DYI optical printer w/ film camera + digital projector.

[Nicholas Kovats]

Have any of the great DIY optical printer/film/video transfer users on this forum experimented with a film camera + digital projector setup re: avi/h264 --> film?

Could you even sync any of the consumer Digital video projector CCD gates with the film camera shutter?

[aj]

You better shoot off a TFT screen. Much beter sharpness and contrast range

Put the camera in real slow speed and make the flash contact trigger the frame update in the player software. With some millisec delay as of course the shutter is open at time of the flash.

[aj]

This is a software-tool for creating delays and debounce.
Should be good for controlling a player too.
Be sure to read the full thread
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15979&start=0&hilit=tic

[Nicholas Kovats]

Hi Andre.

Thank you for the interesting link which I have read.

I understand the concept of the mechanical contact closing once per frame on the S8/16mm side of the camera and then manually applying an offset but how can one get phasing or syncing information from a digital projector or LCD?

Somehow the two different outputs have to be compared while referencing a master clock source and then an offset applied to both camera and projector continuously, e.g. Projector. Your drifting from the master clock reference. Speed up a bit to lock sync again. Camera. Your running to fast. Slow down a bit and lock in.

Since analog camera systems do not tend to have a DC or digital stepping motor I would design the fluctuating 1 pulse per frame flash contact switch on the analog film camera to drive the sync, i.e. the digital projector modifies it's "speed" accordingly.

Speed being relative I guess to the internal data transfer speed to the CCD. I am missing a conceptual link as I am not a video engineer, e.g. what provides an actual sync signal that can be "easily" adapted to work with the above device?

NK

[aj]

My suggestion is to let the cine-camera controle the display of new frames. I.e. use the flash contact and the software for a slight delay to not disturb the frame currently being exposed.

By putting the camera in slow speed you get more light and can use some stopped down aperture. Also you the computer needs time react to the simulated mouse-click and to produce the new frame. For displaying any thing goes like mediaplayer or others. As long as there is single frame advance and a key-input which can be produced by the TIC software

Running both free at the about the same fps should work too as with long exposure the changing of a frames will hardly show while most of the time the image is not changing... This could be applied for a first test to see if the screen-lines/pixels show-up in the projected image or not. Using S8 this is not likely unless you use only a part of 160x100 of the screen or such.

[Nicholas Kovats]

Andre.

You stated the following, i.e. "As long as there is single frame advance and a key-input which can be produced by the TIC software."

Are you referring to a software based media player having "single frame advance and a key-input"?

Regards,

NK

[aj]

Andre.

You stated the following, i.e. "As long as there is single frame advance and a key-input which can be produced by the TIC software."

Are you referring to a software based media player having "single frame advance and a key-input"?

Regards,

NK

The player is software. It is to be controlled by a simulated keystroke which makes it advance one frame. This key comes from the TIC software which reads a mouse click or a COM-port signal. This click/signal comes from the flash-connector of the slow running camera.

[Nicholas Kovats]

Andre.

Have you actually completed testing with a working model? Would the open source VLC player work?

[synthnut]

Hia,

I know this is a bit of a delayed response (been off list for some time)
but I have had good quality results using a decent LCD projector (an Epson EMP 8300 5200lm XGA) and shooting at 24 fps straight off a small keystone corrected screen using a Nizo 561m onto Kodachrome. The camera sat on top of the projector and the screen image was round about 30" on the digonal if I remember. This was just for duping some edited shots onto a projection copy and for converting some digital shots onto film too.
No sync or hook-ups of any kind! I'm sure if you were doing frame by frame you could use a much lower powered projector.
One thing is crucial though, the projector must be LCD or a three chip DLP and not a single chip DLP witha colour wheel or you will get some funky random colours !!!

All the best,
Ben