My First Telecine Attempt...

[TearsIntheRain]

...turned out looking like butt.

I'm using a PAL camcorder, a Chinon projector (don't know the model off the top of my head), and a no-name telecine accessory that's basically a small box with a lens, mirror, and screen.

There's a massive hot spot, which causes either the outside to be too dark, or the hot spot to be over exposed. I think I can solve this by skipping the telecine box and shooting it off my screen.

The flicker is terrible. I can control the frame rate on my projector, but all that does is change the flicker, not eliminate it. Slow speeds cause the brightness to go up and down in a pulsing manner on the camcorder, faster speeds make it flicker really bad.

I'll try to post it on YouTube tonight, but it probably isn't even worth bothering.

Any suggestions?

[TearsIntheRain]

I was considering bringing it into Final Cut and setting up a filter, and use keyframes to adjust the levels...once I have the brightest and the darkest points, it should be easy to set up keyframes for them throughout the length of the clip. Not sure if I want to go through all that trouble though, since this is just test footage (thankfully). I do want to share it though.

Definately going to pay for a professional telecine for future footage though.

[avr]

I had a telecine box and it do not works for me, poor telecines and hardly use.

Now I telecine my S8 films with a Braun Visacustic 2000 projector. It has a 16.66 fps so you don´t get a visible flciker recording in PAL standard mode (1/50 shutter)
I project onto a wall and then grab with a miniDV camera.

All my super 8 videos in Vimeo were telecine in this way.

http://vimeo.com/channel13923

Regards

[thepelell]

to get completely rid of flickering and light pulsing and get the most out of the film using a camcorder, you really only have one way: do a frame by frame scan. So you have 2 options:
- get one of Roger's machines on http://www.moviestuff.tv
- if you have time, will and patience: electrically or mechanically modify a projector so you can slow it down to 3-4 fps, reduce and diffuse the light source, find a lens combination that will enable you to focus and zoom in on the film frame directly in the projector gate and capture on your mac with Capturemate or on your pc with Cinecap. Use your camera in full manual mode and get ready to spend many evenings tweaking screws, microswitches , lens holders and so on... it took me 6 months to get a decent system working. If you google "diy telecine" or "home telecine" you can find something from other people that have already done this...

[Mitch Perkins]

...turned out looking like butt.


Any suggestions?

replace screen with double-convex field lens

low watt light source - see if you can mount [onto projector] a fridge bulb in a ceramic socket, then cut an a/c dimmer into the power cord

diffusion between light and rear of gate - will eliminate hotspot

check inside the projector for speed pots - adjust until flicker goes away [for ntsc it's 20fps, not sure for pal] - with the proper speed, flicker will be virtually invisible and pulsing will be gone completely

hth
Mitch

[camera8mm]

if your are just going to do an off the screen transfer you will have to change the shutter speed on the camcorder. dont know what the pal version would be but in the states it is 1/60. then adjust the fps on the projector.
i've found manual mode on a camcorder works better than auto since auto mode is too bright for some reason and doesnt react to focus and color shifts very well.

[CineGuerrilha]

did u do the 500t off the wall? Sh...t! That's awesome!

'tienes uevos...'

anyway, loved your stuff. do u develop it yourself too?

I had a telecine box and it do not works for me, poor telecines and hardly use.

Now I telecine my S8 films with a Braun Visacustic 2000 projector. It has a 16.66 fps so you don´t get a visible flciker recording in PAL standard mode (1/50 shutter)
I project onto a wall and then grab with a miniDV camera.

All my super 8 videos in Vimeo were telecine in this way.

http://vimeo.com/channel13923

Regards

[BK]

...turned out looking like butt.

I'm using a PAL camcorder

Turn off that on camera Steadyshot or image stabiliser if you had it on, this can cause bad flicker since this function operates with the camera set at a high shutter speed.

You can shoot the image projected off a piece of A4 non glossy printer/photocopying paper taped to a wall and this works reasonable well, for me anyway if I want to do a quick and cheap transfer. I used a variable speed projector also with a 3CCD video camera.

I remember I had a strobe/ deflicker AVX plugin for my old Avid Xpress DV which worked quite well and it got rid of the pulsating and flicker completely. Not sure if there is a similar filter available for FCP.

Bill