What is your WorkPrinter setup like?

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Uppsala BildTeknik
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Post by Uppsala BildTeknik »

You may want to try clearing your entire raid so that it is empty. Then a quick defrag (all of two minutes) then try again.
Hmmm, a defrag after emptying the drives? There shouldn´t be anything left to defrag.

Perhaps you meant a quick format?
super8man
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Post by super8man »

That would work too.Think of it like wearing both a belt and suspenders. It never hurts to make sure that first bit goes in the number one spot.
stoney
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Another donation on the way, pardon the OT

Post by stoney »

I apologize for going off topic so much. I am going
to make another donation to Andreas after going off
topic and turning this into a support forum. Hopefully
Roger is not squirming too much :) I don't want to wear
out our welcome.

Super8man great website :) I neglected to thank you for
your tripod and mpeg transcoding feedback. I disable my
network during transfers
(control_panel->Network_Connections->Disable)
and try to ensure that no other non essential background
processes are scheduled that will make my system further
away from a realtime system. This was essential for me
to eliminate pull-down. The variance of the angular
position of the cam was greatly reduced by disabling the
network. After I disabled the network I never had unwanted
pull-down.

OT: skip to next bold heading
Uppsala BildTeknik I did not rebuild my raid array. I
defragmented my raid array which started to defragment at
a better rate after the first part of the defragmentation.
I also noticed that somehow one of my ATA133 drives in the
array had changed to the PIO 4 timing mode with the other
drive in the normal ATA100 timing mode. Wierd. I performed a
cold boot and both of the drives changed to the ATA100 timing
mode. I plan on wiping my array later, I just need to finish
an almost completed project.

Color correction
I plan on shooting color bars and a grey chip chart each take
unless the light conditions have not changed and it is not a new
roll. I bought a Canon Scoopic, but I have not had the time to use
it yet. When I transfer other peoples film I don't have that luxury
and I have to spend some time doing color correction. I use the
broadcast monitor after I have properly adjusted it and the YC,
Vectorscope, and RGB parade NLE software scopes. I turn my
incandescent lights off. I mostly use the Curve Levels (exposure
correction), HSL hue offsets (colorcast correction such as a blue
cast), and Black White balance (selecting items in frame to define
as black, white, and grey. Premiere is not able to selectively
correct parts of the screen for those great mixed lighting scenes :(

(Hullfish, Steve, Color Correction for Digital Video, 2003 CMP Media)

Testing lens resolution
I could cut the slide down to a size that would fit between
the pressure plate NBS 1963A Resolution Target slides
http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatal ... uctID=1882

"Three- to four-hundred lines of resolution equal what viewers
with 20-20 vision can see when they watch a TV screen at a normal
viewing distance."
http://www.cybercollege.com/tvp017.htm

Of course I could always just project my film and not be limited by the
contrast range, and resolution of video.

Stoney

Partnoy, FIASCO
Suskind, The Price of Loyalty
Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman
Konton
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Post by Konton »

Hey Super8man, come on by, we'll have a beer a play with film! Such is my life. And murchmb your welcome, but I wanted to know as much you how people are setting up their systems. It's hard to do this all on your own, guessing what you think is best. Stoney I wish I could help you but I don’t understand half if what the problem is. And I do technical support for a living!

Okay, now I'm going to write about how I transfer film. So don't read on if you don't care.

First off, I do transfer both 8mm and Super 8mm film as a side business. Currently I'm doing 3000ft of Super 8 of old high school football games in the 70's for this one guy. Next week I have to transfer 6,500ft of regular 8mm footage of war protesting in San Franicsco from 1968. Both the guys I'm doing this for are amazed at the quality the WorkPrinter can do. They stayed over for an hour just starting at the equipment asking questions on how it all worked.

If you look at where my camera is located it's as close as I can get to the Workprinter! Any closer and I can't transfer 8mm film. I'll either be completely out of focus or the edges of the film will be out of focus or I can’t zoom in fully on the frame. For these reasons the rail is great to move the camera forward a little or back or side to side. Before when I was on a tripod it took forever to go between Super8 and regular 8 and I was always refocusing the camera. Now it’s very easy and with only a little tweaking. Bolting everything down was the best idea I ever had, but I will tell you that it took me three days to calibrate everything.

Okay, now when I get the film from someone the first things I do is clean it. I always use anti-static film cleaner so it will be lubricated as well. Hand cleaning seems to take forever, but so far I have to say it’s the best option. Anyway I have three winders, two of them Super 8 and one 8mm. I’ll wind the film to a new reel, and then clean it with a little car washing shammy while winding it back. I have a lamp I use to make it dry a little faster, but mainly to watch to make sure the cleaner evaporates before it gets back on the main reel.

Once I’m done I go to my work station and white balance the camera with the workprinter. Then I put the film in and run it to the first frame. I have some Sony software that let’s me preview what’s coming through my firewire so I can see what I’m doing on my monitor. When I come to the first frame I make sure I’m as close to the edges of the frame as I can get, and then I check the focus. These days with the camera locked down I usually don’t have to check the focus, but I’m always worried. Usually it’s dead on. I use Dotcap to do the transfer. When it’s done I do the pulldown.

The only issues I seem to have right now is that Dotcap can’t seem to do an 18fps pulldown on 400ft of film. Also it would be nice if the workprinter somehow knew when it was out of film and shut itself off. But that’s because I’m lazy.

Okay, now I might edit the AVI file a bit and make some changes in Premiere Pro. Then I either output the file to my tape recorder using Premiere, or I use the Roxie DVD creator that came with my Dell to make the DVD on my dual layer burner. For some reason I’m only able to get an hour of film on one DVD, but I think it’s because I’m doing it at the highest quality.

That's about it. I try to make the job as easy as possible yet still getting the best quality.
Justin Miller
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Post by super8man »

That pretty well sums up my experiences Konton. Though I have had no trouble doing the 400-foot pulldown in 18 or 15/16. Not sure why you would have a problem there.

I don't find it too big of a hassle to use a tripod and move the thing back and forth between regular 8 and super 8. Once you do it a bit it becomes just a matter of a few minutes at most.

Generally, I am torn between 50-footers and 400-footers. The 50 footers allow more quality control yet take more time on each one. The 400-footers allow me to leave the room for up to 1 hour at a time - though there have been many times where a broken sprocket hole stopped the film advance until I noticed!! Thankfully there is Vegas to fix that after pulldown.

I am thinking I want to rig up a usb wireless webcam or security cam so that I can flip to Video 2 on my TV and check on the WP from the comfort of my living room. I am serious. This is a big deal (to be able to let the workprinter do its thing for an hour and not babysit every frame).

Oh, consider using a darkroom timer for controlling your workprinter. you can set the timer for specific times depending upon the length of each film.You would have to make up your own timing chart for each length of film (50, 100, 200, 400).
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Post by MovieStuff »

Konton wrote: The only issues I seem to have right now is that Dotcap can’t seem to do an 18fps pulldown on 400ft of film.
There is no reason that DodCap can't do pulldown on 400 feet of film. We do pulldown on thousands of feet of film at a time with no problem. Have you emailed Jeff about this? What happens when you attempt to do pulldown? What sort of problem do you have?

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv
stoney
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Some 8mm 1964-68 frames

Post by stoney »

Here are some 8mm frame captures from film that was shot between
1964-68. Some of the images are slightly hot in the upper left hand
corner. There is also some blurring near the outer edges which might
be due to poor alignment.

http://www.adendro.com/filmshooting/gra ... _z4_07.jpg
http://www.adendro.com/filmshooting/eil ... vid_02.jpg
http://www.adendro.com/filmshooting/jan ... nonvid.jpg
http://www.adendro.com/filmshooting/raceCar2.jpg
http://www.adendro.com/filmshooting/edZ_nonvid_01.jpg

Stoney
Last edited by stoney on Fri Nov 12, 2004 3:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by murchmb »

Konton, thanks for the descriptive post. I appreciate it tremendously. I have to say I'm really learning a lot these past couple of days as I visit this forum more for the telecine aspect than for the film shooting aspect. Who knows, maybe I'll become a convert :)
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Re: Some 8mm 1964-68 frames

Post by MovieStuff »

stoney wrote:Here are some 8mm frame captures from film that was shot between
1964-68.
Hey, these look great!
stoney wrote:Some of the images are slightly hot in the upper left hand
corner. There is also some blurring near the outer edges which might
be due to poor alignment.
Try moving the focus lever of the projector one direction or the other just a teensy-weensy-teeny-tiny bit, then refocus the camera. Remember, the focus lever of the projector is used to correct for distortion only. Focus is alwasy done afterward on the camera. But, again, this look just terrific! Very nice.

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv
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Tks, I need to straighten out the image

Post by stoney »

Thanks,

I need to straighten out the image by adjusting the projector lens and
then bring it back in focus w/ the camera.
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Post by Konton »

Well it looks like the 400' 18fps problem is gone since I put the raid in. We'll see if it comes back.

Hey Roger, how about this for quality! Regular 8mm 18fps Vietnam War San Francisco protest footage in both color and black and white from when Nixon was President!

Full MPEG 720x480 at 29.976fps (14.2 megs)
http://www.super8cinema.com/war8mm.mpg

Okay, time to play more Halo 2.
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Post by MovieStuff »

Terrific!

The best part of this business is seeing archival footage of important times and events. Nice......

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv
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Post by VideoFred »

MovieStuff wrote:Terrific!

The best part of this business is seeing archival footage of important times and events. Nice......

Roger
http://www.moviestuff.tv
Yep, there must be a treasure out there worldwide, just waiting to be transfered....
Very hopeful four you and your company! :wink:

Here in Ghent, there's a museum.. They asked people to send their Super-8 footage to archive daily life in the sixties. They recieved allready 1000 reels! Just one city in little Belguim. Can you imagine the amount wordwide? And there was also something like regular-8...

We have work to do! :lol:

Fred.
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Post by VideoFred »

Konton wrote:Hey Fred,

When you get home take a picture and let me see how you are moving the camera!

I actually have a TV behind me in that picture so when transferring the frames I can see the cropping on the TV as well as the full image on the monitor.

The big things behind me is a sound striper and the big thing the monitor is sitting on is a film groover. We all got to have our toys. I just wish I got more use out of the groover and sound striper. But I have a plan to groove undeveloped film to get rid of the edge and lubriciant, then sound striping it. Hey, it might work!
Konton,

The sound striper, I understand that, but what is a film groover?
Yes, we need our toys :wink: , I have a room full of toys myself.
Some of them are actualy real toys: slotcars, trains etc....

If you take a good look at this picture, you see the camera is mounted on a piece of industrial PVC plastic, it slides between two other pieces very accurate, moved by a threadbar, as on a lathe or any other metalworking machine. This was a temporal setup, but it works fine, I leave it the way it is.

I sure hope you understand my Belgian Englisch :oops:
But now I'm realy gone, this weekend. See you monday!

Fred.

Image
Last edited by VideoFred on Fri Nov 12, 2004 6:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by burchis »

Konton-

How do you set your white balance? I have tried with only the workprinter light and gate clsoed, and also with film in the gate. I don't have to worry about room light because I built a shroud using less then $10.00 of 3/4" pvc pipe and bought a piece of dark clothe from the local fabric store to cover the camera and mirror/lenses assembly. (photo coming soon)

You also said somehting about having to adjust your camera when changing from 8mm to super 8mm. Do you actually have to reposition the camera or do you just pan and refocus?

Thanks for a great thread!!
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