What about the flickering problem, when capturing with the DV Camera?

I read on a post that changing the shutter speed of the DV camera can help, but I can't seem to figure it out on my Sony 350 camera. It seems to have some presets, like 'sports,' etc., but does not say what shutter speeds they are.....

Any input here ?????

The more I look at the captured "DV" footage, it starts to grow on me, like watching an old movie (with the flickering and poor quality of 8mm movies)

Should I be concerned ? This project is for our family.

Be sure that the Sony's SteadyShot function is turned off.

And turn off Auto Focus.

Dave T2

Hi.
this post caught my eye. a few years ago, i was in the process of transferring thousands of feet of reg8mm, super 8mm, sound and silent film to SVHS tape. i was unable to get my hands on a film to video transfer machine. i did lots of tests using my jvc digital camcorder as a pickup device. i got results that were very good to excellent.

flicker is a problem due to the shutter in the projector and no way to sync it to the video blanking and frame rate. if you are very lucky, and your projector has a variable speed control, you can actually null out the flicker somewhere around 18 to 20 fps. even if the action is a bit fast, thats much less objectionable than flicker. i dont recall what shutter speed i had the camcorder set to, i think it was 1/60th second. if your projector does not have a varialbe speed control, you can try setting the camera to slow motion shutter. that will also reduce or cut flicker, but you will get a slight trail on your images. this is still much better than the annoying flicker.

for this transfer project that took me a year and a half to complete, doing one 400' real a week, i also did these things..

i modified my projectors with a lamp dimmer. 150w is way too bright, and the dimmer gave me complete control of screen ilumination. i used the back of an 8x10 piece of photo paper for my screen. the finer the grain of the paper, the better. don't use anything glossy. clamp the projector to the table if possible. put the camera on a tripod and get its lens as close as possible to the same plane as the pjojector lens without cropping the image on the screen. although the camera will be some inches to the side of the projector, the distortion will never be visible. keep the camera level and raise or lower it to make adjustments, rather than tilt it. set the camera to manuel focus. use a tv as the monitor, keep it from throwing light on the screen.
setup is very important. run the projector with no film, frame the lit screen using your camera zoom. use a small "stick-em" label placed dead center on the screen with the letter "X" on it. very critically focus on this "X" with your camera lens. zoom in before you focus so that focusing becomes very critical, then zoom back to where your imaged is framed nice. once the camera is focused, LEAVE IT!
project some film, very critically focus the projector on the screen. try fooling with various color temp settings on your camera to see which gives the best resuts. try you shutter settings, exposure and other camera settings to improve the image as much as possible. after you are satisfied, start transferring your film.
as i said, i got great results, but i did modify my projection equipment with dimmers, and they had speed controls, so i was able to get around the flicker problem quite well. i went to SVHS, and just used the camera as a pick up device. once all your stuff is in place, you dont want to have to move the camera around to load it with tape. besides, you have better control of a vcr.
hope i did not boor you with all this. hope it helps a little.

good luck,
joe s

Joe,

Not a boor at all. Thank you for the input.

As a matter of fact, thank you Gristie, Jga, and DaveT2, for the help!

To bad Kodak made such an inferior format as 8 mm. When projecting the original footage, I thought that I had been doing somithing wrong, (bad quality) so I had a couple of people look at it, and they said that was as good as 8 mm got. (bummer, wish the family had used 16 mm, but I guess that would have cost too much..... OH Well.....)

Pete

hi pete.
well, in those days 8mm was very popular for home movies. i think 16 was too, earlier, but only for the rich folks. super 8 was noticibly better since more of the film area was used for image and not sproket holes.

i was facinated with sound for my home movies and shot a few rolls using a reel to reel recorder, and then with practice syncing the two for family to see. but then i graduated to actual sound on film 8mm with farchild equipment. wow, what a thrill to actually have sync sound on your 8mm film..the quality was only fair but it was sound on film in SYNC! later i went to super 8mm sound, and the quality was of course better. today camcorders are so common place that hi quality audio and video for home use are taken for granted. i'm a frustrated film maker so all this stuff always interested me. how about actual CinemaScope 8mm. oh yes, the real thing with an anamorphic lens. it was done.. i even tried an anamorphic lens on a camcorder, then played the video on an LCD projector with the lens to see real wide screen aspect ratio. not this so called letter box nonsense of cropping the image vertically to change the aspect ratio, but adding width to the image with the anamorphic lens. how about some home video in VistaVision! impossible of course. pardon my rambling, but i love the movies.

ciao,
joe s

Of course the best way to get your film to tape is to have it done by someone who has the correct equipment. I had 2200 feet transferred for about $225. Well worth the expense. The results were excellent and much better than what you can do at home with a projector and camcorder. Remember, these are treasured moments. Also, KEEP the original films. You may want them later if you lose the tape!

-Dave

Well, I captured all 2 hours of it the cheap way. (Projector, Wall, and DV Camera, method.

Next goal is to edit it down to 1 hour or less, (To fit on 1 DVD).

My final goal is to have the movie run with some background music, since there is no sound on the 8mm films.

Since I captured it with the DV Camera, I have a sound track with the projector noise and me making comments to know where I was on the project.

QUESTIONS:

1) When I'm done editing, should I turn off the sound track (one of the buttons on Video Factory's 5 chanals), before rendering to the DV-AVI format? Will this result in a "silent movie" ?

2) IF YES, then should I take that 'new' DV-AVI file and insert the background music, and then re-render it to another DV-AVI file?

3) IF YES, can I then use that DV-AVI file (with the silent video and music background) in DVD-A to burn a DVD for the family?

4) Would all this re-rendering of DV-AVI files going to cause quality problems ?

AND LAST, is my method above way off the 'right way' to do it ?

Any suggestions would be appreciated ! (I'm just trying to ask, before I get too far over my head)

Pete

Seems to me the simplest way to accomplish your goals would be to mute the movie sound for the entire voice track, add your soundtrack to the music track (did you know you can rename any/all of the tracks?), then simply write the avi file a single time.

100 percent right! if the transfers are done professionally with proper equipment, thats the best way.
however, a few years ago friends of mine had some 8mm "professionally" transferred. i watched it and i it did not look so good. obviously whoever did the work used one of those mirror reflected to ground glass gimmicks, with the ever present haze of the groundglass texture in the transfer. be sure you are getting it done right, whoever does the work for you.

joe s