Often overlooked Telecine fact.

[granfer]

I've kept this away from other Telecine threads so as not to muddy the water, and it's probably been aired before, but it bears repeating if it has.
Transferring film by the projector/screen/video camera method is often considered to be a poor way because transfer has to occur either at 16.667 (20) fps with a 3 bladed shutter, or 25 (30) fps for a two bladed to avoid flicker, and neither speed is standard.
The actual quality of transfer can be very good from the picture point of view.
Most computer editing softwares can actually speed up or slow down both picture and sound to achieve the correct speed, so using one of the many capture cards or external USB capture devices available is an excellent option.
Most such devices can accept Composite or S-Video, and often DV or Firewire inputs. Good results in real time can be acheived by this method without modification to projector or camera as long as the projector has a good manual speed control.
granfer

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

Sure, but the biggest problem of that way of doing telecine is still there. Frameblending.

And if you go and adjust the speed on a clip that is already a mix of progressive frames and frames with mixed interlace fields you get... frameblended frameblending. Doesen´t sound very good to my ears.

If you uncheck frameblending in your NLE to avoid further frameblending you get repeated frames with mixed interlace fields, something that must be a worst case scenario.

[Mitch Perkins]

Transferring film by the projector/screen/video camera method is often considered to be a poor way because transfer has to occur either at 16.667 (20) fps with a 3 bladed shutter, or 25 (30) fps for a two bladed to avoid flicker, and neither speed is standard.

The real irony is that lots and lots of the film itself contains image that flickers anyway, especially on ski slopes or the beach - you can see the density change on the film itself. Seems many of the auto-exp units couldn't maintain consistent exposure in the high fstop numbers.

As for standard speed, we shot an entire feature at 18fps, transferred at 20fps, and not a single person has ever hinted they thought the picture was sped up at all.

We currently transfer sound film on a regular basis at 20fps, then speed it up 117% to 24fps with no problems whatsoever.

About that screen you mention - if you mean a frosted, "rear-projection" screen, your can up your picture quality wildly by replacing it with a field lens, at which point the video camera will be "looking" at the film itself; you will be able to focus on the grain!

The actual quality of transfer can be very good from the picture point of view.
Most computer editing softwares can actually speed up or slow down both picture and sound to achieve the correct speed, so using one of the many capture cards or external USB capture devices available is an excellent option.
Most such devices can accept Composite or S-Video, and often DV or Firewire inputs. Good results in real time can be acheived by this method without modification to projector or camera as long as the projector has a good manual speed control.
granfer

A sound projector is ideal, as it should have a flywheel installed to maintain constant speed.....so you don't have to keep adjusting.

Nice post granfer.

Mitch

[granfer]

Mitch,
No, I discounted the use of translucent screens very early on because of the grain and potential for hot spots and always used a sheet of A4 white paper with front projection.
When I went over to "frame by frame" I used a field lens to start with, but found set-up and dealing with dust on the lens a pain, so now I use "direct from gate" as only the film plane is in sharp focus; dust on the supplementary lens is not a significant issue.
"Direct from gate" is the next logical step from using a screen or field lens in "real time transfer" experimentation for the home DIYer. (I acknowledge the superior expertise, and finance, of the Professional!).

One comment on flywheels; the flywheel only stabilises the movement of film past the sound head and is driven by the film. It does not control the projector speed. This is why the manual speed control has to be good; smooth control which allows the flywheel to follow the setting is needed to avoid excessive "looping" between gate and sound head (normally taken up by some form of swing idler).

Granfer

[Uppsala BildTeknik]

I believe this is a perfect proof of personal preferences and quality standards. What looks as "Good enough" or even "Fantastic" in the eyes of person 1, looks as "Not good enough", or even "Terrible" in the eyes of another person.

This is only logical, everyone isn´t anal about getting top-notch quality, and everyone doesen´t care if... yadayadayuada.

Something that is weird is that they manage to sell those "transfer your films-boxes", even though they give worse image quality than a piece of paper on the wall. It is just a total waste of money, and people buy them...

I had this discussion with a guy in a Swedish filmforum a couple years back, he stated that he definetly got top quality from his DIY approach (I think?), and that the quality from a Flashscan8 couldn´t be that much better. Then, for some reason, it slipped out that he was using a 1CCD camera. Kind of takes "the edge" from his statements about great image quality. But, to his standards, the results were fantastic and "as good as any transfer". Yeah, right... :roll:

If people are doing DIY and are happy with the results, great! But it bothers me when people charge money for doing transfers, and then provide a (in my eyes) sub-standard image quality. It is, from my point of view, a waste of money and a way of ruining the quality of something that is important to people.

I could probably count more transfer facilities than I have fingers, just in this little country of Sweden, that just do realtime transfers and hit "rec" on a DVD recorder for live transfers. Not even bothering to give it a proper mpeg encoding. And I know several that do this WITH a Flashscan8 and without any color correction. Isn´t THAT crazy! They just use it as a front, to show good equipment, and then they give shitty transfers anyway. :roll:

[Mitch Perkins]

When I went over to "frame by frame" I used a field lens to start with, but found set-up and dealing with dust on the lens a pain, so now I use "direct from gate" as only the film plane is in sharp focus; dust on the supplementary lens is not a significant issue.

Great point. I was able, over time and with experimenting, to put the plane of focus somewhere between the field lens and front-surfaced mirror. So much better because back when we were xferring our little movie we often had to stop for specks on the field lens.

"Direct from gate" is the next logical step from using a screen or field lens in "real time transfer" experimentation for the home DIYer. (I acknowledge the superior expertise, and finance, of the Professional!).

I'd like to fool with that some day....motivation is low due to the sparkling sharp grain we currently are able to achieve. I think your expertise may well be superior to many of the so-called professionals out there.....

One comment on flywheels; the flywheel only stabilises the movement of film past the sound head and is driven by the film. It does not control the projector speed.

Sure enough you be correct, sir! Thanks for setting it straight. For some reason I thought I knew more than you.....(heh)

Mitch

[granfer]

Mitch,
Have a look at this for an explanation on how to "direct from gate" using readily available components... http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/u ... 936#000000
Granfer