Another boring negative film transfer test on a Workprinter

Post by **Konton** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:06 pm

Bored and up late at night with nothing to do. Thought I'd play with negative film again since I finally got a 3ccd camera to complete my transfer system some months back. This is stuff I shot 4 years ago on 640 ASA negative film in the San Francisco church muni station. I've showed it before, but not at 720x480 using a 3ccd camera.

So anyway this was transferred with a Sony TRV-900 that was white balanced on the clear red part of the film, then set to invert the image. The transfer was done with Cinecap and the 3:2 pulldown was added. The film could be cleaner. The footage was then brought into Premiere where the Gamma was made to be 2.0. Finally I took TMPGEnc and encoded the AVI as MPEG-II with a file size of about 46megs and 36megs.

http://www.super8cinema.com/negative.mpg
http://www.super8cinema.com/negative2.mpg

Looks much better than last time I shot it with that firewire camera when I first got the workprinter. I need to work on color balance a little more and get that gamma setup right. If anyone wants to play with that file and see they can clean it up better please do. I'm curious how much more could be done to make it look good. Someday I'll actually use my Avid editing system and figure out how that color balance setup works. Hmmm . . . I wonder if Avid Xpress Pro does frame captures.

YouTube · Post by **Andreas Wideroe** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:37 pm

When I scan negative film on my Bosch FDL-60 telecine unit a cyan filter is placed in the light line. Perhaps adding such a filter to the WP would make the images look more natural and easy to work with?

Still, negative films are a hassle to work with unless you have the right equipment.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:44 pm

I couldn't get the clip to work.

Roger

Post by **Konton** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:01 pm

I'll try that. I think there is a filter someone suggested to remove some of the scatches as well from the transfer that is supposed to have the same effect a wetgate does. I need to get some more recent negative film developed and do some more test. I'd like to see that the vision2 stocks looks like.

Roger, are you opening it up in Windows Media Player? What are you doing up so late?

YouTube · Post by **Andreas Wideroe** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:09 pm

Roger, right click and save as! Then you'll most likely be able to play it back.

Post by **VideoFred** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:36 pm

Try Virtual Dub!

I used Donald Grafts red/green/blue filter on this example.

Post by **super8film** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:24 pm

Fred, you mentioned that you've used Virtual Dub for inverting color negative films. I downloaded the program, but wasn't able to locate the RGB filter you mentioned. Is this a special plug-in I need to download, and if so, where would I find it? That imagae you uploaded looks pretty good, so maybe you could share the settings you use to invert the color.

Also, is Virtual Dub capable of handling full frame size and frame rate video, such as a Firewire AVI capture from a MiniDV camera, or is is suited more for video files with smaller dimensions and lower frame rates?

Thanks!

Post by **Old Uncle Barry** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 8:46 pm

Well stop pissing about with all this electronic frippery and project films again-you know-on a bedsheet-with a projector! However if you use your bed linen for other notorious purposes then use a proper screen. 8)

Post by **Scotness** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:12 pm

super8film wrote:Fred, you mentioned that you've used Virtual Dub for inverting color negative films. I downloaded the program, but wasn't able to locate the RGB filter you mentioned. Is this a special plug-in I need to download, and if so, where would I find it? That imagae you uploaded looks pretty good, so maybe you could share the settings you use to invert the color.

Also, is Virtual Dub capable of handling full frame size and frame rate video, such as a Firewire AVI capture from a MiniDV camera, or is is suited more for video files with smaller dimensions and lower frame rates?

Thanks!

Virtualdub is suited for full size video - but it can't use video for windows codecs (I think this is for licensing reasons) -- a whole lot of plug ins are here:
http://www.virtualdub.org/virtualdub_filters
http://neuron2.net/

Scot

Post by **Konton** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:29 pm

Ummm . . . but this is negative film. You got some way to make a print from it? Cauze I'd love to do that. And then I'd sound stripe it . . .

Post by **tacotim** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:05 pm

I was curious, it seems that both clips are much darker/denser on the right side of the frame than on the left, is this a camera/ workprinter alignment issue?

Tim

Post by **Konton** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:26 pm

I get the feeling it's the light coming from the sprocket hole but I'm not certain. I'm actually in the process of having Roger replace my WorkPrinter-Pro with a Workprinter-XP as I have found I don't need all the extras the Workprinter-Pro has and I like the idea of it being quieter and faster. I'll post another Negative test once I get the unit to see if there is still an issue.

Post by **S8 Booster** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:32 pm

Old Uncle Barry wrote:Well stop pissing about with all this electronic frippery and project films again-you know-on a bedsheet-with a projector! However if you use your bed linen for other notorious purposes then use a proper screen. 8)

Besides agreeing completely I really fancy your high capacity in mastering the english language.

R

Post by **tacotim** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 9:22 pm

Konton,

I have been struggling with that too with my WPxp (light/ halation on the side of the frame seeming to originate from the sprocket hole). Any ideas how to solve it?

-Tim

Post by **MovieStuff** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:01 pm

The great thing about having an enlarged gate is that you get to see all the way to the sprocket holes. The bad thing about having an enlarged gate is that you get to see all the way to the sprocket holes. ;)

There is a silver metallic tape that is used to masking slides. If you cut it with an exacto knife, it leaves a perfectly smooth edge. You can cut a piece of that and put behind the gate to mask the sprocket holes, which are mainly an issue if you have darker film or underexposed film. Daylight shots are never a problem unless your lens is dirty.

Roger