Image stabilization service at MovieStuff?

Post by **MovieStuff** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 5:11 am

We have been seeing more and more jittery film come through for transfers. Whether the new carts are actually "fixed" or not is subject for debate but the fact is that footage we get from the 70s and 80s is solid and virtually all contemporary carts seem more unstable during transfer.

As such, DigVid (Jeff Dodson) and I have been talking about his wonderful DodCap software and the possibilty of adding an image stabilization feature to it. The idea would be to transfer one's films pulled back a bit so that the frameline edges were visible on the underscan frame (but not seen on a normal TV monitor). The software would "seek out" the edges of the first usable frame and then re-register all subsequent frames to that benchmarked frame. The end product would have a tiny black letter box around the edges rather than cropping in. This will preserve the resolution.

It will definately work. I have seen miraculous stabilization done to film we've transfered, but it has always been on locked off shots where fixed targets within the frame were used as the benchmarks for realignment. Our idea is to use the edges and corners of the frame, itself, as a guide so that it wouldn't be confined to locked off shots but, rather, the entire roll.

To accomodate the probability of such a service, as well as to increase the speed of our transfer service, I just commissioned a new capture computer. It will feature the Matrox RTX100 card, a SCSI Raid-0 with two 73 gig 15,000 RPM drives, a gig of RAM and the latest 3.8 gHz Pentium-4 CPU.

I'm getting a woody just writing abou it.

Hopefully, this combination will allow some FAST renders for a variety of applications, image stabilization being just one of them. We also will be offering a DVD service for those that want their Magnum Opus on disk.

Anyway, if the rendering goes fast enough, we will probably apply it to all transfers, jitter or not, just to ensure the most rock solid transfer one can get. If not, then we'll offer it as an "add on" service for those shot in the foot by the Kodak Jitters.

I'll keep you posted....

Roger

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 6:57 am

I like it! It should definitely be apart of the regular service. Will this work for pro 8mm's jittery 50d as well?

Post by **studiocarter** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 4:14 pm

I already bought a jitter fixer software that works great. there are two different ones on line...somewhere. I have the links ... somewhere. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Post by **Chris-B** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 4:32 pm

Hi MoveStuff,
Will you be offering DVD that you can watch on a stand alone player or will they be just the DV files (avi's?) burnt to dvd.
It's just that I only have pal equipment. If I had the ntsc avi's burnt to dvd I can just convert them to pal myself.
Do you do this frame for frame, 30 super8 frames per sec regardless for the original filming speed? I like this way best as I can just alter the speed myself.
Thanks Chris.

Post by **MovieStuff** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 4:44 pm

regular8mm wrote:I already bought a jitter fixer software that works great. there are two different ones on line...somewhere. I have the links ... somewhere. No need to reinvent the wheel.

You also already had a Goko TC-20 for transfers, so why get a WorkPrinter? No need to reinvent the wheel, unless the new wheel is better? ;)

It's also a matter of convenience. I mean, you also already had Premier for stop motion capture, so why would anyone need DodCap? The reason is that DodCap offers more than just single frame capture. Likewise, if Jeff can work image stabilization into DodCap then it might be more convenient to use during the course of normal captures (for us, anyway!).

Anyway, like so many products out there, it's just another wonderful choice!

Roger

Post by **studiocarter** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 5:21 pm

Right you are and I'll probabily get the DodCap version, too! :twisted:

Scot McPhie · Post by **Scot McPhie** » Sun Jan 19, 2003 10:47 pm

I think this is a really good idea Roger - and a very interesting way of trying to achieve it. I've experimented with 4 different types of stabilisation software to try and correct the problems I've had and I'm going to post a page shortly on my site with some demos and reviews/advice on it all. I think your method should work fine in most cases, but I've found there's some examples of jitter which I just haven't been able to correct because the image itself is blurred or streaked due I think to the film being buckled or bent concavely or convexly at the time of exposure - so no matter what you do you haven't got straight images to realign on top of each other - unfortunately I don't think there's any hope for those sequences. I'll post some consecutive stills to illustrate what I mean. But I've found most of my jitter problems I can fix (and better too than what you've seen on that tape I sent you - been woking back over it) - so I think your proposal is a good idea - and will work otherwise

Scot M