Problems dubbing 8mm movie film to digital media

[mentalcrisis00]

Hello all

I have roughly 7000 feet of really nice 1970's Super and Standard 8mm film. It's all mostly railroad stuff from Pennsylvania, Maine, Mass, and Alaska. A lot of it is very rare and features road names and locomotives that are no longer in service. I've been wanting to dub it to DVD for awhile but never had the means. I came into contact with someone who does it but charges $15 a foot! Suffice it to say I can't spend that much, I recently got a Sony DCR-HC52 mini dv camcorder and Adobe Elements. The plan was to set my camcorder along side the projector and record the 8mm film as it runs then edit it in Elements.

My major problems are that the camcorder tends to wash out the clouds and the sky, it also flickers a lot even though it looks smooth on the wall. I've tried slowing/speeding up the 8mm film, using manual exposure, manual focus, manual white balance, and disabling the anti shake function but nothing seems to work.

Is there anything I can do to make it look smooth on the camcorder video? Is there a better way to do this or a piece of equipment I could buy that would do it? Would a bulb change to the trick? I got a 5 minute bit of 8mm film done by a professional dubbing place and it didn't flicker like it does on my camcorder so it's not a problem with the film.

Any suggestions would be welcome

-Ray

 

[Fardringle]

The flickering is because the 8mm projector and the miniDV camcorder are not always displaying and recording the video at the same frame rate. When they get out of sync, you get flickering. If you can force the camera and projector both to 24fps most of the flickering should stop. The washed out colors are likely caused by ambient light (light from the windows or other sources besides the projector). When recording, make the room as much like a movie theather as possible. The only light source should be the projector itself. Set the white balance on the Sony using the center of the empty white rectangle created on the screen by the projector when it is turned on but does not have film loaded.

There are some things you can do to minimize the problems and improve the results, but you're still not going to get results at all like the professional studios will with a telecine dubbing machine. I recommend taking a look at this article for some tips that will help you to get the best results you can with the camcorder method. One thing that is not mentioned in that article is that

If you still aren't satisfied with the results, there are quite a few places online that will transfer good quality video for around 30 cents per foot. You're still talking about roughly $2000 for your project, though, so if the do-it-yourself option doesn't work out, you might even want to look into purchasing a used telecine machine off eBay, then resell it when you are done. The Goko TC-20 is a very good machine and seems to be available now and then for $1000-$1500 used if you decide to go this route. The TC-301S and TC-302S are much better if you can find one, but also cost a lot more (these are what a lot of the pro shops use).