frantone patreon

My EIKI Telecine 16mm Transfer Setup

🕑 Added 2021-11-05 00:27:56 +0000 UTC

Comments

Fran Blanche

I don't - the long exposure times of each video frame does all that for me.

Anton

Fantastic, thanks for sharing this treasure!

Bruce Davis

One question - how do you synchronize the projector shutter and the camera ?

David Peaker

There's something special about analog media such as film, records and tape.

Truly a labor of love, Fran! I'm happy to be a part of "crew" helping out. I was an audio-visual technician in IASTE Local 306 in NYC for over thirty years and when I started in 1977-78, those Bell & Howell 16mm projectors were the standard everywhere. They took a beating, too. AV companies would bring them in for shows from all over the country year after year and they always did the job. Those and the Kodak 35mm slide projectors.

RustedDucksDesign

Yes! The Allied and Olson catalogs were another two I carried under my arm between sixth and twelfth grade. I was that kid. Being a teen during the golden age of home electronics and kit building was a great time to have scientific curiosity and a decent work ethic.

EEVblog

YES!

Mels Van Wees

What a awesome setup Fran, really admire the dedication!

Mike Stubbs

NOTA BENE Fran- the Youtube title has a misspelling for EIKI!

Matt Wietlispach

Great setup Fran! That white paper is truly a great find since it doesn't introduce textures or inconsistencies on the whole page. In my TV days, when we got a commercial or something else on 16mm film, there was this very large, dedicated piece of hardware we called a "film chain" that performed the translation from 24 fps to 30 fps with no timing issues. Somehow, via optics and filters, the image would be projected to the face of a vacuum pickup tubes. The color was then reassembled electrically into a single composite video output. It was an old RCA relic from the early 70s when almost everything was delivered vi 16mm film. There was no point in transferring 35mm film since the TV resolution would knock it down in image quality to the 525 NTSC standard. 70mm film would also be useless as the old analog TV signals just couldn't benefit from a sharper image. It used Vidicon camera pickup tubes which smeared the light and probably hid a lot of dust and artifacts on the film. You've obviously seen video camera tube "smear" when a camera is passed by a bright light. It leaves a trail that pretty quickly fades away. On YouTube, you can watch some 1985 footage of Live Aid and see the cameras smear as they passed by the bright stage lights. You could also permanently damage Vidicon tubes if you locked the camera in one place and a bright stage light was in some area of the viewable area. Shooting the sun can, obviously, permanently burn the tubes as well. The film chain was old, but it was built in the USA and build for reliability as TV commercials have to air reliably and they came on 16mm film. Your film transfers look great! Obviously your camera is based on CCD technology and is very resistant to blooming or streaking. I'm really glad you showed us how you do it. Obviously with HD the larger film sources, like 35mm, would actually help the camera instead of the camera cutting down the details into an analog mush. And it costs virtually nothing after you invest in the camera and memory card. No bulky Betacam and other magnetic-based tape cassettes need to be purchased to do what you do. But, DAMN, it was HARD to squeeze even the slightest improvement in the NTSC analog signal days.