I too have a Workprinter. In fact, I have one of Roger's earliest machines. He has come a LONG way since then. His early transfer systems were simply modified projectors that he purchased on eBay. He gave that up many years ago, and now manufactures his machines from scratch.

In looking at the Retro specs, I would love to have one, not only because it does frame accurate transfer at full speed (the Workprinter only works at about 6 fps), but because of the way it handles the film.

I developed my own full-speed, frame accurate transfer system, using a shutterless 16mm projector (I removed the shutter) and a lot of software. I shared my inventions and discoveries (such as how to eliminate the aerial lens that was part of the Workprinter) with Roger, but he always was one step ahead of me, including his wonderful idea of using a sound track to provide a synchronization pulse to recover each frame of film from the captured video file.

If you are buying this for a project, and then want to sell it on eBay, you may want to discuss that with Roger prior to your purchase. He used to provide a refurbishing service for people planning to sell their used equipment on eBay, so that the secondary customers could still get a reasonably new, well-serviced machine. I think he gave up doing that several years ago, and I don't know what policy he has about buying and selling his equipment on eBay. It used to be that you could buy one of his products, do your transfers, and then sell the equipment for almost what you paid for it, thus almost eliminating that cost from the overall expense of your project.

So, while I don't have any experience with the Retro, I have lots of experience with Roger Evans, and I heartily recommend his products and his company.

I second the votes for Roger Evans' machines. I have an old CineMate that I will refurb and put on eBay soon. I've run at leas 100 miles of film through it and it's pretty well bullet proof...

I have an old Workprinter (mouse) with missing projector lens. Anyone know where I can find one? Or, does it use one?

I highly appreciate all your comments about this topic. I have researched this for a long time and the Retro 8 always comes out on top. I will be placing my order with Moviestuff before the end of October to get the 20% discount.

Does anyone need conversion from 8mm film to digital? :-)

I think I'm about to order a Retro 8 as well. Anyone interested in my Workprinter or an unused Cinemate?

UPDATE: I ordered a Retro-8 today and talked with Roger Evans for quite a while. Naturally, he thinks this is the best unit he's built. He repeated what's on his web site, that it would take about 60 days before the unit is delivered.

If you read the page with the discount information carefully it clearly applies to customers who have previously purchased one of the earlier 2 fps Retro-8 units. He gave me a 10% discount because I was one of his first customers and have previously purchased 2 Cinemeates and a Workprinter.

I'm looking forward to experimenting with the Retro-8 and will post a full comparison to my trusty old Workprinter as soon as possible.

BTW, one thing I discussed with Roger the last time I talked to him a few months ago was the nature of the LEDs he has been using. His initial Workprinter used an incandescent bulb. He then switched over to LEDs, but was using a very low CRI bulb. I found that for critical color work this was causing problems. I called to ask if he knew about CRI (Color Rendering Index) ratings for LEDs and if he would consider updating his units to use LEDs having a CRI >90. He made it sound like he was already doing that, but I am not 100% certain. Since that conversation, I've been looking at how I can retrofit my old Workprinter to use a better LED.

So, you might want to ask him what the CRI rating of the Retro 8 LED might be. This can most definitely make a difference in the color quality of your captures.

I'd be interested in what workflow you come up with for the Retro-8 and Vegas. I just ordered one also (probably coming in January). I have a bunch of 8mm from the 1950-60s and super 8mm from the 1980s to convert. But I'm not sure what the best workflow would be. I've got Vegas Pro 12 and various other tools to use (avisynth, virtualdub, Adobe Premier Elements 11, Pinnacle Studio 12) but am not sure what I'll use yet. I was thinking mostly avisynth and Vegas but I was also considering the neatvideo plugin for Vegas. I'll probably want to do some grain/scratch cleanup, color correction, and motion stabilization. VideoFred seems to have some refined avisynth scripts for some of this (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144271).

David.

I dont have much of tools for actual restoration work on the films. I do have NeatVideo which may help a bit althought it is more for noise rather then scratches. Blackmagic Design has some fantastic software for it if you have the funds for it. I have movies from my grand father as far back as 1943. My father stopped using his Eumig C3M in 1987. There is plenty of footage between all these years!
From what I understand the software for the Retro-8 will get us image sequences which is really good and I might even use Photoshop for some tough cases. I cant wait to get my hands on the Retro-8 but like yours, it will only come in Jannuary 2015. I also have a problem with getting the films. My parents are in Austria, Vienna and I am reluctant to ship it with courier service, if it gets lost... well there is no price tag for that.
One thing I must say. It took a long time before consumer video camera had the same quality compared to the 8mm films.

David,

My Retro-8 will likely get tied up in Christmas traffic and I may defer delivery until January so it looks like there will be at least 3 of us on the forum playing with new toys at the same time. Can't wait!

As to a work flow, I'll start with the same thing I've used on footage from my Workmate, which is of course SD footage and it is pretty simple. I've found the Vegas curves and color wheels generally clean things up pretty nicely. I use a mild bit of Mercalli to stabilize the footage and that's about it most of the time.

Where I spend most of my time on the old footage is cutting out a few frames at the beginning and ending of each scene. Nearly all the consumer cameras of the day started with the aperture wide open and then closed down as required to get the correct exposure. This frequently results in an over-exposed flash for about 3 to 4 frames. I consider this lost footage and don't mess with it because it usually coincides with the "jerk" from the trigger being pulled to start the camera. There is often a jump at end of the scene when the camera is turned off. If the first and last few frames are cut out it generally results in less stabilization crop and eliminates the white flash between scenes.

I know a lot of people here use Neat for noise reduction but I've not found it terribly useful for 8mm film. That may change with the Retro-8 because it appears to capture a lot more grain than my Workprinter. I think John has an alternative to Neat that he prefers so perhaps he'll weigh in on the subject. I highly recommend cleaning all film before the capture as that eliminates a lot of dirt.

OldSmoke,
Have you considered flying to Europe and bringing the film back yourself? A round-trip ticket might not be much more than a courier service? And, what price peace of mind?

flyingski

Yes I have and I might actually do it. I am overdue for a visit to my parents and Vienna too.

I'd be interested in what workflow you come up with for the Retro-8 and Vegas.I do lots of film transfer and restoration, using both a Workprinter for 8mm/Super8, and my own frame-accurate system for 16mm. If you search in this forum on my user name and "workflow film," you'll find lots of posts.

If you want to improve the quality of the transfer using AVISynth, you'll find a wealth of information over at doom9.org. Search on either my user name (it's the same name over there) and also "VideoFred". He created a restoration script, and I then tinkered with that and provided my own variation, both of which are posted there.

Here are some useful links:

First, here's one of several previous posts by moi here in this forum:

Cine film to Telecine to AVI and then editing

The whole thread is interesting, and my main post is the third one from the top. It is a reasonably complete workflow description of how I edit frame-accurate film transfers in Vegas.

Here's another thread:

16mm Film transfer image enhance

I can provide others, but I think this should be sufficient to get you started. One of those links has a further link to the AVISynth film restoration posts over at doom9.org. You will also find links to some before/after examples I've posted on YouTube.

Finally, here is a link to all the film transfers I've posted on my YouTube channel. Only those which were uploaded in the past two years have had restoration applied. The rest are nice transfers, but the embedded dirt is still there, and all the other nifty enhancements provided by restoration are not included.

John Meyer Film Transfers

Glad to see this topic emerge as I recently have purchased two old Nikon Super 8 cameras (Super Zoom 8 and 8X Super Zoom) off the bay of E. I won one in auction for 99 cents! Just received it the other day...seems fully functional and also received my Super 8 cartridges from B&H yesterday.

My family had a Bell and Howell 8 mm when I was a boy; I never had a chance to use it myself, but I have some footage from it. I had the film cleaned and scanned about 8 years ago, but that was to a DVI tape. I'd really like to scan the film again myself (along with anything else I shoot with my new antique toys) with a Retro-8 but thepurchase cost is prohibitive to this dad of two teen boys.
I may hit you up for some scanning, Old Smoke!

BTW, does anyone have a favorite Super 8 film processing plant that you mail your cartridges to here in the US?

@prairiedogpics

Sure can do!

BTW, does anyone have a favorite Super 8 film processing plant that you mail your cartridges to here in the US?Back in 2003 I was asked to include a few minutes of Super 8 footage as part of a wedding that I shot. I still had my father's Bell & Howell Super 8 camera, and I dusted it off, found a way to simulate the mercury exposure meter batteries, bought some film, and used it at the wedding.

I did a lot of research, back then, on the best place to have my film developed, and was given this recommendation:

Yale Film & Video

They did a fine job for me, back on August 25, 2003, but since this was a one-time thing, I can't give you any further feedback, based on actual experience. I suggest you go to one of the Super 8 forums, and search for this name to see if it is still in favor.

As to what film forum to research, the following used to be the best Super 8 forum, but I haven't been there in a long time, so I can't tell you if it is still good. I just looked, and I see that many of the posts are from Roger Evans himself ("Moviestuff"), and that the forum still looks very, very active:

Filmshooting Forum

Thanks for the links, johnmeyer! That Yale lab looks very promising.

I will check out that Filmshooting Forum as well.

I've recently found some good Super 8 tidbits on this forum:

Cinematography.com Super 8 subforum

Also really enjoying some of your transfers on YouTube, especially those dating from 1928. An interesting aside: found 8 mm footage for auction on eBay seems to be quite a desired commodity...I watched an auction for some 25 rolls of 8mm films from unknown sources and the lot went for over $100. I think many people have a passion for rescuing old found footage from the landfills; that's a notion I can whole-heartedly support!

In addition to the value of the film itself and the fun of finding some truly historical footage (take a look at my "1929 World Series Footage," you can make some amazing money licensing this film, assuming you handle all the copyright ownership issues with whomever gave you the film to transfer. I often license client's footage for $1,000 or more.

I can vouch for the Retro 8 scanner. I have the older (2 fps) model and the only difference between it and the new (pro) model is the increase in scanning speed. The machine is incredibly easy to set up and use. You have to set the exposure manually to protect highlights or do several passes at different exposure settings if desired. The software has some RGB color adjustments and a gamma slider.

The resolution is quite good, almost too good! The grain present on Ektachrome 160 stock can be quite large and busy. The software has 2 grain reduction settings, which help a bit. The raw scans are somewhat flat and some 8mm reversal stocks scan with a blue push; all can be easily color corrected with beautiful output.

My workflow is to first use Neat Video to reduce some of the grain (this plug in doesn't reduce sharpness of the image), stabilize some tripod shots, color correct, and then output as 29.97 fps progressive uncompressed AVI (which is my preferred archive file). I then encode as .h264 MPEG 4 AVC 29.97 interlaced @30 Mbps with Dolby digital stereo. I use DVD Architect Pro 6.0 to author my blu rays, using the 60i setting, which results in "60p" progressive sequential frame display. Because my encoder outputs m4v files and separate ac3 files, I change the file name extension of the m4v files to avc and then DVD Architect will happily import them (it doesn't recognize m4v).

Why 29.97 fps instead of 24 fps? It's a matter of preference. You are going to have duplicated frames either way (as you interpret your footage at its native rate of 16 or 18fps, unless you actually shot at 24 fps). With 29.97 fps, you get much smoother movement. With 24 fps, movement is too choppy for my taste, given that every 3rd frame is repeated. Another option is frame blending, but I think that looks much worse than repeated frames.

In short, this is a wonderful device. Most folks will be satisfied with the raw output, but if you really want to make your images pop, some time consuming post work is required.

Also, most folks here probably know this: clean your films prior to transfer. The resolution of this machine will allow for the capture of each and every spec of dirt or other blemish! As another poster mentioned above, noise reduction will only help with grain, not marks, scratches, mold, and dirt.

If you want to see how much improvement can be made to a good Retro-type transfer, take a look at the work of VideoFred. Here is one of his transfers, showing the before (the raw transfer) and the after:

AVISynth Film Restoration

I am not a fan of Neat video, although I am in the definite minority here in this forum. I think it does way too much violence to image details. By comparison, the techniques pioneered by VideoFred, shown in the video linked to above, actually significantly enhance the film details.

Also, I have used motion estimation extensively, and I do sometimes use it to synthesize frames to go from 16, 18, or 24 fps up to 30 fps progressive, or 30 fps interlaced. However, this technology fails so often that I only use it for panning shots, where it does an excellent job. The rest of the time I simply use the traditional pulldown.