DIY real-time 8mm/S8mm telecine system sample footage

[Robert Held]

During transfers, I find that the image on the external monitor I use looks better in real time than the resultant video recorded to the SD card at the max quality setting. I'm using a Panasonic HDC-SD9 camcorder. So to test, I fed the camera's HDMI out through an AverMedia Live Gamer Mini and captured the video on my PC at the same time as on the SD card. I'm using OBS Studio on my PC, vs the AverMedia software, as OBS gives complete control over frame rate, quality, etc. Here's a synced up result, OBS on the left, the SD card's video on the right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpDjJpmBm_8

Both have only been flipped vertically, as this is just an encoding test. No color correction. It's subtle, but the OBS capture looks "cleaner" to me. During encoding, it appears that the camcorder adds some edge enhancement or sharpening and blows out the highlights a bit (look at the male golfer's pants).

There's some more testing I would like to try, but I think this is how I'm going to transfer films going forward.

[Janice Glesser]

i see what you mean Robert. The OBS version is definitely sharper and cleaner. I always transfer via the HDMI link and have never captured to the SD card. However this is good to know for others that might be capturing to the internal memory or SD card. I've never tried capturing with OBS either... I use Black Magic Express with a capture card. I'm going to try OBS though...just curious.

[Robert Held]

I always transfer via the HDMI link and have never captured to the SD card

That method really seems to be the best way to go!

[Stan Jelavic]

Nice work Robert. Good point regarding the HDMI capture.

[Kim Trampus]

I also make sure that all the auto settings are turned off. Intelligent contrast control, Help mode, Soft skin mode, Colour night view, Backlight compensation, Low light and OIS

[Robert Held]

Thanks, Stan.

Kim, the only setting I have on is is Intelligent contrast control, as I've found it does make an improvement.

[Nicholas Serra]

Thanks everyone for the instructions here. I started trying to build this out using my Nikon Z30 as the camera. A little harder, as it's using an actual zoom lens.

Hardest part so far is just getting it all lined up right. Using levels to try to get it all straight as possible. Still seeing some skewing on the capture, not sure if this is just how the film is feeding through or not. Need to try more reels.

Also using the old 16mm lenses is tough, as I can't seem to get them perfectly clean, even when tearing them down fully. Might have to try that new Pi lens mentioned previously.

Initial captures looking pretty good. Can bump this up to 4k capture to give more room for cropping too.

Example capture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2e-vXkG0s0

[Stan Jelavic]

Very nice Nicholas. The colors are great. Just a bit of ghosting but it did not bother me. some softness on the edges possibly due to alignment or possibly due to original film issues.
I am working on a similar project for a friend of mine. Fuji XA5 mirrorless camera and Sankyo 1000 but will be doing frame by frame.
Trying to do the direct projection to the camera with a single 20mm lens. Failing that will use a setup similar to yours with the zoom lens and the 50mm RPI lens.
BTW - the lens that you are using is a 50mm lens off of a 16mm projector. That is why they sometimes call it 16mm lens. This is just a note for the people that may try to use a similar setup.

[Alwyn Adkins]

That video's nice, Nicholas. What frame rate are you shooting at?

[Nicholas Serra]

Very nice Nicholas. The colors are great. Just a bit of ghosting but it did not bother me. some softness on the edges possibly due to alignment or possibly due to original film issues.

Thanks! Might also take you up on one of your 3d printed custom lens mounts. I think I wanna try that newer Pi lens out as an alternative.

That video's nice, Nicholas. What frame rate are you shooting at?

This is 1080p at 30fps on the Z30. Projector speed pretty high. I haven't tried to adjust the frame rate yet to get it to 8mm speeds. Figure i'll start messing with that once I get all this alignment sorted out.

[Nicholas Serra]

The more I look, that edge softness seems to be dark spots on the edges of the lens, somehow. Not sure what's causing it, but if I move the projector a bit right or left I can see the darkness/softness creep along. Just gonna bite the bullet and pick up that new lens and try to rig something up.

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

To my understanding that Nikon uses APS-C sized sensor, which is not so easy to fill the entire area with super8 frame sized object.

Does it have any sort of "cropped mode" or whatever that gives you 1:1 sensor readout from only the center portion? The effective area will be much less reduced (maybe close to 1:1 magnification) therefore less optical issues to deal with.

[Stan Jelavic]

Yeah looks like vignette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vignetting
Generally happens when the lens or multiple lenses setup has some obstruction towards the sensor.
You can try the crop as Nantawat suggested or try tot get closer to the 50mm projector lens if possible.
On the RPI 50mm lens I have to open the aperture all the way to avoid vignette. The 50mm lens that you have does not have aperture
control. Maybe open up the aperture on you zoom lens but that will degrade your DOF (depth of field).

[Robert Gerdes]

Has anyone tried this approach for a super 8 with sound transfer? Any tips/tricks/considerations (besides the obvious)?

Lastly, can anyone recommend a good super 8 sound projector with variable speed that would work well for this method?

Sorry for all the newbie questions!

-Bob

[Nantawat Kittiwarakul]

Has anyone tried this approach for a super 8 with sound transfer? Any tips/tricks/considerations (besides the obvious)?

Lastly, can anyone recommend a good super 8 sound projector with variable speed that would work well for this method?

Sorry for all the newbie questions!

-Bob

Assume that you had already sorted out the image acquisition (as discussed in this post) the rest is just a matter of connecting the projector's audio output to your camera's input, and that's it. The issue would be the physical connection type (mini / DIN / rca / 1/4" plug / etc..., you name it) and the different audio level.

Most projector's audio out would be speaker - level, and line - level in some models. But most camera / camcorders would need microphone - level input. The difference would be at least 30dB or higher - more than enough to cause massive overload, and you'll get nothing but badly distorted audio. You'll need an audio attenuator in-between the two to tame the signal down enough for the camera to handle.