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Daguerre-47
Daguerre-47
Known Participant
January 15, 2018
Answered

Sequence settings in PP for scanned 8mm film?

  • January 15, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 14664 views

I have a lot of (for me) valuable  "dubble-8" films. Just got myself a simple filmscanner (Reflecta). The original film was captured in 16 f/s but the scanner outputs it in 30 f/s (Mp4). After editing I still want it to be played in 16f/s. I am also unsure about the correct frame aspect ratio. So what would be the best settings for these sequences?

Does anyone know?

Peter

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer SAFEHARBOR11

    Hi Jeff,

    By now there are som many parameters to think about that I get all exhausted! Still it's great to get all this help.

    About the red VW microbus; yes it is the scanned film without any changes done to it.

    Thanks also to Averdal for your views and Chris for all that stuff to download!

    I'll sit down and try different things out.

    Love to hear from you again Jeff.


    I agree with Averdahl on these points:

    "Interpret Footage to change the fps from 30 to 16 and did change the Pixel Aspect Ratio from 1.333 to 1.0. "

    I don't know why, whether part of the .mp4 file or if Premiere is just assuming the 1.333 PAR since 1440x1080 is usually HDV, but yes change the PAR to 1.0 for correct aspect.

    If you don't need HD delivery and simply want to get this material onto a DVD, then you can create a PAL DV sequence, and manually change Fields to NONE - Progressive. Then add the clip to sequence (after changing PAR and frame rate). In the PAL sequence, select clip then use Scale in Adobe Motion to scale the HD clip down to fit the SD frame size. You could use Set to Frame in right-click menu, however that leaves narrow black bars on the sides. So manually scale down until it just fits on sides, and then also perhaps adjust the Y Position to move image down a bit so that none of the top is cut off (assuming top of subject is more important than bottom).

    Next, Export as MPEG-2 DVD, using the PAL DV Progressive preset. I see no reason to go with 24p, since your TV system is 25fps then just go to 25p, which Encore supports in the PAL system.

    Viewing clip in a PAL DV sequence (after modifying frame rate), the motion and speed looked fine as Averdahl said. I then tried advancing through the clip one frame at a time (right arrow) and it's interesting to see the cadence of how certain frames get repeated, yet the repeats are not apparent when playing the clip in real time.

    It seems that perhaps the original film might be pretty grainy? I'm just trying to get an idea of the actual .mp4 compression quality and perhaps your film stock is not providing the best finished example? In any case, I always do enjoy seeing old cars and fashion and such in these old 8mm films!

    As I said the other day, you got me interested now in reviving my old films. Haven't ordered a film scanner yet, but got out some VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s and captured a few of those and shared, using Canopus ADVC-300 as the analog to digital converter.

    EDIT: For NTSC editors, then 24p may be a great export option as Averdahl mentioned. This is much closer to the 16fps of 8mm film than the 29.97fps of NTSC video. When exporting MPEG-2 DVD, there is a preset for NTSC 23.976p widescreen, and just change to 4:3 before exporting. I've not tried any of this out to DVD yet, but theoretically should be a good workflow for the 8mm scans.

    Thanks

    Jeff

    3 replies

    Pedro Downunder
    Pedro Downunder
    Known Participant
    August 4, 2021

    Now three years old, and with many comments given, I still don't believe any answer in this thread assists me in having scanned 8 mm and Super 8mm film, and outputting the media effectively in a PAL 25 FPS format.

    I can see the value in having small gauge film digitally scanned at its native FPS speed: 16 and 18 FPS. However, with some experimentation recently done in Adobe's After Effects, I can say interpreting footage that has been scanned at 25 FPS to 18 FPS isn't too helpful, because adding or dropping frames produces ghosting or "phasing". Ideally, some sort of interpolation, or frame creation would be better, it's just that I haven't found any such software designed for Mac to do this. 

    As for reducing film grain, stabilisation, de-flickering and colour re-grading, there are filters bundled with AE to do this, and very good third party filters also available. Moreover, Topaz Labs' Video Enhance AI can produce very good upscaled video, providing you do the passes initially to improve the overal clarity of the scanned film. My concern is the speed on a Mac. That is, how to correct the unwanted "Keystone Cops" effect a small gauge film that should be seen at 18 FPS creates when scanned and played back at 25 FPS. Readers, any ideas?






    chrisw44157881
    chrisw44157881
    Inspiring
    January 20, 2018

    updated auto white balance and flicker removal for ae cc 2017 and minor bug fix division by zero. 1440x1080 1.0 framerate 16 fps comp.

    auto white and flicker AE cc2017 template - Creative COW

    updated:

    Convert 16 fps to 24fps using smart frame blend. it only blends every 3rd frame using 50% not adobe's 25%/75% for higher quality frame conversion in AE. as optical flow doesn't work well. also, has built in scene detection for using whole frames on cuts.

    CreativeCOW

    here's a fun test I did with my autograde program.

    It will automatically grade all your video for you!

    It will set black point, white point, gamma, saturation, white balance, all frame by tedious frame.

    ->You'll never need to grade again!

    Auto Grader 3000 AE cc 2017 template - Creative COW

      S
      SAFEHARBOR11
      Participating Frequently
      January 22, 2018

      Hi Peter,

      I downloaded the sample clips and will play with them as time allows. I did notice the extreme macroblocking compression on the red body of the VW bus. Is this clip direct from scanner and not recompressed at all? If so, that compression artifacting is disappointing.

      I had read online that one of the scanners, can't remember if Perfecta or Wolverine, was going to increase the .mp4 bitrate (reduce compression) via a firmware update.

      I do have a small bottle of Kodak film cleaning fluid that I'd purchased a LONG time ago, so that's something I could try if needed.

      Chris, thanks for posting your tools!


      Thanks

      Jeff

        S
        SAFEHARBOR11Correct answer
        Participating Frequently
        January 22, 2018

        Hi Jeff,

        By now there are som many parameters to think about that I get all exhausted! Still it's great to get all this help.

        About the red VW microbus; yes it is the scanned film without any changes done to it.

        Thanks also to Averdal for your views and Chris for all that stuff to download!

        I'll sit down and try different things out.

        Love to hear from you again Jeff.


        I agree with Averdahl on these points:

        "Interpret Footage to change the fps from 30 to 16 and did change the Pixel Aspect Ratio from 1.333 to 1.0. "

        I don't know why, whether part of the .mp4 file or if Premiere is just assuming the 1.333 PAR since 1440x1080 is usually HDV, but yes change the PAR to 1.0 for correct aspect.

        If you don't need HD delivery and simply want to get this material onto a DVD, then you can create a PAL DV sequence, and manually change Fields to NONE - Progressive. Then add the clip to sequence (after changing PAR and frame rate). In the PAL sequence, select clip then use Scale in Adobe Motion to scale the HD clip down to fit the SD frame size. You could use Set to Frame in right-click menu, however that leaves narrow black bars on the sides. So manually scale down until it just fits on sides, and then also perhaps adjust the Y Position to move image down a bit so that none of the top is cut off (assuming top of subject is more important than bottom).

        Next, Export as MPEG-2 DVD, using the PAL DV Progressive preset. I see no reason to go with 24p, since your TV system is 25fps then just go to 25p, which Encore supports in the PAL system.

        Viewing clip in a PAL DV sequence (after modifying frame rate), the motion and speed looked fine as Averdahl said. I then tried advancing through the clip one frame at a time (right arrow) and it's interesting to see the cadence of how certain frames get repeated, yet the repeats are not apparent when playing the clip in real time.

        It seems that perhaps the original film might be pretty grainy? I'm just trying to get an idea of the actual .mp4 compression quality and perhaps your film stock is not providing the best finished example? In any case, I always do enjoy seeing old cars and fashion and such in these old 8mm films!

        As I said the other day, you got me interested now in reviving my old films. Haven't ordered a film scanner yet, but got out some VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s and captured a few of those and shared, using Canopus ADVC-300 as the analog to digital converter.

        EDIT: For NTSC editors, then 24p may be a great export option as Averdahl mentioned. This is much closer to the 16fps of 8mm film than the 29.97fps of NTSC video. When exporting MPEG-2 DVD, there is a preset for NTSC 23.976p widescreen, and just change to 4:3 before exporting. I've not tried any of this out to DVD yet, but theoretically should be a good workflow for the 8mm scans.

        Thanks

        Jeff

          S
          SAFEHARBOR11
          Participating Frequently
          January 15, 2018

          Import clips into Project Bin. Multi-select them, then right-click and select Modify > Interpret Footage, then you can manually change frame rate of clip from 30fps to 16fps there.

          Next, right-click a modified clip and select New Sequence from Clip and that should get you a sequence to edit in with correct 16fps and right frame size to match clips.

          At this point, I would try to just export a short segment right away in the desired format, in order to make sure the workflow provides the desired results. How/where will the final video be viewed or distributed? If on DVD or Blu-ray, then you can NOT export at 16fps and will have to figure out at which point to change that. I'm not sure really.

          Meaning, you might still interpret as 16fps, but then edit in a 30p sequence to match delivery. Perhaps someone else has experience with this workflow, as I do not.

          Thanks

          Jeff

            Daguerre-47
            Daguerre-47Author
            Known Participant
            January 16, 2018

            Hi Jeff!

            Thanks for your answer.

            The first paragraph you wrote worked out just as you said it would.

            Next part, though, caused me some confusion. I made a new sequence from that modyified clip but when I looked in the sequence settings, of that clip,it told me that the frame rate was not 16f/s as I had expected but 10f/s !?? Running the clip reveals motions (of people f.i.) that feels correct. Then the frame size was unaltered 16:9 when an 8mm film would be more like 4:3. Why in the world my scanner outputs the scanned film in 16:9 I don't know and there is no way of changing that. So I experimented with number of pixels in the sequence settings. I kept the hight 1080 as this is a number I'm familliar with and changed the width to 1200pixels which got me very near 4:3. This will proably affect the quality but I think that may be preferable to looking at people unnaturally short and fat.

            Then when i comes to exporting I tried MPEG2-DVD ( 25f/s) as format wich worked just fine

            Regards

            Peter

            S
            SAFEHARBOR11
            Participating Frequently
            January 16, 2018

            Hi Peter,

            I just did some research on the Reflecta scanner, and also the Wolverine (these may be the same machines, marketed under different names?). At this point, I honestly am somewhat confused with the frame rate business.

            For example, perhaps the original film was shot at 18fps, but the device writes a video file at 30fps to the SD card, so...does each second of output video equal like 1.5 seconds of film then? I would assume that one scanned frame of film equals one frame of video, so that would imply a speed variance on playback unless the user would adjust that in Premiere by one method or another.

            Also seems that the recorded resolution may be 1080p, which is 1920x1080. Yes, that is always 16:9 widescreen but of course 8mm film is more of a 4:3 frame size. What I might do is create a DV NTSC sequence (or PAL DV if in a PAL country) which is 4:3 standard definition, which will of course match DVD specs. Drop the HD clip into the SD sequence, then use the Motion > Scale setting to shrink the clip down to where it best fits the frame as a 4:3 image. Then export MPEG-2 DVD.

            I think that would create a better result than modifying the HD frame sizing.

            Back to frame rate...since you are going to DVD, that has a fixed frame rate, either 29.97 for NTSC or 25 for PAL. So in that case, the Premiere Sequence frame rate ought to match one of those, since we can't put a 16fps file to DVD. I just don't know how to tell you to best achieve a proper playback speed of the film scan clip within the 29.97 or 25fps sequence, would take some experimenting and I don't have a sample clip to play with.

            I will say I am intrigued by the scanner as I have boxes of old family movies handed down to me from the 1940s through the 70s that I've wanted to convert forever! I had many years ago tried using the 8mm vintage projector and recording the result off the screen with a MiniDV camera and results were so-so at the time.

            There was one company online that was modifying old projectors to make them record frame by frame and those units recorded directly to a PC. Each "scanner" was a one-off custom unit and cost about $1500 as I recall. Glad to see someone has addressed this need with an affordable, turnkey, modern solution though I wonder how the quality is compared to having a professional outfit do it?

            If creating digital files for PC viewing, such as .mp4, then you could perhaps use 1440x1080 sequence which is 4:3 and drop the 1080p clip into it and it should fill the frame, automatically cutting off the unused sides. However, if you wish to upload to YouTube for instance, they might require a 16:9 source in which case just stick with the 1080p and add black bars to the sides?

            Or do what TV news and documentaries do - put clip on V1 and also same clip on V2 above itself. On V1, stretch the clip horizontally so image fills the entire screen, then add BLUR to it. On V2 clip, CROP the sides to reveal same image below that is blurred. MUCH less distracting that black bars. And in this case, you could then export as MPEG-2 DVD but use a widescreen preset.

            You have me motivated now to revisit my own scanning project!

            EDIT: if you can post a short sample .mp4 clip from Reflecta here or somewhere for download, that would be helpful in figuring out a workflow.

            Thank you

            Jeff

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