would not be useful. Audio should be easy if there is audio in the original file. I'll check into importing audio. I have a method I use for combining clips that is easy. Basically put all your clips in a folder in alphanumeric order and then launch ffmpeg with a script pointing to the folder and a new file is created from the combined video/audio. I can put that in easily. I need to simplify that to allow you to select the clips in the order you want them and then create the file. I have another project that allows trimming a video to create clips or remove blank areas from the beginning and end of films that also includes combining the clips. It all works but it needs a little tuning to make it simple. Let me know if you would like to see that. It is more for video conversion than for film conversion. I added in the 480 and 640 in case someone wants to down convert their films to save space, publish on the web, or create a standard DVD or VCD. You'll notice that I always keep the aspect ratio the same and only allow selection of the height. Then if you pad it to 16:9 it adds in the pillaring or letter boxing as required.

For audio, do you have a good place to get royalty free music or how do you get around copyright infringement?

[David Brown]

Well, since these are home movies, not for sale or public viewing, I don't worry about copyright!

This might work for you, free music and sound effects from Google. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCht...BvXKsR1Byln-wA

I meant that the video was at 20fps and that was reported in the first box, left column. The second box FILE WIDTH is 640. Shouldn't that be 1440?

I have since checked other videos and the size is reported correctly. Just a fluke?

[James G. Brown]

At your suggestion and because I need this fairly often, I added in the ability to select files and combine them into a single video file. The selected files can be of a different type (e.g. .mp4 & .mkv) as long as they have the same codec, speed, and width/height. The output file can also be a different type as long as the file type supports the codec. Also if the original files contain audio, the audio will be combined in the output.

Let me know if you receive that fluke again.

For music I have been afraid of infringement if I convert someone's films, add music, and then charge for the service. I can't afford any law suits.

[James G. Brown]

I set up the Combine function to include audio if the original video has audio. I also set it up so when you are cropping or just converting, audio will be copied. If you change the speed using the input FPS, the audio will change speeds also to keep it in sync. That's a little annoying but there's no way around that. I look at allowing you to add an audio track.

[James G. Brown]

I know this is not the best place for me to list all of the changes I've made to Film_Crop. But since I started listing them here, I'll make one more post. All future updates will be listed on my topic at
http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/vbb/fo...rscan-and-crop.

I have now added in the ability to add audio to a film. It also allows you to combine several audio files into a single file, save it, and then add that to the video. Make sure that the audio is at least as long as the video. If the video ends before the audio, conversion will stop at that point. If you are only adding audio and not making changes to the video, then the video is copied and not modified in any way. This makes the process very quick. For compatibility, the added audio will always be in an MP3 format. If you are modifying a video that already has audio, the audio will be copied as is with no format change. Let me know if this is an issue.