Here’s a project for the Do It Yourself UberFilmGeek…build your own Super8 film telecine machine. The project is pretty detailed, and not really for the weak of heart. Yes, there is actual work involved. *Sigh*. You will have to do some tweaking.

For those that aren’t sure what it is, Wikipedia defines telecine as “…the process of transferring motion picture film to a video format, such as television, or a machine used to complete this process.”

The DIY article recommends the use of a circa-1970’s Eumig 610D or 6001D 8mm/Super8 projector for the build. Images are captured with a standard DV camera via firewire using frame capture software. There is nothing to prevent you from using a HD-resolution camera for the capture, however. What you will end up with (if you use a standard SD DV camera) is a frame-for-frame replica of your film in a 720×480 DV stream (either AVI or MOV, depending on your platform).

Now at this point where do you go from here? Generally Super8 will be shot at 18fps, but 12 and 24fps isn’t that uncommon, and there are cameras out there that allow further frame rate choices as well. But for the sake of brevity, let’s assume that you have 18fps sources.
Since you captured each frame of your 18fps source individually, on a 29.97fps timeline your telecine footage will now play back much faster. Simply slow down the footage to 60% speed on your NLE timeline, and you should now be at the NTSC equivalent of 18fps (and if you have 24fps film source, slow it down to 80% speed in your NLE to arrive at the NTSC equivalent).
Note that using the Frame-Blending option in your slow motion dialog reportedly introduces interlace artifacts in the footage. It is recommended that you turn off FB when slowing down 30fps telecine to match the original frame-rate. So instead of trying to fake the in-between frames with Frame-Blending, your NLE will instead simply dupe those frames in a (slightly uneven) cadence. Frames A-B-C become A-A-B-C-C, etc. The funky cadence is not supposed to be that noticable, and for this use I’m sure it’s Good Enough. After all, this is a DIY project…and Super8 film is generally used to add a slightly different aesthetic, the “rawness” and flaws are it’s beauty.

For those that want to take it further as far as conversions go, I’ve been told that Sony Vegas does a bang-up job at framerate coversions, so perhaps that would be a good choice for this task. And we’ve all heard of the vaunted Optical Flow enhancements in Apple’s Compressor 2 (borrowed from their pro Shake app). Methinks that Compressor 2 would be well suited to tweening in-between frames, much better than you could hope for with Frame-Blending, and if you didn’t want a stuttery “off” cadence.

Above all, don’t expect to achieve professional level results with a telecine process like this. Pro telecine shops have the experience and tools to deliver top-notch results. And they give you options like the ability to scan your source in 10-bit, which would be quite a quality step up from a DV frame capture. Additionally, there are products like the WorkPrinter that are a turn-key telecine solution, and the cost is really not unreasonable. But for the DIY tinkerer, this would be a very interesting project, and you will learn a lot in the process.

Thanks to Rusty Bryce of Varikor Productions for providing technical advice on this post. Varikor offers professional telecine transfer services, for those that demand the highest quality and choose not to DIY. It’s good to have options…

(Via Camcorderinfo Blog)