16mm Film To DV

[Cliff Elliott]

Hi all, I have an interesting one for you to wrapp your brains around.
i was recently asked to produce a DVD of a 1954 school pagent which was shot on 16mm film stock, so I decided to have it proffesionaly transfered to digital tape via a telecine device, the problem was the original film had been shot at 18 frames per second and all of the transfer companies I contacted could only run the film at 24 FPS.

So I decided to have the film captured at 24 FPS with the idea of reducing the speed in post production, now this is where the fun begins, I have calculated a speed increase of 25% of running the film at 24 fps over 18 fps.

So in Premiere I reduce the speed by 75% and even though it does look better it still does not feel natural.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Regards, Cliff Elliott

[Charles Papert]

In what way do you feel that it is unnatural? Does it seem too fast/slow? Or is the movement erratic and stuttery? If the latter, that's to be expected. 18 fps is a classic "home movie" look, but it does not produce smooth motion, nor would it even transferred at 18 fps. However, this would be "cleaner" in that you not dealing with frame interpolation.

[Cliff Elliott]

Thanks Charles, its been so long since I have played with 8mm film and had forgotton about the 18 fps and the home movie look, you are right I don't think I will improve much on the frame interpolation I have done other than having it captured at 18 fps.

At least I now know not to pull my hair out trying to get a better look.

Thanks again.

Regards, Cliff Elliott

[Rob Lohman]

There are two things to note here:

1. if you play back this 24 fps at 18 fps (I'm not sure what the easiest way is to do this, what kind of format is this footage in?) you don't get any interpolation and you should see it exactly as it would look when you watched the movie projected at 18 fps

2. if you slow it down by 25% and output it back to 24 fps (or any other format that is not 18 fps) the computer will have to interpolate

So the final question is what is your output format going to be?

[Jeff Donald]

Back in the day when the production company/post house I owned did a lot of this we would telecine to Betacam SP (or 1 inch) and playback the footage on a VTR with DT (dynamic tracking). DT allowed use to adjust the playback speed very precisely, so as to achieve the best visual look. The playback was then recorded to tape or directly into our Avid for editing. This method produced much better results than doing the speed adjustment in the Avid.

[Cliff Elliott]

Rob the format the video is in after capture from film is Pal Mini DV.
The final format will be MPG2 DVD.

Thanks, Cliff

[Rob Lohman]

Then you will be stuck with interpolation indeed. Which version
of Premiere are you using? Not every program is as good with
interpolation as others (can't recommend any to you, sorry).

[Cliff Elliott]

Version 6 of Premiere, with the tests I have done the results are still very good, the quality of the image appears to be maintained it's just trying to get as close to a more natural movement of the people in the film/video.

I have found that by reducing the speed to 74% in Premiere it is about the best I can get.

I'ts the old story, rush rush rush, because of the clients tight deadline I have not had the time to chase all over the country to find a duplicator who could project at 18 FPS using a good quality telecine device, so will have to do with this.

Thanks again Rob.

Regards, Cliff Elliott