In this sixth installment we will examine the “choppiness of 16mm” transfers.

The rewards in the conversion and transfer of 16mm home movies to DVD are immense in that the quality of 16mm relative to 8mm films is breath taking. Yet conversion to digital media of 16mm silent home movie film represents some very daunting challenges.

The following discussion delves into technical issues so if you get lost and just want to know what it all means skip the next two paragraphs.

The first battle we have is with eliminating the flicker or rolling bar effect. With 8mm home movies all we have to do is vary the projection speed to null out the differences between the projector shutter speed and the video scan rate. It is a much different story with 16mm silent home movies. These were typically shot at a frame rate of 18 frames per second (fps). The actual speed varied somewhat due to tolerances in the consumer grade equipment. Attempting to capture to video at this speed and synchronize the projector shutter speed to the video camera scan rate (including adjustment of the video scan rate itself) to null out the rolling bar is a losing battle. The synchronization, however, is simple when the film is played at 24fps but that introduces still another problem.

When we play film originally shot at 18fps (plus or minus maybe 1fps) at an accelerated rate (24fps) we get a “Keystone Cops” effect. That is, everything moves fast: people strolling in the park appear as if they are doing a power walk; 1934 Model-A Ford cars turn corners at the speed of light and do not roll over; and more silly things to watch. But synchronization of the projector shutter with the video camera scan rate is doable and the motion is smooth and fluid—just fast. The “Keystone Cops” effect is then nulled out in post editing where the video is slowed down 40-50%. But this produces its own negative effect in that motion has a slight choppy appearance if not properly addressed. Often times though it will go unnoticed because the effect is so slight.

When you review 16mm silent home movie film pay careful attention to slow moving objects such as a boat floating down a river. If you look carefully you may be able to detect that the boat is moving in tiny increments rather than having a fluid motion. This is not necessarily bad as there are times when it is unavoidable or not discernable except under close scrutiny. Remember, we are dealing with decades old legacy technology so there is only so much that can be done. It is, however, something to look for when judging the quality of a given 16mm silent home movie film transfer to DVD.

At W. Cardone Productions we utilize a process that either minimizes or eliminates this effect.

Please look for additional posts where we will discuss still other considerations relating to home movie film conversion and transfer to DVD. And also please remember that at W. Cardone Productions we are among the top service providers treating your family treasures with the respect they deserve.

Our conclusion on the matter is that after spending massive amounts of your time and resources on developing your own conversion mechanism that you will be disheartened with the quality you are able to produce. But that is only our opinion and of course subject to our own selfish interests in drawing in your business for ourselves.

We suggest that you surf the web looking for comments other people have made who have been down that road. If you want to call us on the phone we would be happy to talk with you about some of the ins and outs of DIY film conversion on at least a superficial level. But meanwhile we can offer some hints that may help you along if you choose to venture down that path.

First we recommend that you obtain a quality 8mm home movie projector with a variable speed control from someone on eBay or CraigsList. Projectors made by Elmo are certainly excellent though there are others you will see mentioned on the web. Try to avoid a projector that has been used for professional movie transfer as these have run many hundreds of thousands of feet of movie film. Look for a projector sold by an individual or someone knowledgeable on projectors if possible.

The really big problem with home movie projectors is that in most cases they have been sitting in somebody’s closet for twenty years and the belts have become rotted from non-use. Replacement belts are readily available but you will have to find the service manual for that projector (also usually readily available).

Avoid vintage projectors as these have very hot bulbs that will burn your film if it stops for some reason. Later models manufactured in the 1970s or 1980s are what you are looking for. Again, Elmo is a trusted name for quality.

Once you have purchased a projector, hunt around on eBay for junk 8mm home movie film that you can practice on. It is almost guaranteed that your first use of the projector will result in the first few feet of your home movie film being transformed into an accordion.

Find a nice surface to project your image onto that is free of any irregularities. You would think that ordinary copy paper taken from your computer printer would work but usually this has a surface texture that the video camera will see. It is good enough to practice on at least, anyhow. Try to find something as bright a white as possible.

Don’t let the projected image show any larger than maybe six inches. Any larger and it may not have enough light for the video camera to capture without increasing its video gain.

You really need a pro-grade video camera to capture the image properly but use your consumer grade camcorder for now.

Now point the video camera at the projected image and start recording.

But here’s a better idea: Why not consider deleting the final step and just start enjoying your legacy family home movies the old-fashioned way. You have a true quality projector and you’ve learned how to maintain it. The images it will show will be absolutely the finest quality available and you can let the image size be as large as you like, even as large as many large screen televisions.

More than likely your film is in good condition and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Find a quality film editor on eBay to check every foot of your film for bad splices or torn sprocket holes. Consider buying a pint of film cleaner and clean your films.

On the downside, every time you play your film a little life leaves it and more so if a splice fails or the projector jams. Also, you only have one copy of your film so it is impossible to share it between homes whereas you could run off as many DVD copies as you need.

OUR CONCLUSION: Admittedly, paying a pro to convert and transfer your 8mm home movie film to modern media can be an expense you are not prepared for. Being old-fashioned in how you show your films can produce breath-taking quality. It just takes a few hundred dollars for a quality projector and a little time learning how to maintain it.

From the business standpoint we must maintain our profit margin if we are to stay in business. Every time we touch a client’s films we erode our margin. Most of the transfer to video orders we receive come in on fifty foot 3” diameter reels. Splicing them to larger reels would mean an increased cost in terms of both labor and hardware which would of necessity be passed on to the client. If splicing the film reels results in increased quality then we would do it and adjust our prices accordingly. If, however, it results in no tangible benefit to the client, then we will not splice.

Once spliced the resulting home movie film reels will play unattended for upwards of twenty-five minutes. This will free up the film transfer operator to do other tasks such as rewinding other movie movie film, splicing or repairing others, grabbing a bite to eat, etc. Our transfer process requires constant attention to the film projection so we would not realize a benefit from splicing.

Another advantage to the transfer service provider is that if using consumer grade equipment it is quite likely that merely touching the projector will change the alignment between itself, the projected image, and the capturing video camera. Minimizing “projector touches” at the expense of “film touches” will represent a net time savings to that transfer service provider.

For advantages to the client, if he or she were going to project the movie films in the future then splicing to larger reels would be a clear advantage. It is unrealistic to think that this will be the case.

Another possible advantage to the client might be for ease of storage. Instead of keeping a shoebox full of dozens of 3” reels the client will only need to keep three or four easily stackable reels in a convenient location.

Let’s consider some of the disadvantages. Probably the biggest disadvantage to movie reel splicing is that in many cases a level of archival documentation will be lost or made unavailable. It was a common practice in the days of home movie film to write information about a film’s content on its leader. In most splicing operations the extra leader is simply discarded losing forever any documentation that might be written thereon. If not discarded it becomes inaccessible buried under many tens of feet of home movie film. Consider also that spliced home movie film is separated from any box and/or reel that it came in. A service provider will at least almost never discard these items but it now becomes a difficult task to associate the film transferred to video to its corresponding archival information.

Some of the transfer service providers advertise that they will splice your movie film at no additional charge suggesting there is an advantage. We recommend, though, that you ask them not to splice your movie films. Fortunately, most home movie conversion and transfer service providers that we know of do not splice.

The need to clean the movie film is not particularly common. If the movie films have been stored as open reels they may have collected dust and lint that a cleaning would help with. If stored in a film reel can or Kodak box then it is unlikely that any cleaning would be beneficial. There have been times, however, when after capturing a given reel of movie film we were able to see that the reel would benefit from cleaning.

You can do a quick evaluation of your home movie films yourself. Open a reel and pull out enough leader to expose the film. Then pull off some more to let maybe a foot or so of film hang freely from the reel. Look for bowing or twisting. If the film hangs freely then guess what. Your film has passed the first important test.

Can you detect the smell of vinegar. If so then your movie films have begun a non-reversible chemical decomposition. They may still be projectable but if so, not for long.

When you bend the movie film does it easily crease or break? This is not good. Good film should only accept a crease if you try to fold it like paper and apply pressure to the crease. Even with that it should not break,

Inspect for sprocket damage or tears in the movie film. When you lightly pass your fingers over the film you should feel no ridges. In the opening footage of the movie reel it is more likely that you will see this but it doesn’t mean that the rest of the movie reel is that way. About the only way the consumer can go beyond this without some movie film editing equipment is to just hold up the reel to the light and look through it. If there is no light passing through whatsoever you have passed another important test. If you see some light passing through it may still be okay. Just look for irregularities. Irregularities might be good splices so don’t get too worried. Localized problematic irregularities include torn film at the periphery, sprocket damage, pockets of lint. Irregularities that are somewhat uniform through the reel might be from warped film caused by the emulsion having shrunk. The film base generally does not shrink so when the emulsion shrinks it causes the movie film to bow and warp. These anomalies will cause a constantly changing focus as the film is projected. It’s not a lot but just enough to notice.

When we check your movie films in for conversion and transfer to DVD we will do these same simple tests. If we believe a given reel is questionable we will manually run through the entire reel using editing equipment to find and repair individual film irregularities that would hinder good projection such as a weak splice or torn film.

Please view the animation to get a better idea of how this works.

We do not splice customer home movie films onto larger reels.  It gains no efficiency. By the time a person can load eight 50′ reels in reverse order onto a new 7″ four hundred foot home movie reel, he could have had those same customer’s movie films at least halfway or more completed to video by then.  Every time we touch the customer’s home movie reels more than once, our profit margin is decreased.

The advantage to some home movie transfer service providers in combining smaller reels onto a single larger reel is that it makes it possible to leave the projector run unattended.  The operator is then free to do other things such as rewind film, prepare paperwork, etc. For transfer processes where a simple camera is pointed at a projection image there is also the ever present risk that something will be knocked out of alignment when the film is changed. Larger reels minimize reel changes for such a home movie film transfer service provider. Our process, however, requires literal baby sitting of film as it is being transferred. Leaving the transfer process unattended would make it impossible to effect real time changes in the settings to accommodate ever changing movie film conditions.

Combining home movie film reels has the natural result that a large documentation element is lost. Many camera men & women (Dads & Moms, Grandmas & Grandpas) hand wrote notes on the film leaders, the sides of reels, and the original boxes (which sometimes have post marks on them to help us in dating the home movies. This is valuable family historical information that we would be needlessly discarding.

Our customer’s enjoy the fact that these separated movie film reels are duplicated individually, each with a 4 second reel marker number page to announce it before each film starts, and each DVD has a “movie reel chapter menu button,” in addition to the “Play All” button, with thumbnail scenes of the first frame of each reel, numbered, for their interactive selection convenience.

Back in the 1930s to 1970s when the photo developing places were offering this service as a customer convenience for their home projections it made sense then but not now.  We are only going to project these home movie films for what we believe will be the last time, and the customer will most likely never project these films again. Most don’t have projectors anyway. Splicing for convenience or seemingly simplified film storage just doesn’t make sense today, financial or other wise. We have to sit down and baby-sit every inch of film during the transfer process anyway, due to all the manual video camera functions that need to be made to keep up with, and match, the ever changing white balance and exposure levels of each 50 foot reel of film. Those transfer businesses that just set up a video camera on full auto, load a 400′ reel, and walk away from it for 28 minutes are not doing professional work and it shows in the delivered product.

As an early adopter of HD and HDV video, we at W. Cardone Productions have learned much in the years since 2006 when we acquired our first high definition video camera. There are many nuances of high definition video that affect the overall quality of the final product. It is only natural for the consumer to think that HD is merely a higher form of DVD video. While properly produced HD video presents many striking improvements to picture quality relative to standard definition, if we ignore its nuances we do so at our own peril. Capturing close-ups of facial features is one example. Please see our blog post on this subject.

Before beginning this discussion we would like to thank Tom Koziol of Thomas Video Studio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin who has done much pioneering work in this area and provided much of the information presented herein.

Old 8mm home movie film images are mostly grainy old photographic frames, usually underexposed and have scratches from many previous plays on old projectors over the years. Our findings have been that high definition didn’t yield improved picture quality when trying to copy old film, but did enhance the scratches, camera recorded lint and mold spores somewhat.  Higher resolution capturing for old film can go too far and actually make the film look a little worse. A certain amount of reduced resolution is better for smoothing over some of the issues with film resolution. Because digital photos have a capability of 4000 x 4000 pixels, doesn’t necessarily mean that we are going to use file sizes that large all the time. Resolution is image dependent. Extremely low resolution 8mm movie film picture frames will not be improved by reshooting them with a high definition camera.  The forgiveness of standard resolution of yesterday’s standard definition digital cameras is generally more than adequate and is as high in resolution as the old films will yield to anyway on a practical basis.

We find that HD is not necessary for conversion and transferring home movie film, with the exception that a Blu-ray disc will not have the digital blockiness picture noise that a regular DVD disc has when playing an SD DVD on a high definition TV.  That’s the only problem with playing any and all regular DVDs on a High Definition TV screen, 20th century standard definition DVD players connected to a 21st century high resolution TV look terrible.  Low def just doesn’t look good on a high definition screen.  Up-converting can even make SD DVD picture noise look worse.

The reader is asked to keep in mind that Kodak invented 8mm home movie film almost as a joke.  Their goal was to get a camera small enough for women (a huge part of their buying demographic) to fit into their purses. 8mm home movie film was never designed for photographic quality imaging.  Any movie film photographer requiring the best in motion picture imaging, would have chosen 16mm German made cameras and equipment of the time.

A single frame of 8mm movie film’s surface area is roughly the size of a #2 pencil eraser.  With an image that tiny, magnifying and jacking up it’s resolution digitally will only reveal the limits of it’s composition (pixels or photographic dot matrix make-up).  A piece of 120 grit sandpaper looks like a brown sheet of paper, possibly with some texture visible, when shot at it’s full size.  Now, either scan that sheet at overkill resolution or screw a close-up diopter onto a camera to magnify only an 8mm square’s worth of area, and you will see every grain of sand and possibly the adhesive holding each grain onto the paper’s surface.  There really does need to be some “resolution forgiveness” in order for this old 20th century photographic motion picture film to look reasonable.  Unless someone goes through the non cost-effective time consuming process of photo-shopping every frame of film, one frame at a time…. you simply can’t make a fabulous 35mm picture out of an 8mm consumer movie film.  It is what it is, and despite all these professional opinions out there making extraordinary claims about their brand of 8mm home movie film picture quality on DVD…. you just can’t polish a turd.  Consumer movie film formats had their well deserved deaths for good reason.

We in the home movie conversion and transfer business promise to preserve and enhance the client’s consumer home movie films to the best of our knowledge and experience with the tools that we have carefully chosen. That’s as far as we can go. We are not “film restorationists” or “film lab technicians.” We are digital media specialists who offer the retail consumer market the very best professional digital duplication of their photos, slides and home movie picture films at a price they are willing to pay.

Free Trial Invitation:

Why not just take the easy road: Let’s just dump all the hype of all the various service providers including ourselves. Let us convert and transfer to modern digital media DVD one 50 foot reel of 8mm home movie film without charge. Send the same reel of movie film to a service provider offering HD transfer to Blu-ray media who will also provide a similar free trial service. Blank Blu-ray disks are still expensive at the time of this writing (several dollars) so offer to give him a few bucks to cover the cost of the disk. Compare the results for yourself. This offer is given for 2011 but may be available later as well. Please call for availability. Free pickup and delivery of your complimentary order may be available as well. Please call for availability and scheduling. We would not make a special effort to promote this free offer if we were not 100% convinced that our service is among the best in 8mm, Super 8mm, and 16mm home movie conversion and transfer within the Greater Detroit and Lansing, and southeastern Michigan regions.

The frame-by-frame home movie film conversion and transfer process for 8mm home movie film ( not available for 16mm movie films to our knowledge) is a rudimentary version of the Flying Spot Rank Film Transfer Process, a state of the art process that Hollywood uses to duplicate 35mm major motion pictures to digital video & DVD for world wide distribution. The difference between the frame-by-frame and the Flying Spot Rank process is that the Flying Spot process does an actual scan of the home movie film frame whereas the frame-by-frame process merely takes a video still picture of the frame.

The frame-by-frame film transfer process requires specialized software written for a small market of film transfer service providers. This means that operators will face never ending battles involving conflict of drivers, computer operating systems, and such. Because the software has a small user base, updates to correct for conflicts will by definition be rare. Consider also that the transfer process is slow necessitating an unattended mode of operation. As the movie film conditions change within a given reel there is no ability to adapt the transfer process in real time. The end result is that the movie film transfer process becomes time consuming necessitating a high cost but with only minimal benefits plus the increased risk that something might go wrong and be unnoticed. If the home movie transfer service provider does not charge enough his profit margin erodes making it impossible to satisfy a viable business model. The frame-by-frame movie transfer service provider charging too little, in an effort to compete, will be forced to look for other corners to cut with the ultimate conclusion what we believe is that overall quality will suffer. Please understand, though, that this is merely our opinion. Ultimately we recommend that you sample a service provider’s work before committing your entire home movie collection to that provider. Many home movie transfer operations are beginning to do one 50 foot reel for free when you ask. Please see our offer at the bottom of this blog post.

For Super 8mm sound film transfers to digital media the frame-by-frame method presents additional overhead. Because the images are not captured in real time the sound track must be captured in a separate step. Once the frame-by-frame image capture is complete the film is rewound and then run through a Super 8mm sound projector in real time to capture the audio track to digital media. There now exist two separate media–the digital video of the film and the digital audio from the film. The two must be matched for reasonable lip sync which is not a straight-forward task. Super 8mm film speeds were only roughly achieved at 18 frames per second. Because the 8mm film market was very consumer driven the manufacturers looked for corners to cut allowing lower dollar entry points facilitating increased sales. A number of variables consequently affected the actual film speed. The only way that we know the speed it should be played at is by how natural sounding the voices in the audio sound which itself has considerable variation. The end result is that it is a time consuming process to marry the digitized movie film to its digitized audio track and still have reasonable lip sync. The frame-by-frame film transfer service provider must therefore charge a fee to reflect this additional film transfer overhead. The good news, though, is that Super 8mm sound home movie film usually only needs a quick audio sync. Usually only a gross miss-match would be noticed. More often than not they can probably do a reasonable sound sync in a minimum of time considering the loose requirements.

There is a special case for 16mm silent home movie film (not applicable to 16mm optical sound film or any 8mm films) where a frame-by-frame process would present an advantage. In another post scheduled to release soon we describe a special nuance of 16mm silent home movie film transfer. If special provisions are not made a slight choppiness or strobing can be detected in the digital transfer upon close inspection. Usually this is only detectable for slow but evenly moving objects such as a tourist boat floating down a river and then only with close inspection. Please read that blog post when it comes out for details on this nuance but for now we will say that a frame-by-frame process in theory eliminates this problem. It should be carefully noted that most people will not notice this nuance of 16mm silent film transfer and that there are other methods we implement to correct it.

The Flying Spot Rank Process is the only way to go for brand new 35mm commercial film stock, projected for the first & only time, in brand new condition. In our opinion the tiny 8mm consumer home movie films with much wear and tear and damage/age issues are not ideal on this system. These issues are magnified and made even more annoying on the TV monitor. Oh yes, there is a software “scratch & imperfection” solution for those issues but with prohibitive cost increases to the consumer.

Flying Spot Rank Frame scanning services usually retail between $0.50 to $1.00 per foot (at the time of this writing in 2011) if it is an experienced, reputable industrial company. At W. Cardone Productionswe offer the Flying Spot Rank Film Transfer Process to our more discriminating customers if they ask. However, when they are given a choice between $10.00 per 50 feet of film or $50.00 per 50 feet of film, and they have 58 reels stuffed in their shoeboxes……they just won’t pay $40.00 more per reel, nor probably notice or care enough about how the movie images look between our superlative quality aerial and Flying Spot Rank Frame Capture imaging. While we truly appreciate excellence in ultimate imaging quality, a video business owner and service provider can go too far into the overkill area, without a realistic working speed, turn around time and profit margin on equipment and service that consumers will not pay for.

Free Trial Invitation: Why not just take the easy road: Let’s just dump all the hype and look for free before you leap. Let us convert and transfer to modern digital media one 50 foot reel of your 8mm or 16mm home movie film (silent or sound) without charge. Send the same reel of movie film to a frame-by-frame service provider who will provide a similar free trial service. Compare the results for yourself. This offer is given for 2011 but may be available later as well. Please call for availability. Free pickup and delivery of your complimentary order may be available as well. Please call for availability and scheduling. We would not make a special effort to promote this free offer if we were not 100% convinced that our conversion service is among the best in 8mm, Super 8mm, and 16mm home movie conversion and transfer within the Greater Detroit, Jackson, Lansing, Ann Arbor, and southeastern Michigan regions.