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Regular 8mm using 16mm Telecine gate


Will Montgomery

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I just had a thought.

 

Since regular 8mm film has the same sprocket hole size as 16mm, just twice as many, couldn't you put regular 8mm film through a 16mm gate on a Ursa Diamond or Y-Front then simply zoom/crop in and slow the speed by half to transfer it?

 

I remember a colorist here in Dallas mentioning she had rigged their Y-Front to transfer Super 8 once on a 16mm gate but I would think regular 8 might be easier.

 

Am I missing something fundimental? Maybe the it wouldn't look good because of all the zooming that would have to be done but if it works on a Y-Front it might work on a Millennium.

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I just had a thought.

 

Since regular 8mm film has the same sprocket hole size as 16mm, just twice as many, couldn't you put regular 8mm film through a 16mm gate on a Ursa Diamond or Y-Front then simply zoom/crop in and slow the speed by half to transfer it?

 

I remember a colorist here in Dallas mentioning she had rigged their Y-Front to transfer Super 8 once on a 16mm gate but I would think regular 8 might be easier.

 

Am I missing something fundimental? Maybe the it wouldn't look good because of all the zooming that would have to be done but if it works on a Y-Front it might work on a Millennium.

 

Great question. I'd be interested in hearing about this one as well. Reducing scan costs and increasing scan quality with one easy change in scan technique could help 8mm get more use. I'd trade the width of S8 to R8 if it meant significant savings on the scan end of the game. Wouldn't it be funky to see a resurgence of double 8 because of something like this. All those D8 cameras that go for dirt on Fleabay might start pulling higher prices.

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I just had a thought.

 

Since regular 8mm film has the same sprocket hole size as 16mm, just twice as many, couldn't you put regular 8mm film through a 16mm gate on a Ursa Diamond or Y-Front then simply zoom/crop in and slow the speed by half to transfer it?

 

I remember a colorist here in Dallas mentioning she had rigged their Y-Front to transfer Super 8 once on a 16mm gate but I would think regular 8 might be easier.

 

Am I missing something fundamental? Maybe the it wouldn't look good because of all the zooming that would have to be done but if it works on a Y-Front it might work on a Millennium.

 

You can theoretically put R-8 on a 16mm Rank/Cintel gate (MK3/Turbo/Ursa/MM) and do a zoom and speed change the problem is that the patch size on the tube then becomes very small and you can introduce burn (to the CRT) and the performance of the machine does decrease at smaller patch sizes.

 

It is doubtful that anyone has run S-8 on a 16mm gate , she probably ran R8 on a 16mm gate. I engineered both S-8 and R-8 gates for Cinelab's Cintel machines and had our machine shop build them this involved new optical encoders with more teeth for 8mm and new skid plates and optics. most places that work with 8mm gauge and have telecine could probably offer 8mm transfer on machines with gates specifically designed for the smaller gauge.

 

There is a 8mm (Super and Std) available for the Millenium.

 

-Rob-

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It is doubtful that anyone has run S-8 on a 16mm gate , she probably ran R8 on a 16mm gate.

She did something with attaching it to 16mm leader; like the whole reel was rigged that way. Must have had a lot of time on her hands. It was a one-off experiment that worked but wouldn't be easily duplicated. I'll ask for more details on my next session.

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She did something with attaching it to 16mm leader; like the whole reel was rigged that way. Must have had a lot of time on her hands. It was a one-off experiment that worked but wouldn't be easily duplicated. I'll ask for more details on my next session.

 

 

Interesting but seems a little excessive, another issue with running 8mm in a 16mm gate is the lack of 8mm guides in the gate leading to a fair bit of gate weave on the telecine.

 

-Rob-

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Interesting but seems a little excessive,

Absolutely. Probably just had a free afternoon without clients.

 

Just had a reply to my inquiry. They can do regular 8mm film on a 16mm gate but the edge can get blurry. Not a suggested use but possible. They have that Meta-Speed mod and would run it at 10 or 12 fps (I'm sure we can get it to exactly the right speed with trial and error.)

 

This was more of a mind experiment for me. I'm not ready to spend $300/hour to transfer regular 8 film. I know Spectra has a special gate setup for it but I think they charge a $95 fee to change out gates which gets it up past $300/hour if you only have an hour to do.

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Absolutely. Probably just had a free afternoon without clients.

 

This was more of a mind experiment for me. I'm not ready to spend $300/hour to transfer regular 8 film. I know Spectra has a special gate setup for it but I think they charge a $95 fee to change out gates which gets it up past $300/hour if you only have an hour to do.

 

 

We run R-8 for $0.25/foot best light no gate change fee (all I have to do is switch gates no mods as we have a S8 and a R8 gate not a single gate for both) Student minimum is $75.00 Regular Minimum is $125.00 and we are doing up-rezzed HD transfers now as well..

 

-Rob-

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We run R-8 for $0.25/foot best light no gate change fee (all I have to do is switch gates no mods as we have a S8 and a R8 gate not a single gate for both) Student minimum is $75.00 Regular Minimum is $125.00 and we are doing up-rezzed HD transfers now as well..

 

-Rob-

Really? So when I have 500 ft of Regular 8 ready to go it will cost me $125? You have a sale. Those "up-rezzed" HD transfers... is that just taking a standard def quictime and just using something like compressor to make it HD or does your machine output higher than SD?

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Really? So when I have 500 ft of Regular 8 ready to go it will cost me $125? You have a sale. Those "up-rezzed" HD transfers... is that just taking a standard def quictime and just using something like compressor to make it HD or does your machine output higher than SD?

 

 

We are going to do Up-Rezzed 8mm (S8 or R8) for $0.30/foot for Best Light and $0.40/foot Scene to Scene with a $150.00 minimum, so HD uprez is $150.00 for the transfer. We also can loan a hard drive if you do not provide one with a $50.00/hr (based on run time) disk recording fee which you can skip if you provide a disk I can record to like a G-Raid or LaCie etc. which will do uncompressed 10bit or Pro-ResHQ.

 

The Up-Rez is through a teranex so it is really good looking and we just upgraded both of our Cintel machines.

 

-Rob-

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