How to get old Super 8 film onto the PC

[Chris Gaines]

I have some old Super 8 movie camera footage I would like to get onto my PC for editing and eventual writing out to DVD. These are of the kids growing up so would like to have them preserved.

I was told you basically have to play the film and re-shoot it with a video camera to get the right format to start with.

Can anyone outline the process involved or give me a reference site to go to so I can read up about it please.

Anyone else had experiences with this type of conversion?

Thanks.

[Greg]

I found this web site a while back:

http://www.garethhorne.co.uk/
(click on the link 'Cine to Video' down at the bottom)

The info has not been updated in a while, and in some instances is outdated, but gives you a starting point

Regards,
Greg

[Chris Gaines]

Thanks but looks like that site may be down -

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The page cannot be displayed 
There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed.

Will try again later.

[Devil]

I have some old Super 8 movie camera footage I would like to get onto my PC for editing and eventual writing out to DVD. These are of the kids growing up so would like to have them preserved.

I was told you basically have to play the film and re-shoot it with a video camera to get the right format to start with.

Can anyone outline the process involved or give me a reference site to go to so I can read up about it please.

Anyone else had experiences with this type of conversion?

Thanks.

There are two ways of doing this.

The cheap way, which gives cheap results, is essentially to project a film on a screen and point a video camera at it. The main problem is strobing, because you are trying to convert 18 fps (silent super-8) or 24 fps (sound super-8) or 16 fps (silent double-8) to 25 or 29.97, depending on whether you want the results in PAL or NTSC. To compound this, the projector has a (usually) 3-aperture shutter, so that each flash of light on the screen lasts about 9 or 10 ms as opposed to 20 ms for a field in PAL or 16.7 ms in NTSC. So some fields might see the light from 1 flash, which would appear dim, and others the light from 2, which would be brighter. One can sometimes mitigate this with projectors with variable speed but this will not be pleasant to watch. In MSP, you may be able to correct this by speed changes. IOW, it's mighty hairy.

The good way is by telecine machines. There are two types. Both work by drawing the film at constant speed across an aperture on which is focussed a double raster (to get the interlacing) with three sensitive photomultipliers on the other side to collect the light through primary filters. The low-cost (?? $10k++) type will record on a frame-by-frame basis, so your video will be too fast, but, again, may be corrected in MSP. The high-cost type ($80k++) will do all the maths for RT speed conversion by interpolation and really does give superb results, provided the film is clean and flawless. The resultant video is at 25 or 29.97 fps, and each frame is different.

If you want to do the good way, there are specialist houses with telecine machines. But beware, there are also sharks who sell the cheap method at a price unrelated to the quality. So be careful that you choose a reliable establishment which is correctly equipped. But be aware that the cost is commensurate with the cost of the equipment and can run into triple figures for a 15 min film. Hint: splice all the bits you want onto a big reel, rather than send them 20 3½ min Kodak 50' reels -- it will cost you much less.

[Johny H]

I have used the projector method on about 10 hours of 8mm and Super 8mm film with decent results. It does take some tweeking to get rid of the flickering, but with variable speed projector and a video camera set at
1\60th shutter speed or lower per second. The best trick I found to be very helpfull is when capturing, connect the camera to the computer and use the TV out on MSP 7.03 to check your flicker and adjust to componsate. I then use MSP to slow down the footage and correct contrast and color etc. If you want more help let me know.

[Chris Gaines]

Thank you all very much for your feedback !
Heaps to go on there.
Looks like I need to track down a professional service to do the job properly and now I know some of the key things to watch out for when I do engage one.

[sjj1805]

The Link Above to Gareth Horne's site is a bit faulty, but he has another one at: http://www.ghorne.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/vidtest/cine.htm

[keanet]

Chris, I have the same desire to convert (lots) of old super-8 to the PC to get to DVD and also do some editing. I also have several narrations with music on old reel to reel tapes that I use to sync manually (a real pain) when projecting the film.

What I'm now doing....

Using Audio editor, I've loaded in all the soundtracks to the PC as audio files.

I researched the web and selected Woodland Media (wood-land.com) to convert two 400' film reels to DV. This was a test of their quality and I'm very pleased with the results so far. I plan to send them another group to convert (I have 24 400 footers in all). Their site has some good info about the process.

I'm now ready to use Video Capture to load the DV's using my camera. I expect the process to be smooth from here with Video Editor since the conversion was my biggest concern.

Actually, I'm preparing all this as a winter project to make DVD's for the kids who have now grown. Good luck.

Tom K.

[sjj1805]

Further to the reply by "Devil" above mentioning 2 ways to get Super8 Film into your PC. there is a third method using a scanner.
View this link for details:

http://www.filesclub.com/download/8mm2avi_91514.html

[Devil]

Further to the reply by "Devil" above mentioning 2 ways to get Super8 Film into your PC. there is a third method using a scanner.
View this link for details:

http://www.filesclub.com/download/8mm2avi_91514.html

Hellishly laborious but I suppose possible. Am not sure whether the quality would be acceptable, as the optical resolution would be questionable. As a approximation, a 8 mm film may have an image ~6 mm wide or ~0.24". At 2400 dpi OPTICAL, this would theoretically give 600 pixels wide, but I have yet to find any scanner which will really resolve 2400 dpi, even if they say they do. My tests on an old pro Epson were the best at ~1800 but this was a very expensive machine. I currently use a middle of the range HP one but it comes nowhere near that: it can barely resolve a 600 lpi Stouffer wedge (1200 dpi), even though the specs say it does 2400 optical and 9600 with interpolation.

[Greg]

and at ~1000 frames/min, as you said (rather politely, I might add, not the phrase that sprang to my mind!) hellishly laborious.
It all comes down to what you want to spend, and how much the preservation is worth to you.
For me Virtualdub with a deflicker vilter produces adequate results, based on the fact that the original footage is nearly 40 years old!

Regards,
Greg

[Little Red Light]

Fret not
Just try it, make your projected image as small as possible, make sure both the camera and projector are in focus and just shoot it. It will flicker a bit but surely that's part of it's charm, and I guarantee the results from professionals won't be much better.

[Johny H]

The only time flicker was noticable was at very bright scene, and when I say bright I am talking about snow or beach scene. And even then it is not that noticable if you adjust it a little. I have checked out some of the Telecined samples on the net and you can do just as good if not sometimes better with color correction, contrast etc. adjustments!