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Old video


RichardB

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QUOTE (vox @ May 17 2009, 05:29 PM) So have you got a reel to reel player Dave?

I've got a reel of 1/4" tape that was on a tape player I bought from a car boot sale. (It didn't work but I just wanted the little valve amplifier) Don't know what's on it. Could be rubbish, could be State Secrets for all I know. Fancy having a listen?

Well if anyone else has a reel to reel and would like a listen feel free ----

I thought your "little valve amplifier" was a Vox AC30 ;-)

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Well if anyone else has a reel to reel and would like a listen feel free ----

That reminds me of an un-marked cassett tape that I once found on a visit to the coast,

we decided to play it on our Journey home in the car.

It turned out to be 'Derek & Clive' (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) 'Ad Nauseam'

the two women that were with us were not very amused!

lol

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That reminds me of an un-marked cassett tape that I once found on a visit to the coast,

we decided to play it on our Journey home in the car.

It turned out to be 'Derek & Clive' (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) 'Ad Nauseam'

the two women that were with us were not very amused!

lol

I first heard it in the front room of Unc's and Aunt Et's house on Slinn St.

Whole family were sat in the front room watching telly and my brother-in-law said, "listen to this" and stuck the headphones on me. I was horrified for a few seconds 'till I realised that no one else could hear. :o

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Finally got around to giving it a try. Most suprisingly my old Eumig 8mm projector, dug out of the loft after almost 20 years of retirement still works perfectly. Projected onto a screen with an image size of about A5 landscape, perhaps just a bit less and filmed it with a digital camcorder as close as possible to the projector.

There was some rectangular distortion but this can be hidden by filming slightly less than the full picture to make it appear square again, have to be careful with titles and the like not to trim anything important off though.

All the films now have a soundtrack of projector clatter and noise. As most 8mm is silent this can easily be edited off to restore the silence, however I do have some sound films and the noise does now appear on the recorded soundtrack.

The pictures are a bit dark in places, I may be able to correct this using software on the recorded video or refilm it and set the exposure manually.

Some flicker is evident on very bright scenes, but not at all on the darker ones.

Worst problem of all is sharpness and focus, - not that 8mm film was ever that sharp in the first place. Given that I can project a sharp image at short distance to keep it small and bright without the focus wandering, the camera itself seems to object to working at short focus distances in what it judges to be low light levels and with a slightly oblique screen so that not all the image is at the same distance from the camera. Autofocus is hopeless as it constantly tries to search for a better focus, and in so doing loses it for a few seconds at a time. Manual focus isn't much better.

Despite this some of the results were better than I had anticipated and have given me something to work on before I try again.

Further to me copying my old film like this, the story continue here

Home Movie Roadshow, BBC2

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Thanks, I have changed the link to a higher quality render, and done some colour correction on the original film. The original is 8mm film and to be honest some of the issues with quality are with the way I recorded it onto video tape to get it into my computer. Having said that, the new HD cameras are so much better than the old 8mm and are much more convenient to edit.

Will the city centre ever be finished? I don't think that is possible, change is always happening.

Thanks for the encouragement.

How do Killamarshian,

A bit of advice regarding 8mm required please.

I'm in the process of transferring my old 8mm (Hi8) camcorder tapes onto a computer, so that I can then convert to other format(s) and edit them.

My set up is;

SONY Hanycam to a DVD disk recorder/player, via: s-video & and audio cables.

I am then copying the video (VOB files) from the recorded disk (DVD) to a computer, so that I can then convert them to other format(s) and edit them.

Am I on the right track, regarding transfer quality?

Thanks.

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How do Killamarshian,

A bit of advice regarding 8mm required please.

I'm in the process of transferring my old 8mm (Hi8) camcorder tapes onto a computer, so that I can then convert to other format(s) and edit them.

My set up is;

SONY Hanycam to a DVD disk recorder/player, via: s-video & and audio cables.

I am then copying the video (VOB files) from the recorded disk (DVD) to a computer, so that I can then convert them to other format(s) and edit them.

Am I on the right track, regarding transfer quality?

Thanks.

Killamarshian is referring to 8mm film and not 8mm video Steve. There is very little loss of quality in the totally electronic process of transferring 8mm video tape to other formats compared to the massive losses involved in transferring 8mm film to an electronic format which involves an optical process at some point, - at worst having to refilm the film while it is being projected onto a screen (massive quality losses) and at best using a professional telecine machine (good quality, but expensive).

I have had similar issues myself about 4 years ago when several of my 1970s and early 80s 8mm films were digitised and placed on this site. Apart from one film, which was professionally transferred for TV transmission by the BBC my others were done by me by refilming from the projection screen, - and the results are noticeably a lot worse.

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Steve,

That is almost how I did it, except I uploaded my camera footage from the camera tape to pc via firewire. The big problem is contrast, to get a 'square' image you must line up your camera close to the projector. This then gives most of the brightness in the centre, as you can see on my video. The alternative is to film from one side but you then get the image skewed. One big tip is to set your focus and not use auto-focus, otherwise the camera will try and change focus due to brightness or the original going slightly out of focus. Set it and leave it.

I hope this helps.

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Killamarshian is referring to 8mm film and not 8mm video Steve. There is very little loss of quality in the totally electronic process of transferring 8mm video tape to other formats compared to the MASSIVE losses involved in transferring 8mm film to an electronic format which involves an optical process at some point, - at worst having to refilm the film while it is being projected onto a screen (MASSIVE quality losses) and at best using a professional telecine machine (good quality, but expensive).

I have had similar issues myself about 4 years ago when several of my 1970s and early 80s 8mm films were digitised and placed on this site. Apart from one film, which was professionally transferred for TV transmission by the BBC my others were done by me by refilming from the projection screen, - and the results are noticeably a lot worse.

Thanks Dave, I miss-read it as 8mm film. I will leave my advice on here in case others want it.

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Thanks Dave, I miss-read it as 8mm film. I will leave my advice on here in case others want it.

Thanks for replying, I now see that you stated "8mm film",

sorry, my mistake.

ps. no firewire on this camcorder, just AV & s-video out.

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Thanks for replying, I now see that you stated "8mm film",

sorry, my mistake.

ps. no firewire on this camcorder, just AV & s-video out.

Have you considered something like this? I used something similar 10 years ago and the results were good. I'll post a video as a demonstration later.

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Have you considered something like this? I used something similar 10 years ago and the results were good. I'll post a video as a demonstration later.

Yes, I hve something similar, but the imported file quality does not seem to be very good.

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Here is the demo. That being said, I paid £120 for the equipment in 2002. So it is probably better quality than what I posted earlier.

Did yiu use the Capture Device to transfer the old VHS to a PC, if so, in what format was it captured?

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Did yiu use the Capture Device to transfer the old VHS to a PC, if so, in what format was it captured?

It captured in AVI

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