From: lim@addvax.llnl.gov (Doug Lim)
Newsgroups: rec.video,misc.consumers
Subject: Re: transferring film to video
Date: 28 Dec 92 18:29:00 GMT
Reply-To: DougLim@llnl.gov
Followup-To: rec.video
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In article <1992Dec23.222509.20684@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>, smjeff@lerc05.lerc.nasa.gov (Jeff Miller) writes...
>I am interested in transferring several old home movies from film reels
>onto videotape.  Are there any "preferred" methods of doing this?  The 2
>ways I can think of to do this are :
>1) Project the movie onto a screen and tape it with a video camera.  
>2) Transfer the movie frame by frame with a video camera capable of taking
>single frames.  Since the film was shot at 24 fps and the video uses 60 fps
>I would need to take 2 video frames of the first film frame and then 3 video
>frames of the next film frame, and then 2,3,2,3,etc.

I have seen advertised special devices for transfering movies to video...I
have not used any of these.

My brother and I used the method (1) that you proposed. It worked very very
well. People who have had their movies transfered "professionally" who have
seen our video copies tell us that ours turned out better. It is also a
fairly simple operation. Some hints for using this technique...

   1) Get the room as dark as possible to do the filming. Do it at night
      with all the drapes pulled. A flashlight for all of the people working
      on the project definitely comes in handy!

   2) Focus the camcorder beforehand by either running some sample video and
      using the autofocus or manual focus. My parents movie projector actually
      produced a pattern of dots when there wasn't any film in the projector
      which was perfect for focusing. After the camera is focused switch the
      camera to manual. The focus will be reasonably good for the majority
      of the pictures and is definitely less annoying that watching your
      camcorder's autofocus constantly trying to refocus between scenes.

   3) This is also a great time to have you family watch all those home movies
      together, since you have all the gear out and are watching all the reels.
      You don't have to worry about people talking during the filming because
      you have the following options with the sound:
         a) When you make a copy dub on your own sound track. This is what my
            brother and I did - Came out very nice.
         b) Simply make copies without the audio out of the camcorder connected
            - for no sound at all.
         c) Use the audio to use the comments about "oh, how cute!" from
            family members watching the video to add interesting commentary
            for the video.

   4) My brother and I did our transfering in my parents family room where
      their color television is kept. We were thus able to do the framing of
      the camcorder and some testing before we recorded with the television as
      a monitor. This was useful in that we were able to see the big picture
      and had an idea about how the final product would turn out in color.

| | | |     +----------------------------------------+
| | | |     |      Doug Lim - DougLim@llnl.gov       |
| | | |__   | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory |
| | |___/   |        Computer Scientist - ASD        |
\ \____/    |    (510) 423-6019 FAX: (510)423-2419   |
 \____/     +----------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.video