I second the above comments, having just transferred an hour. Even with variable speed I couldn't entirely get rid of the flicker. I'm going to send it out to be professionally done (I think it costs about $80 per hour of footage). However, I wanted to have something captured while my father is visiting for Christmas so he can do a voice-over. When I get the transfer back from the lab I'll sync the audio he does to the video capture to it.

The old cameras were the best, they had persistance so got rid of that flicker. Try a lower shutter speed, also stick a bit of blue tack in the middle of the lens of the projector to stop that hot spot.

Thanks for the comments. I have been playing around this morning with an excellent anti-flicker filter for VirtualDub and it has produced outstanding results. The quality is still not good, but it's because of the original recording being done in haste, not due to flicker.

I think I can get a decent job done with this filter.

Thanks again.

Jim

Slower shutter speeds on the camera can really help a lot. I was using the projector on the wall and camera aimed at the image method and the default shutter speed had so much flicker that the video was unwatchable. I changed the camera from 1/80th speed to 1/60th (slowest available on my camera) and almost all the flicker disappeared. A small amount remained, but this helped give the feeling of watching a movie instead of a video and was actually a nice effect.

I don't know that my camera will allow for that type of adjustment unless changing the auto-exposure has the same effect. I'll have to give it a try when I get home.

Thanks.

Jim

I suggest that you look at a service which I have found exemplary. Good prices, and MUCH more than just a copy of your film to tape.

They clean, lubricate, resplice and heaven only knows what else, and use major professional film to tape transfer equipment, the same kind used for hollywood movies, to transfer your tape WITHOUT extra grain and distortion that would arise from using a cheap transfer box or a standard projector/screen.

The work is fast, efficient, careful, and reasonable for what you get. They charge $85.00 per running hour, and can put it on DV or Mini-DV tape for your own editing if you wish. There are also fractional hour charges, since nobody has exactly an hour. Works out well.

The site has a nice question and answer section (FAQ) that discusses different film to tape or DVD possibilities/subjects in excellent, easy to understand detail. You understand and value the services after reading what is actually done.

The site is:

http://members.aol.com/filmtotape/index.htm

I have no connection to this service other than I liked what they did to my 31 year old VietNam footage. Fine job.

PS: This is a copy and paste of a previous post, in case you think it looks familiar.

I second Bill's comment on http://members.aol.com/filmtotape/index.htm. I used them several years ago (before my DV camcorder) and they did a great job transferring some late 1930's era 8mm B/W movies that my Dad had taken as a college student to Hi8 tapes.

Hmmm. . . I saw this exact same post from you a couple of other times in regard to this subject. Sure this folks are related to you somehow? :))))

I know that professional quality equipment is going to provide a much better result. One of the primary reasons for my doing this is that I want to add this to my skillset, so it's kind of a challenge to see if I can get the best result possible. My experience with it begins at 7:00 this morning, so I'm a newbie to the extreme with film transfer, but it sure is interesting!

Jim

Thanks for the tip, William. I also have been looking for a reliable processor to convert some 1960 vintage 16mm silent film over to dvd-r. TFG Film & Tape look very professional (and their prices look reasonable). If they are mentioned on this forum, I have no doubt in their ability and integrity.

TomG

Are you talking of variable speed camera or projector? I used to have a 50's Eumig projector with a feature whereby you could thread an audio tape from an open reel recorder through some pulleys to control the projector speed to give a rough synchronisation of audio and film. It was extremely tedious trying to set the thing up so that the tape would not run off the pulleys, and to get them in somewhere near sync. In fact I only made one movie using this sound method, it was so tricky and time consuming. The thought does occur to me, however, that the speed of the old 8mm film was 14 frames per second. It should be possible to get this projector to run at 15fps, with a bit of wangling. At that speed the camera, running at 30fps will take two frames per one frame of the projector. Now, a large portion of the frame of the projector will be black as the film is transported to the next frame, so it highly unlikely that the camera will take two exposures of the same image. The more likely scenario is that there would be one image frame follwed by one black frame along the length of the video clip. I was wondering if would be practical to make the black frames transparent during the editing? Then it would be simple to put a copy of the video on each of two adjacent tracks staggered by one frame apart. This way there would be two images on the video for each frame on the film, but that wouldn't show because it will be played at twice the speed.
Has anybody tried this, or have any ideas?

RonR

Have you tried putting your projector on a light dimmer to slow down the speed? Worked for me.

Hmmm. . . interesting. Since the projector operates at ~18fps, doesn't that cause the video to become somewhat slo-mo at 29.97? I know that using a variable speed projector is also a solution of sorts, but I don't know which way you would adjust the speed! :)

So far, using VirtualDub and the anti-flicker filter seems to be doing a fairly good job. I captured about 30 minutes last night and worked on it a bit, but I inadvertantly taped it out of focus, so I had to do it again this morning. I'll work on removing the flicker and let you folks know the result.

Thanks all.

Jim

Jim,
Early Regular 8mm film varied between 15-16fps. When Super 8 was released the rate was increased to to 18fps. When transfered to another format like NTSC at 29.97fps, the Super8mm is usually speed up in the projector to 20fps, and the regular 8mm is slowed down to 15fps. Though this may make the S8mm look fast, and the 8mm appear slow. This can be adjusted/offset in vegas. These rates resolve many of the flicker "Closed Gate" scenario.

jeffy82@aol.com

Cool, thanks. My projector, unfortunately, is not variable speed. I sure hate to spend money on a projector that is variable speed. :(

Someone mentioned using a dimmer switch on it, but I would think that would also dim the bulb, and I really don't want to do that.

Results with anti-flicker and VirtualDub are marginal. I can still see a flicker, but it's MUCH less noticable.

Jim

Dimming the bulb is no problem. Your camera's aperature will compensate.

PS: as I remember, I wired my dimmer just in the motor circuit- not the bulb.

I can see me returning my father-in-law's projector with a dimmer switch spliced into it. :)

I'm really looking hard at a Bell & Howell 10MS variable speed projector on E-bay. I just wish I knew whether or not I can get ALL flicker gone if I do that. I think I'll see if I can find someone that I can borrow one from.

Jim

I don't know how many hours you have to transfer, but at $85 an hour at the place mentioned above, it wasn't worth my time to deal with the 2 hours I had (that didn't deter me from trying it out and spending 3 hours to get a crappy capture of one hour of it). Another problem I discovered with my taping was that I was getting even more contrast in the videotape than on the Kodachrome 8mm, and the colors were washing out some. Adding to that the flicker problem (which I assume will be minimal if any with the professional transfer), I'm hoping the $$ will be well spent to get the film on miniDV cassettes that I can capture into Vegas to clean up an add some sound.

If this were something that were really important to get onto DVD, it would be worth it to go professional. As it stands, it's more of a fun thing to do for me.

I've managed to get rid of virtually all flicker by slowing the shutter speed on my camera. 1/30 is the fastest slow speed that I can use on my camera. I wish I had 1/60, but so goes it for Sony's cheapest digicam. It looks pretty good right now.

I am also hopefully purchasing a Bell & Howell 10MS 8mm projector with variable speed that should help quite a bit in future endeavors.

This stuff sure is fun! I need a side job to earn more money! :)

Jim

I use the VirtualDub antiflicker filter with good results.
Anyway - there is another antiflicker softwaretool available called "CineVid". But unfortunately any infos are german only at the moment:

http://erde.fbe.fh-weingarten.de/sosy/deutsch/produkte/cinevid/

Marco

Getting back to the variable speed projector idea I suggested earlier I did an experiment to see if I could use Chromkey to make the blank frames that I would get at every second frame transparent, and it worked. To recap my idea, I would set a projector to run at approx. 15fps and preview the image in the camcorder viewfinder and then attempt to adjust the projector speed to give a steady, continuous image. I think this would work as it would then be running at exactly half the speed of the Camcorder. (Projector @ 15fps, camcorder @ 30fps.) It will, no doubt, require a little experimentation to get them to run in perfect sync., but I think it could be done. This will give a video that has one image frame and one black frame throughout it's length. Transfer one copy to each of two tracks on the timeline on VV3 and stagger them by one frame so that the black frames match an image frame on the other track. My experiment showed that I could make the black frames on the top track transparent with Chromakey. What I did was to put a clip on the bottom track and I put a black image on every other frame on the upper track for about three seconds. I applied the black Chromakey and when I played it back the black frames were unnoticeable. The image deteriorated by an insignificant amount when compared with an image from 8mm film. Panning moves of the original image was very slightly uneven, which may be an artifact of the preview screen. There was absolutely no flicker at all. Overall, I feel confident that this method will give good results. The only area of doubt is how accurately the projector and camera can be sync'd.
I will be looking for a variable speed projector because I think that will be a lot cheaper than $80 an hour for the many reels of 8mm film I would like to digitize.
RonR

Happy New Year, everyone!

Well, I reduced my shutter speed to 1/30. After doing that, there is a very subtle flicker. I ran that through the deflicker filter in VirtualDub and re-rendered to a new uncompressed AVI and VOILA! Perfect video transfer that is absolutely beautiful!

I did this on a small 15 second segment. Now I've got two 6-inch reels to tape, capture, re-render, dub, and then re-render to MPG2 for burning to DVD. With any luck, I'll finish before 5pm this afternoon when we head to the in-laws for the viewing.

Nothing like getting it in right under the wire! :)

Jim