Transfering film to video...

adam schutzman · June 27, 2007

Hello all...

I have a small amount of 16mm film (about 300 to 500 feet of reversal film, b&w and color) and was curious what the most economical and still good quality transfer to video would be? what are some of the leading places that do transfers? have any of you tried doing a basic transfer at home with a camcorder and projector? anyone have decent results with that? is there a good tutorial/guide for doing that? anyways, let me know. thank you!

~adam

David Mullen ASC · June 27, 2007

what are some of the leading places that do transfers? have any of you tried doing a basic transfer at home with a camcorder and projector?

Isn't that like asking who are the leading brain surgeons in the world -- or can I just do it myself?

This is another one of these "what's the best and cheapest" type of contradictory questions. Why are your choices between the best transfer houses in the world or doing it yourself? What's wrong with a midrange transfer house?

Will Montgomery · June 27, 2007

Cinelab is a sponsor of this site, their ad is on the right. They will do a fine job for you at a very reasonable price.

Since it is reversal film you could theoretically do it yourself, but you'd have to get all the equipment and its much easier and you'll get MUCH better results if Cinelab transfers it for you to miniDV. Contact them and ask for some pricing, you'll be happy with the results.

Chad Stockfleth · June 27, 2007

If you do it at home, it will be as good as the camcorder you have and the conditions you can set up.

Try googling film transfer and see what you can find, there are many....and almost all will do a better job then the home setup.

Edited June 27, 2007 by Chad Stockfleth

Douglas Hunter · June 27, 2007

Adam,

Standard procedure is to go to a lab that does telecine and have them transfer it to the video medium of your choice. You footage will need to be preped for telecine. That is it will need to be cleaned and have leader added, and then transferred to video.

But it sounds like you don't understand what you want or what you are asking. You ask about good quality and then mention doing it at home. The question is what does "good quality" mean to you? The higher your standards the more money you need. If you just want your 16mm on some form of video there are labs that will charge under $200 per hour for their telecine time and allow for some color correction as you go.

Its possible to video tape a projected film at home, but this should not be thought of as a transfer. Think of it as a way of getting a very specific (read funky) look for a video image.

Sam Wells · June 27, 2007

It might depend on the camcorder:

A friend of mine took a clean 16mm workprint, good projector - and shot it off fine art paper in HDCam with a HDW 700, cut in FCP in 10 bit uncompressed & output to HDV which I saw on a 30' screen projected by a Christie 3 chip DLP. Looked pretty damn good.

-Sam

Adam Thompson · June 27, 2007

Cinelab is a sponsor of this site, their ad is on the right. They will do a fine job for you at a very reasonable price.

Since it is reversal film you could theoretically do it yourself, but you'd have to get all the equipment and its much easier and you'll get MUCH better results if Cinelab transfers it for you to miniDV. Contact them and ask for some pricing, you'll be happy with the results.

Cinelab didn't do so great a job last time I sent something there. I had shot a Super8 project for a guy and when we got it back, some of the 200T stuff had lots of weird fogging issues on the edges. I asked them how that can happen (since it clearly wasn't my fault) and got an "I dont know how that could have happened" and that was about it. The overall transfer quality wasn't anything impressive either on that job or another 16mm shoot I did. Based on what I've heard and read lately, I'm using 3516.com next time and if I have a say, it will go to uncompressed hard drive. Though I don't think they do processing too like Cinelab does.

Jeff Clegg · June 27, 2007

I've used Cinelab a couple of times for some personal stuff, so probably about 1500ft. of 16mm at most at any given time. I haven't had any problems with them. I can say that the transfer to DV of one film from college was definitely better quality than a video camera shooting the work print off of a screen.

Patrick Cooper · June 27, 2007

If you're looking for the greatest ratio between quality and price, you could try a transfer device like a Workprinter or Sniper. These are products made by Roger Evans of Moviestuff and he offers a transfer service in Texas. Although the quality of the transfers are not really in the same league as a professional high end Spirit machine, the quality is still quite impressive and much, much cheaper than a Spirit or Rank session would be. If you're too far from Texas, there are other transfer business located elsewhere that use Workprinters and Snipers. You could contact Roger Evans here and he would likely be able to tell you the locations of such businesses that are closest to you - http://www.moviestuff.tv/

For other examples of reasonably good looking transfers that are not going to cost as much as a Rank or Spirit session, look for Clive Tobin's units and Flashscan 16 machines.

Dominic Case · June 28, 2007

I had shot a Super8 project for a guy and when we got it back, some of the 200T stuff had lots of weird fogging issues on the edges. I asked them how that can happen (since it clearly wasn't my fault) and got an "I dont know how that could have happened" and that was about it.

"weird fogging issues on the sides" doesn't sound much like a telecine transfer problem to me.

And it's not clear that it "clearly wan't your fault". You may have good reason to say this, but it's not clear at all from your email. If you are going to comment unfavourably about a company in a forum like this, I think it is only courteous to be clear about what the facts were.

AdamBray · June 28, 2007

I just got my first test roll from Cinelab. Nothing wrong with it that was not my fault.

Robert Houllahan · June 28, 2007

I just got my first test roll from Cinelab. Nothing wrong with it that was not my fault.

Things you hear around a film lab:

"My film is jumping you guys did not bolt your film processor down right"

"You intentionally processed my film out of focus"

or

Student: "there is nothing on my film" Bob Hume: "did you shoot it on a bolex maybe the shutter was not open" Student: "that's impossible! Where's the shutter?"

We really do try to do things right and we always admit to our mistakes and even if the mistake was not our's we try to help out.

Here are some samples of recent telecine and they will be available on our website in full res to pick at.

Logon is: User: guest Password: guest

We have 2 telecine suites both are full proper suites with realtime all SDI digital color correctors (a System Copernicus on room 1 and a DaVinci888 going into room 2) both suites have AAton keylink keycode readers and a both Ranks have Dave walker upgrades and Quattroscan 10bit framestores. Pretty good for a bunch of old junk and improving all the time, when I go to NYC and sit in a Spirit/Davinci or a DSX/Pogle room is the pic better? yes do I come back and hate my machines? No they are good proper mid grade suites and priced at $175/hr now.

Stu Debenham at 3516.com does a good job with a different approach i have sent him home movie work when we were too busy and could not get everything done. Myron at Cinepost in ATL does good work too we have processed film for both they have both transfered stuff for us at times, like a nice happy distant cousin's relations here on the east coast.

-Rob-

Top row Super8, Middle row Super16, last row Super35