Converting 8mm Film to Digital

[mabas9395]

I'm looking for some advice on the best way to have my 8mm film converted to digital. I'm assuming it was recorded sometime between 1960 - 1964. I'm looking for the highest picture quality I can get. I have done some home video editing in the past and want to be able to edit this video as well. I have Sony Vegas so I can handle a wide range of file types and specs.

I plan on having the conversion professionally done, but I want to know what is the best format I should ask for? I know enough to know that I don't want a regular DVD.

My questions include:

>What is the best file format (.mov, .avi, etc)? Is there an uncompressed format and do you get enough increase in quality for the increase in file size?

>What is the best resolution I can expect from 8mm? Can I get higher than 480/SD? Websites talk about HD, but is that just hype?

>Is there a certain conversion "process" I should be looking for? I've googled the topic and I'm seeing things like "frame by frame" and "rank cintel".

>Is it best to let them do any color correction?

>Anything else I should know?

Thanks.

 

[photo_chick]

I've seen film done with a Cintel machine and it's really good quality. It would be my preference to have motion picture film scanned with one.

The output is as good as the original and the quality of the scanner. If it's a good quality film there is no reason you can't end up with a good quality HD file. We scan negatives at high enough resolution to make 5 or 8 megapixel files all the time. A frame of 1080p video is only a little over 2MP.

Let them color correct. You want it consistent across the film, and that's a lot easier if they do it as they scan.

I think what file format you choose has a lot to do with what you're going to use it for, what editing software you will use and personal preference.

You can do this yourself, as well. I've done it. Frame by frame for 8 minutes of film (no sound). And I will never, ever do it again. Ever. I ended up with outstanding quality but I was ready to pull my hair out by the end.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Resolution isn't a precise thing for film. A piece of 8mm film is really small. It probably doesn't really resolve more than SD, but I think you'll get better results if you capture and work in HD. When you are done, try outputting it to SD and HD and seeing if you can tell a difference. If you can't, just output to SD. Even if SD was my target, I'd still capture and work in HD if you can and it isn't too much more expensive.

The trick to capturing 8mm film is to do it frame by frame. 8mm film was shot at 15 frames per second and Super 8mm was shot at 18 fps. If you try to record it while it is playing using a video camera, the frames won't match up perfectly and you'll have problems like flickering. If you have someone do the capturing for you, that will be their problem. Just make sure that you don't use some cheapo outfit that doesn't do some form of real telcine transfer rather than just pointing a video camera at a screen.

It isn't really too hard to do it yourself. I did it using a Workprinter XP and a good HD video camera. It easily did frame by frame captures at HD resolution. It took me a few hours to get everything set up perfectly, but once I was done, I could do transfers with about 2-3 minutes of work plus about 3x the time it would normally take to watch the video.

Formats are a tricky thing. First, what you listed (.MOV, .AVI) are container files. They can contain encoded with lots of different codecs (MPEG2, H.264, DV, HDV, etc). Some codecs are good at recording lots of information without taking up a lot of space (H.264), but they suck for editing because they use extensive GOP schemes (that's not political commentary). Others are the opposite.

If you want to get really picky, the other issue you need to deal with is chroma sampling. Most consumer video is recorded in a 4:2:0 rather than 4:4:4. The fact that the capture process is going to lose color resolution is another good reason to capture in HD.

I agree with photo_chick that you should let them do the color correcting. Doing it properly requires you to do it on a scene by scene basis, which is pretty insane for home movies. For the few scenes that you might really want to spend time on, you can still work with what they've done and make your own adjustments. If you want a middle ground, have them record it in something like a CineStyle format that leaves the colors fairly muted so that you have more latitude to grade it yourself. Just be aware that if you do that, you are committing to correct everything yourself. Life is too short for that.

One other issue to deal with is dust. If they are doing it, I've been told that a liquid process is better. Doing it myself, I ran the film through a microfiber cloth dampened with film cleaner. It seemed to work well enough.

The one thing that I regret is that my video capture device didn't have as much dynamic range as the original film. I think I lost a lot of detail in the shadows and some in the highlights. If I were doing it again, I think I'd capture each reel three times and three different exposure levels and then blend them to get the result that I want.