Best practices with the Video WorkPrinter

[Dave Anderson]

Deke,

Welcome abord! Glad to see you've found this forum group. I know there are other Moviestuff customers using MAC's, so just be patient and surely someone will bite. Even Roger frequents these boards. There is lot's of advice here for technique, but if you every have any questions about the equipment itself, you're best bet is to PM Roger. The man never sleeps. Well, hardly.

Dave Anderson
aka Streetwise - Canopus Forums

[Deke]

Hey Dave - we actually talked on the Canopus forum and you gave me all kinds of advice on cleaning film and Canopus! What a small web! I ended up getting the ADVC-300 despite some of its features being overkill for the film transfer, but I also have some video to transfer and, well, I never saw a new gadget I didn't like. It really is a great little box.

Yes, Roger is great, but I just don't want to bug the guy! I feel guilty every time he calls me back. He is doing a great job of supporting his customers, but I feel like to much the newby and small fish to warrant too much attention.

Speaking of which, I have a general question about frame rates. I am working with regular 8 mostly which has a playback rate of 15 fps. When I capture this from the DV sniper, I have a clip with every frame of film as a frame of video of course. When I adjust the playback rate in Final Cut Pro to 50% to give me the right speed, I have 2 options.

A. Just duplicated frames as needed (in this case double every frame).

B. Use "Frame blending" which creates a sort of intemittent frame that is a composite of the two frames it is placed between.

The idea behind B is it is supposed to make things smoother. I think I can tell a difference, but I was wondering - is this sort of thing okay or recommended?

[Dave Anderson]

Hi Deke!

Yes, I was suprised to see you join this group! It is a small web. The two options available have to do with interlacing. Usually, if you'll be watching the output on a TV, you'll want to do the 'frame blending' thing. It will make it look much smother. If it will only be played back on a computer, then the non-interlacing is a better way to go. If it might be played back on both, then again, the frame blending is the thing to do. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it all has to do with the way the TV scans an image, versus the way a monitor scans an image.

Hope that helps!

Dave

[Deke]

Thanks Dave!

I am experimenting with this frame blending option in FCP. To me it is amazing the computer can do all these calculations so fast. I almost feel guilty making it work so hard to render these files, but hey, in computer terms the thing is basically loafing around all day, so why not put it to work!

I'm really geeked right now. I thought I was doing fine, but when watching my captures on a monitor (TV) I noticed I was getting just a few bad frames here and there on my captures. Roger explained how I needed to be systematic about adjusting my projectors cam shaft. Now it is running perfect and I am ready to go. This is so much darn fun and though I still rank myself as a newbie I have really learned a lot in the past few weeks. Latest lesson - seems many of my 150+ family films are wound with the wrong side facing out on the reel so I am getting a reversed image. What next? I have my trusty rewinder, reels and cleaner and am ready to take care of business.

[super8man]

quick question: should I chose INTERLACING when making the mpg on the DVD-R? Clients will be watching it on tv's. When I chose the MPG2 option under RENDER AS in Vegas, I have not been checking the interlacing option check box.

Thanks.
m

PS - Note to self, burn a dvd with this option checked and see for yourself.

[MovieStuff]

quick question: should I chose INTERLACING when making the mpg on the DVD-R? Clients will be watching it on tv's.

I would say that you want it interlaced. Since CineCap interlaces the pulldown frames on 18fps footage, it is going to play the smoothest on a television if you allow interlacing. On a computer monitor, the interlacing of the pulldown frames can look funky, so you gotta choose. 15fps footage has no interlaced pulldown frames so it will look the same on both computer and television.

Roger
http://www.movietuff.tv

[Dave Anderson]

15fps footage has no interlaced pulldown frames so it will look the same on both computer and television.

By golly, you're right! I never thought of that. Since 15fps and 29.97fps are so close there wouldn't be any need to interlace (frame blend). That's good to know.

Thanks

Dave

[MovieStuff]

15fps footage has no interlaced pulldown frames so it will look the same on both computer and television.

By golly, you're right! I never thought of that. Since 15fps and 29.97fps are so close there wouldn't be any need to interlace (frame blend). That's good to know.

Well, actually, footage marked to render at 15fps is really going to play at about 14.98fps, just as footage marked to render at 18fps is really going to play at 17.98fps. But the point is that there is no need to create interpolated pulldown frames because the field pairing is even, which is what creates the smoothest playback. With CineCap, you can create a pulldown pattern that will play regular 8mm at 16fps but it will not be as smooth as 15fps.

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv

[mattias]

hey, didn't i answer that frame blending question in another forum already? :-) interlacing and frame blending are different things. as roger says there will be no interlacing taking place if you change 15 fps to 30, but you can optionally use frame blending to make it smoother.

anyway, i'm glad to see another fcp user here.

/matt

[sigr]

Thought I'd add a recent experience I've had and a resulting customization I've made to Cinecap. Recently, I provided a trial transfer of Regular 8mm film for a potential client. The transfer was done with WP XP and the speed correction was done with Cinecap for 15/16 fps NTSC. After seeing the result he told me that the pictorial quality itself was much better than what he had seen before from others (details/sharpness and vividness of the colors - I use a Sony 3ccd DVcam), but he felt the picture was jerky. Strictly speaking he is right. With that specific speed correction, fast motion in the picture, particularly of large objects, does indeed look jerky. He showed me another transfer of the same film done by someone else as a comparison. In my view the quality of that transfer was virtual garbage (the old story: very blurred, no detail, faded colors etc.), but perhaps the motion in the picture was a bit smoother. This other transfer was obviously done with real-time transfer equipment synchronized at 20fps. The person kept harping on this one aspect and finally said he was not interested if I could not improve the smoothness of the motion.

To make a long story short, I contacted Jeff Dodson, and based on his guidance I have now added a 20fps interpolated speed correction option to Cinecap, in place of the 15/16 fps interpolated pulldown (which is not needed, since it produces the same result as the non-interpolated version). All that’s needed to do this is to add the following line at the end of the Cinecap Config.ini file:

B_15_NTSC=3333

The benefit of doing this that the motion in the picture is noticeably smoother. First of all because the effective frame rate is higher, but also because the interpolated field pattern is itself perfectly smooth, since an equal number of fields (i.e. 3) from each frame is always displayed. Of course the drawback is that the video will run 25% faster than it should. However, I don’t feel that this is too much of a problem when you don’t have anything to directly compare it against. The motion still looks reasonably natural at this frame rate, which is of course the same frame rate that you get from e.g. Rogers CineMate-20.

[ericMartinJarvies]

white balancing your taking camera/digital camera/dslr/etc.:

if you are the one shooting the filmstock, then the obvious and most effective method would be to use a piece of white diffusion in front of your light source, and film a few frames of that. then, when you get that film back, you use those frames to do your white balance on. this will give you the most accurate reproduction possible assuming you have metered/exposed your footage correctly(or within reason) while filming.

if you are converting filmstock that does not have a few frames of diffused white of the same light source as your projector/work printer, then take and first determine the filmstock ... if it is a tungsten stock shot under tungsten lights, then your tungsten projector light source will provide you with good enough white balancing assuming you have some frames of a white wall or surface that has correct or close to color temp tungstens.

if the filmstock is tungsten shot outdoors, then determine if it was shot with or without correction filter(s), and what type. same things applies with daylight film shot under tungsten without correction filters(daylight shot under tungsten with correction filter is same as paragraph above).

if you have color correction filters and digital slr or video camera, you cna perform real world immediate tests as it relates to exposure and metering ... once you figure this out, then you can white balance quickly using your eyes, without needing to open up images in graphic apps. digital SLR cameras have tungsten, daylight, flouresent, etc. setings, and you can use jpg images to set the white balance ... the camera will tell you the compensation settings, and you can do the conversions from there should you feel so compelled. there are many ways to get to the right setting, but with all of them you will at least need to know the wrong ones, and why. using color correction filters between the light source and the gate, after the diffusion opal, is BETTER then doing color corrections digitally!! light manipulation will ALWAYS translate to a better image then will pixal color manipulation, period.

eric

ps- just noticed this thread is old and recently revived ... did not read anything past the first page, so perhaps this info is already covered. sorry.

[Deke]

hey, didn't i answer that frame blending question in another forum already? interlacing and frame blending are different things. as roger says there will be no interlacing taking place if you change 15 fps to 30, but you can optionally use frame blending to make it smoother.

anyway, i'm glad to see another fcp user here.

/matt

Hey Matt - I missed this one! Thanks again for the advice. I tried frame blending and I think I like it. It does seem smoother, especially for regular 8 captures. I am a FCP newby, but I think I am learning a few things. Getting my keyboard shortcuts down! It's funny, but while I slave away at archiving all the family films, learning about frame rates, using FCP... my brother is actually a pro - camera, lighting and steadi cam. He's getting a family movie DVD from me for Christmas.

Any way, a little more on topic. My DV Sniper is humming along, all synced up (took me about 10 cam shaft adjustments, but I got it) and it is just a blast.[/i]