8mm digitising

[DArcyFD]

my uncle just gave me an old 8mm to play around with.

i've always been reluctant to experiment with 8/16mm because of the digitisation issue: if i can't get the footage into my computer, then it's not much good to me. the post production houses charge ridiculous rates for scanning, ~$700/hour. then you have the el cheapo cowboys who operate out of their homes, who just project it onto the wall and video it with (probably) some single chip handycam.

but then i had an idea today - what about the film negative scanners you can buy for still photography? i've never used one but i assume they're designed mainly for 35mm, but could you feed 8 or 16mm into one of them? if so, would it matter that it's reversal stock and not negative? ie. could you just fix the colour in photoshop or whatever? and i realise it would be a pretty big job scanning each frame and then creating a video file, but you can do great things with batch processing.....

is it possible? does anyone do it?

i would love to know.

many thanks, and have a great christmas!

[matador43]

Hi,
I think you will have a lot of issues about the alignment of each picture with the one before and the one after. And the 8mm picture is very little to give a clear image with a regular scanner.

You should better try projecting the whole reel and filming it with a digital camera.
It need a little tweaking in exposure, projection surface, white balance…
But you can control it with a tv or a production monitor.

I try it with a little mono ccd cam and it work well, so with a DVX or HVX or whatever
it should be good…

[DArcyFD]

thanks for the reply, but i really hate the video-the-projection approach. i've done it before with 16mm and just don't like it.

what i'm after is a cheap-ish way to get a nice frame-by-frame scan. i thought maybe some of those negative scanners can accommodate different gauges ie. 8mm?

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

I've seen people use a machine called an Elmo. I'm not sure what it's real title is but it's a 16mm film device that converts the film into a video signal and sends it through an RCA connection. Students who use this usually imports into a HVX or DVX composite input and records to MiniDV.

I'm not sure if they make an 8mm version but it's worth looking into.

[Jason Ramsey]

There was an 8mm version of the ELMO as well, but from browsing around on google, they apparently don't make it anymore. Maybe you could find one on eBay. Don't know anything about them though.

Later,
Jason

[DArcyFD]

Again, thanks for the suggestions.

I think I used something like the Elmo at my old university 'film' (kinda) school for 16mm. It was just like a projector with some sort of old CCD or something like that, except the video it outputted was analogue, interlaced, looked crap etc. etc.

Anyways I found this place (http://www.nanolab.com.au/telecine.htm) in my part of the world that offers a frame-by-frame digital telecine service for 8mm and super8 at a pretty great price - $15AUD/50' for a MiniDV output, $20AUD/50' for an 'uncompressed' (although they don't give specific details, so I shot them an e-mail) data file on DVD-R. They're based in a little country town, so I have to send it away, but just from looking at the website they seem like they know what they're doing, and the prices are pretty decent.

I'm gonna get a digital transfer from them and, unless the footage is completely f***ed (it was my first time and was partly to test whether or not the camera actually works properly!) I'll post it up for anyone who's interested.

[Michael T]

DMC Image Transfer GT-201A Video Processor w Audio Mix (ebay)

I have one of these and have done 8mm with it just fine. It takes a little getting use to

but does an ok job. I bought it for $20 bucks at an swap meet and I think it sells for

around a $100 new. There on ebay and they can do sound as well if you need.

[konton]

Don't get a transfer by one of those ELMO TRV's. The are junk. I swear. I've played with them and footage that comes out never looks good. It's a 1 ccd system from the 70's.

If you want to do it yourself as a frame-by-frame, try this website:
http://homepage.mac.com/onsuper8/diytelecine/

If you would rather have someone build one for your needs, try here:
http://www.moviestuff.tv

I've tried it both ways and they both work great.