16mm film digital transfer question

Hi...
I've been reading posts for several days trying to figure this out myself, but I'm a newbie.
I was wondering if anyone could give me the preferred specs for transferring 16mm and 8mm film to digital files in order to use in Final Cut Express. I don't think HD is necessary but I want it in the best quality to edit in FCE.
1. What do I ask for from the transfer company, Apple Pro Res 422? What would the technical specs, codecs be?
2. Can anybody recommend the best company on the east coast or otherwise.
Thanks in advance!
JP

Hello, and welcome to the Apple Discussion forums.
If you are using Final Cut Express, there are 2 choices:
• QuickTime/DV-NTSC .mov files
• QuickTime/Apple Intermediate Codec 720p30 or 1080i60 .mov files
Some considerations:
16mm film is 4:3 aspect ratio; 8mm film is close but not exactly 4:3; DV is 4:3 aspect ratio - so using QT/DV-NTSC fits nicely
Apple Intermediate Codec is intended for 16:9 (widescreen) HD video but it may give you slightly better visual results, although you would wind up with pillarboxed video (4:3 in a 16:9 frame). Ask your vendor to provide a small sample file in both QT/DV and QT/AIC and compare the results before committing to the conversion.
ProRes is not supported in Final Cut Express.

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I want to upload the finished product to Vimeo so I can start showing festivals my finished product. However, when I use PrPro's CS6 Vimeo settings, I can't seem to get a file that looks decent—it always looks incredibly pixelated. I've played around with higher frame rates (and higher settings on everything) but it doesn't seem to look much better. Right now I'm using H.264. Should I be using a different codec? Please help!

What's the best export format or codec?
http://www.video2brain.com/en/lessons/whats-the-best-export-format-or-codec
And,
Vimeo Video Compression Guidelines
http://vimeo.com/help/compression

Film Transfer question

Re: 16mm film transfer
Hello;
I have some vintage 16mm film that I would like to have transfered to an editable format. If I work in FinalCutPro what format should the 16mm film be transfered too so that it can be edited?
Any suggestions for a quality-reasonably priced -Manhattan based vendor who will do this work?
Thanks for your suggestions

If your system can handle HD, I'd ask for HD files on a drive since they'll likely crop the 16mm image to 16:9. That way you'll get as high a quality transfer as you can.
Andy

I have had some 16mm film converted to digital format. Photoshop displays it ok. Then when I save

I have had some 16mm film converted to digital format avi 190 by 1080 pixels, 72 pixels/inch. Photoshop displays it ok. Then when I save the file as a psd, the quality of the video displayed deteriorates when I bring the file up to work on it. Then no matter how it is rendered, it deteriates further. I am using a windows 7 computer. I have tried this with an Nvidia Quatro 1800 card and an Nvidia Gforce 760 card.
Why does not photoshop at least keep the quality of the video as origional in a psd file? I can understand offering to degrade the display for faster display, but not the rendering degradation. I have tried H.264 High Quality and DPX full range 8 bit, they both degrade the quality, even though the origional avi file is an 8 bit depth, the others degrad the colors considerably.
I have worked on this for several months and am very disappointed in photoshop 6.
Where can I get information on what is going on in photoshop 6 as to how to control how it saves a file and more control of the color depth?
Russell Whitmer
[email protected]

You may want to post this to the Premiere Pro forum as this may fall under 'video/film issues' (just a guess). Someone there may have had similar experiances.

16mm film transfer to mini DV tape

I feel a little embarrassed about asking this question, as I have asked it before last year but can't remember how to fix the problem and can't find the print out of the answer,so here goes again.
I have had some 16mm film shot at 16fps transferred to tape After capturing the footage into PE 3 I need to change the speed to 24fps to match other film transfers I have captured.
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HI steve and Junoflydog,
Thank you for your replies to me question.
Juno, I did as you suggested and it worked fine, thank you for your help.
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I thank you again for your help.
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I am transferring 16mm film by projecting it to a screen and then capturing it with a Cannon XL2,
These are very old family films that are not the greatest quality to start with so quality is not an issue.
We just want to keep the old movies but not to go to the expense of having it done professionally.
We can even live with the flicker but if there is a way to reduce it some, that would be nice.
I have searched the forum but all of the posts dealing with flicker are old, like 2006 or so.
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a) a projection usually creates issues with socalled 'hot spotting' - that's easy to fix in post
b) projection and video-cam are never in synch - which creates flicker; theoretically, you could try to set the projector to 30fps, and slow down the 'Keystone Cops'-effects in post. but your cam is electronics (and, to be precise 29.97), a projector is mechanics ... never in synch, neverever .......
c) your camera records 'lines' of pixel - which could miss part of the frame, which is fully projected; this creates the annoying 'running bars' - so, the shutter speed of your cam has to be 1/30 (if 30fps projected). And has to be in synch with your projection ....
jac Colon wrote:
… We just want to keep the old movies but not to go to the expense of having it done professionally.
all that would be 'solved' if done professionally - no projection, but each frame gets scanned = time/costs.
I remember a product, kinda box, two holes, one for pointing your cam into it, the other to 'beam' into with your projector; the tiny 'screen' inside was sort of 'phosphorized' material which had a split-second of 'afterglow' .... came up in the 80ies, when first home-video-cams appeared, and people tried to transfer their 8mm stuff; perhaps you can find such a Magic Box (no idea, what the correct term is/was) in some garage-sale ......

Film to video transfer question

Hi all,
I'm currently recieving my first 16mm film project in video but the footage are 4:3 with letter box not 16:9 as I expected. I talked to the coordinator & he said that it can't be in anamorphic since they didn't shoot it with the anamorphic lens. Is this true? I thought all film footages are originally 1.85:1 (anamorphic), right?
thankx,
JP
QuadG5, Kona LHe, Medea1TGB. Mac OS X (10.4.5)

you are confusing a few things, and there is no reason why you cannot still get a 16:9 image or letterboxed image from your footage.
first it is common to shoot 16mm film and still achieve a letterbox look, but you must frame the action inside the 16mm frame for the necassary cropping of the 16mm image that will result. For example, many idependents shoot 16mm for 35mm blowup or shoot 16mm and telecine to HD for wide screen effect, but you must frame it inside the 16mm aspect ratio and be aware there will be some cut off at the top and bottom.
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Technically, 16:9 is not anamorphic in 'film' speak. Anamorphic cinematography only exist in 35mm and as there are no 16mm anamorphic lenses nor projectors. And as described above in film speak anamorphic is the compressing and uncompressing of the image to achieve a wide screen 2.35:1 look that you sometimes see in the movie theaters.
If you want a 16:9 letterbox look, you can just as easily crop your current 16mm telecined footage in Final Cut Pro.

16mm film in FCP - sound synch.

I am making a working edit of a 16mm film in FCP. Once complete the EDL will
be used by a neg cutter and the project will be finished as 16mm show print.
All the sound was recorded wild and although most is not in need of a tight
synch. there are short spoken sections that must be lip synched.
In FCP we have both video and audio, but the runs faster than the audio and
a lip synch. is impossible.
We telecined to DigiBeta but also laid the picture off to DVCam (with TC and
Frame Numbers in pic.). We captured from the DVCam into FCP. In ignorance we
did not pay attention to the capture rate or the frame rate of our sequence,
so used 25 frames for both. We want to do as much work in FCP as possible to
produce a sound track mixed down onto DAT for the production of a optical
soundtrack neg. FCP is helping us make decisions for the neg. cutter but is
not usuable as a guide to edit the audio.
This may be a problem of our own making but any advice as to how to get out
of this impasse would be much appreciated.
G4-dual 1Ghz Mac OS X (10.2.x)

Many thanks.
We telecined to PAL video (UK). Does this still use 3:2 pulldown? or a different system? Cinema tools doesn't offer Reverse Telecine for changing PAL 25 fps to 24 fps, but it does have a Conform tool which allows me to do something similar (I think). Will this have the same effect and bring the video back to match the film and audio speed as it was recorded (24fps)?
If you are going to cut the negative you'll need
something more than an EDL. EDLs track the xfer tape
timecode, you need to give the negative cutter
keycode number from the negative. You can xfer with
keycode burn in for this. Is that what you did? Talk
to your negative cutter and see what they want.
Yes I think we did. We have two counters burnt in vision on our DVCam dub. One is TC (from the telecine) the other has the suffix FN (frame number?). We will talk with our TX guy for confirmation. However these FN numbers do not appear in the FCP EDL - is it possible to generate an EDL in FCP that references the frame numbers/Keycode?
Again thanks, any more info on using Cinema Tools with PAL material would be welcome.

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docone wrote:
I am trying to figure out how to transfer video from my JVC GR-D770U video camera to my PowerPC G5 running 10.5.8. I have the proper firewire cable but have been unable to find answer for my question on the internet that is specific to my situation.
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Message was edited by: EZ Jim
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Best workflkow starting with 35 / 16mm film

Hi Guys...
Looking for advice on work flow with film. Currently I'm:
Shooting on 35
Processing and Transferring to Digibeta
Convert Digibeta to full size 422 Quicktime files
Importing to FCP
Edit, export as full size full rez Quicktime
Transfer back onto Digibeta
Deliver for broadcast
Seems like a lot of transferring here. And I feel like my final product doesn't look so sweet when I see it on broadcast TV. Looks compressed and not very sweet or 35mm film-esque.
Any suggestions on a better work flow? The end result being a sharper, sweeter image.
Thanks...

Offline means capturing at lower resolution for editing...when you are done you then you recapture at higher resolution. This higher resolution is what you output to digibeta. And this is done ALL the time for broadcast television. It is a standard workflow.
I'm wondering is going from Digibeta to Quicktime might be a questionable move. Or atleast the type of quicktime file.
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But, if you want everything at full resolution, the go ahead. Best practice is to capture via a capture card at 10-bit UC.
Shane

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I posted this in Final Cut Pro Forum as well, but no answer yet...
Been doing a lot of reading, but still cannot find a clear answer to this question...
What should my average audio levels be set at for a Standard DV indie film headed for the festivals on DVD?
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my apologies. I have a 750 gb. usb harddrive that I use for storage, and a Sony Handycam hdr-cx7. I thought that maybe I could drag all of the contents from my memory stick into a folder and import them as needed using log and transfer. What made me ask the question was basically what is the transfer part. I'm sorry if I'm wasting your time. Anyway, I did that with some test AVCHD video and it came out OK, but tonight when I went to import it again, because I didn't save my work (I was just messing around) it gave me a message that says, ""08:5:29" contains unsupported media or has an invalid directory structure. Please choose a folder whose directory structure matches supported media." This may be my procedure problem, but it is nice to have the storage option. Thanks again.
Message was edited by: movie_man

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16mm film digital transfer question

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