Nekochan Net

My cousin just started collecting old 8mm family movie tapes, and is planning on digitalizing them. Now, most of those movies are 30 to 50+ years old, and not in the best shape; the projector we have to do it isn't really top class quality anymore either. Since I know SGI is used in video industry too, I was wondering if my Octane could be of any help there.

Question is: any hints on how to move from those mildew infested rolls to clean dvd? Has anyone done a similar project? Are there apps and/or filters to boost the image quality? All tips are welcome

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while (!asleep()) sheep++;

I'd use a PC running Windows
Start by recording in a non-compressed format then apply filters using VirtualDub (or Avisynth) until you're satisfied with the quality. Then you can transcode to the format you wish to archive the footage in.

There's a decent guide to analog TV capturing (using Windows) on http://www.doom9.org which also touches on post-processing issues.
Everything you ever wanted to know about about (de)interlacing: http://www.100fps.com

-tgc

Macintosh has nice video tools available, too.

I'm not sure what the best way is for the initial transfer. Pointing a camcorder at the screen is unlikely to be satisfactory, because of the differing frame rates between movies and television (you could wind up with flashing from the projector shutter).

that's quite difficult.
as saq said creating a 'screener' will provide crappy results so the best method would be to digitize the material using a real film scanner. this can be done by buying hours from a prof. lab.
that won't be cheap but depending on how important these films are to you it's the only way.

the post stuff is a completely different thing. there're a-class tools for irix but they're not cheap either and maybe hard to get these days.
the best bet might be buying an older machine with the related stuff installed and licensed already.

btw your signature is neat

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r-a-c.de

Hi Foetz,

Can you give examples of such IRIX software capable of doing such tricks?

Thanks

sure, e.g. stuff from 'the foundry' could be used for these jobs and will fit into several highend apps for irix nicely.

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r-a-c.de