Storing 1000+ 8mm reels digitaly

Post by **johnnhud** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 4:59 pm

Hi all! This is my first post on FilmShooting.com and I thought that I would tell you all what project I'm working on. I'm currently collecting all the 8mm & super8 film from all the members of my church. So far I have collected about 500+ 3 inch reels and I have just barely scratched the surface. Every Sunday results in another 50 - 100 reels getting turned over to me. I am predicting a total of about 1200 to 1500 reels total.
I am going to transfer all these films using a WorkPrinterXP that I have on order (Hi Roger!) and then edit them together, chronologicly on my Mac. I am looking through these films and seeing some amazing footage of old church camps and the like, seeing people as they were as opposed to a posed picture is so much more interesting.
Anyway, I then plan on showing the edited film to the people who shot it and ask them to talk about it. I will then take all those voice recordings and edit them in over the film so that they could be watched without the narrater having to sit next to you!
I plan on releasing a few DVD's in a volume like format. 1940-1950, 1950-1960, 1960-1970, 1970-1980 and so on. Eventualy I will move up to transfering more modern media likeVHS, Hi-8 and MiniDV, that way I can continue releasing volumes all the way to 2006.

So what do you think? Does this sound like a monster of a project or what? I am planning on storing all these films on a set of external Firewire or USB2 Hard Drives. All I'm waiting on to get started is to receive my WorkPrinter XP in the mail! Then it's gung-ho!

Post by **Carlos 8mm** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 5:08 pm

Nice project!

every little roll of these home movies is a piece of history of a communty.

Post by **super8man** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 5:17 pm

And now the bad news...

SPLICING: Splicing 8 50-foot reels up to a single 400-footers takes 20-30 minutes real time. So, again, that's 30 minutes for each 400-foot reel. You don't want to run 50-footers on the WXP.

XFER: Each 400-footer takes about 75 minutes to capture in RAW non-pulleddown AVI format. That's One hour and 15 minutes if you're lucky...typically add another 10 minutes.

PULLDOWN: Each 400-foot capture takes about (say) 5 minutes to pulldown to RAW pulled down AVI at 29.97fps NTSC.

MPG: Each 400-foot reel takes about 10-15 minutes to encode into MPG2 (ASSUMING NO SOUND and NO VISUAL CORRECTIONS AND EFFECTS)

DVD: Roughly 3-4 400-footers (usually 3) can fit onto a 4.7GB DVD at 9.8MBps transfer rate.

Do you really want to do this...it will get old REAL fast, even for the most spiritually enthusiastic of folks about super 8 memories (and regular 8).

You may want to consider a best of.

Best of luck though.
Mike

Post by **VideoFred** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 5:22 pm

John,
Welcome here!

I agree with Carlos...
It's a nice project, but huge...

You must backup from the beginning on several media.
Maybe both external HD and mini-DV.
Never one backup only!

Please keep us informed...
I'm very interested in footage like this.

Where are you from?
I have no acces to your website...

Fred.

Post by **johnnhud** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 5:36 pm

VideoFred, I live in Dallas, TX, USA. I agree that it is a hurge project but I have been known for taking on these monsters bravely (or blissfully ignorant)

Super8man, I've enjoyed your website very much. What are the reasons you say that you don't want to run 50 foot rolls through the WorkPrinter XP? Also, I won't be converting the main project to MP2 untill I output my finished video from Final Cut Pro (FCP) so, all these reels will be raw DV sitting on my hard drives. Also, these videos will be heavily edited down for the final version. It's amazing that when you only had 4 minutes of film people would spend it shooting the yard, barn, dog, etc....Roughly about 1 gig for every 5 min.

As far as back-up, I also plan on doing a quick transfer to DVD for each family that turns in reels for a small fee, just enough to cover my cost. Storing 1 hour on MiniDV isn't a bad idea either. The way I look at it is that these films have been sitting on a shelf for the past 20-50 years, they can afford to wait a little longer while I plow through them to get them transfered.

Now, anyone want to help me clean them?

Post by **Carlos 8mm** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 6:03 pm

johnnhud wrote: Now, anyone want to help me clean them?

Ah, thatÃ‚Â´s the worst part... Cleaning the film and fixing perforations...

IÃ‚Â´m working on a project in order to create a filmic and photographic archive of my city.
There are 35mm, 16mm, 9.5mm, reg. 8mm and Super 8mm films. Thousands of photographic negative glass & celluloid plates and prints...

ItÃ‚Â´s a hard work, but the feeling is great when you recover those old images.

Post by **super8man** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 7:01 pm

Very simply, you want even tension throughout the run and 50-footers don't do that well. 400's are no problem. Check with Roger for more info.

Otherwise, the amount of time you spend fiddling with 50-footers is wasteful on an endeavour such as yours. If you had 5 reels, no worries. That's just me.

Cheers,
Mike

Post by **Poliestere** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 7:23 pm

I plan on releasing a few DVD's in a volume like format. 1940-1950, 1950-1960, 1960-1970, 1970-1980 and so on. Eventualy I will move up to transfering more modern media likeVHS, Hi-8 and MiniDV

This solution (media video) is optimal for short-medium period, for an more long conservation of your films, the film is the better medium. Store your films in a dry and cool place, you can use they in future how master for other telecine (future standard video probably will be incompatible with actual standard).

Post by **studiocarter** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 10:41 pm

Editing home movies is well worth the effort and too bad the effort will be greater than transferring, I know, because I've done it a lot. After movies shot like home movies are edited they look pretty good. About half of the footage is removed just because it is badly shot. Some ones back is to the camera, a head is in the way, it is orange, white, or black, the camera swishes to the next shot - that swish is cut out - that alone improves movies tremendously!

Michael Carter

Post by **Angus** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:34 pm

A few years ago I transferred all the films of my late grandfather onto Hi8 video, and thence to VHS for the family to more easily enjoy.

There's about four hours, all reg 8mm mostly 50' (three inch) reels...with three 200' reels. I undertook the task in evenings, and it took me a couple of weeks to complete.

Mind you, it was worth it when I received the phone call from my mother just after she'd watched the first few minutes.

Post by **studiocarter** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 3:23 pm

VHS players are going away now and a VHS only player is getting hard to buy. My film transfers are also on Hi-8mm then VHS.

Now I change the Hi-8 captures over to mpeg-2 for playback off DVD data disks on my PC. NOT DVD disks in a DVD player on a TV. MPEG-2 data files play on the PC using a software mpeg-2 player. Mine is called PowerDVD by CyberLink.

There was a lot of trouble with TV DVD standards that just didn't work. Sound was up sampled from 44khz to 48 and was bad. Video size was increased also.

TMPGEnc encodes with the capture formats. Virtual Dub captures in YUY2 (ntsc) or in Pal if that is what you have. I have both and have used both this way. My mpeg-2 files are true 640x480 and 44khz stereo.

The VHS player I have is mono, no red plug. So there is no way to capture stereo from a vhs tape for me now.

New transfers from film need to be made. Hi-8 is no longer good enough. Those used a Goko telecini mostly anyway. A miniDV 3 chip camera is the norm now. Since the workprinter was sold, off the wall or commercial rank are my options locally. Both will be tried and a web made of samples.

Post by **Angus** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 3:45 pm

Mono VHS...that takes me back to about 1991!

I capture straight to DVD-RAM mpeg2 now...but this was 2000 when I transferred my grandfather's films...

Post by **audadvnc** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 3:52 pm

My two bits:

Suggestion #1: Find a good cement splicer, my fave is the Maier Hancock 8-16-S8 hot splicer. It'll save you a ton of time, and keep you warm during those long evening hours assembling your rolls (I'm in D.C. and it's 16 degrees outside.)

(suggestion #1 1/2: remember to keep the Super 8 and Regular 8 reels segregated; they have different sprocket dimensions that are incompatible).

(suggestion #1 2/3: remember to catalog and document all reels as they come in, what 400' reels they are spliced onto, and who owns what, otherwise you'll have thousands of feet of untrackable Super8 and a bunch of angry former friends who think you stole their family films.)

Suggestion #2: Raise some funding from your fellows (they're not expecting you to transfer all this stuff for free, are they? Will they cover your food & rent for free while you work on it?) and talk to a professional cine transfer facility and cut a deal with them. The project is too big to take on yourself (count it up: 1000 reels at 3 minutes each, or 3000 minutes=50 hours running time), and pro facilities are set up with equipment and personnel to handle jobs of this scope.

Suggestion #3: (oops, limited to 2? anyway...) Handle this as a straightahead video project, not a computer video edit. Arrange your Super 8 films in their final order to avoid further editing. Transfer to DV at least, then make copies from DV to DVD or whatever from the DV masters.

Post by **VideoFred** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 4:01 pm

I capture scene by scene, losless Huffyuv.

Then I resize, stabilize and convert frame rate (in batch, automatic) and save again with Huffyuv.

Then I do some minor color correction, some cuts and save with the DV-codec.

Then I go to my NLE, import the DV-avi files and make an Mpeg2 file of the assembled scenes, with titles, soundtrack etc..

I keep the DV and mpeg2 files both on several HD's and data- DVD.
Of cource I keep also a copy of the authored DVD.

But the number of files is growing and growing...
I can not buy additional Harddisks forever..

But I must say, this system works.
I had a complete harddisk crash and I just plugged in the portable harddisk and I was 'back in business'. If also the portable failed, I still had the DVD's.

Fred.

Post by **studiocarter** » Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:13 pm

Yea, editing takes over 4x the movie length even for simple clean up editing, not resequencing and cutting on action or sound sync or corrections and filters