Advice needed re: 8mm cine transfer

Alun

Hi,

I've been saddled with the unenviable job of getting something like 40 50ft reels of 8mm cine film that emerged from my recently deceased father-in-law's attic transferred and edited into a state where they can be sent out to various family members on DVD or possibly VHS for the technically challenged ones.

I'm going to have to do loads of editing on whatever comes out of the initial transfer process to weed out the crap, and to try and put things into some semblance of order and add titles and stuff. Is this something that I could realistically take on myself, and if so, what method of transfer (telecine or filming the projected image with a camcorder) and medium (DVD, VHS, mini-DV, etc.) would be best? Also software ... I've got Nero6, would that be sufficient?

This all started to look quite a simple task when I first took it on, but as I did more research it (like most things in life) suddenly got a lot more complex

Lump

How much money do you have?

Cant advise till we know that.

John

Alun

Lump wrote:

How much money do you have?

Cant advise till we know that.

John

A difficult question which I could counter with "That depends on how much it's going to cost" I've found one place in the UK that will do it to mini-DV for £275 which sounds a bit on the high side, but they do quite a bit of tidying up and editing which I don't necessarily want doing by them (I need to see what's on the reels first before I can decide what to keep and what order to put things in etc.) Another place here will do a transfer (but they don't say what to!) for around €200 which seems a bit closer to the mark to me.

I should add that this is new territory for me. I'm quite experienced at editing and manipulating still images, but video-editing is totally new. I know that when editing still images I try and keep everything in a lossless format like TIFF or a raw format before committing to a final output in a lossy format like JPG. I'm guessing that in digital video terms there must be some equivalent format that is also lossless to allow editing and that editing something that has been transferred directly to DVD is a bit of a no-no.

decob

Personally, i'd go down the road of a mini-dv transfer. Then edit it in premier pro or avid free.. tho premier is prolly a better choice as you can export your timeline to dvd.

Alun

decob wrote:

Personally, i'd go down the road of a mini-dv transfer. Then edit it in premier pro or avid free.. tho premier is prolly a better choice as you can export your timeline to dvd.

What would I get when I transfer the mini-DV tape to my PC (I do have a firewire connection) ? Some kind of uncompressed .AVI format? And, what kind of file sizes would I be looking at in terms of MB per minute roughly? I'd also have to beg, steal or borrow a mini-DV camera to do the transfer but that shouldn't be a problem.

decob

Alun wrote:

What would I get when I transfer the mini-DV tape to my PC (I do have a firewire connection) ? Some kind of uncompressed .AVI format? And, what kind of file sizes would I be looking at in terms of MB per minute roughly? I'd also have to beg, steal or borrow a mini-DV camera to do the transfer but that shouldn't be a problem.

yeah it'd be a uncompressed dv format, according to lump basher in another thread it's about 4GB for every 18mins of captured footage.

have a look at this post for some more info

Alun

Thanks decob, just the kind of info I need.

Anyone here have any direct experience of getting the cine - mini-DV transfer done here locally, and how much did it cost?

Lump

If you get it transferred to DV and Capture it at DV res, it's about 5:1 compression, well 5.6:1 compression, which is fine (They broadcast that) Places will normally offer deals for doing 8mm stuff during their quiet times. I'm in England, so don't know places in Ireland that do transfers.

John

iwb

I'll add my two cents worth. I have had a similar project on the back burner for a year now. This isn't straightforward and the longer I leave it the more I think I might just send them off for someone else to do.
All the rest of it is very straightforward compared to capturing the images in some sort of digital form. You have to first get the cine to go at 25fps or you will get bright and dark cycles due to it being out of sync. To add to my frustration, the projector I have has very crude speed control and a very worn drive belt. If you can manage that fps and synchronise the camcorder and the cine camera, you probably have a good chance at getting the image you are looking for. Otherwise, the rest is not worth considering.
Let me know how you get on and if anyone has any suggestions about the above challenges I am all ears.
Sorry if this sounds negative but I found this through experience.

moonboy

here to be honest ive seen both telecined work and work that has been filmed off a good projection and the quality difference isnt huge.
so what i suggest to you is..
get a decent 8mm projector(loadsa people seem to have em)..make sure the bulb is strong..
get a 3ccd camera..
and film the projection..
hey presto.
fraction of the cost it is..
seriously try it.

Alun

Thanks moonboy, that's interesting. I have a projector already (came with the films along with an editor and splicer). I'd understood from Googling that you'd get problems with flicker due to the different frame rates (18fps vs. 25fps). Have you not noticed anything like that?

moonboy

eh well yes but its just about setting up the frame rate on the camera correctly you know..
canon XL1 does 25p so that should suffice.
and i think a mate of mine used Pd170
but ive yet to try it myself but its definately worth a shot..
what wattage is the bulb in the projector?
basically youll just have to try it out i guess..
good luck
8mm rules!

fme

Another tip for if you are recording a projection is to have a few people over to watch it. That way you can record the comments everyone makes as the video plays - makes for a much more interesting viewing the next time round.

iwb

I haven't had any success locating a projector locally. As I said above, the one I have isn't great at all. Anyone in the vacinity of New Ross like to loan me one for a few weeks to try this out again?