Wolverine Pro Tips: Film Cleaning, Preventing Hang-ups, and PowerDirector Nonlinear Editing
Вставка
- Опубліковано 13 лют 2019
- Several Things Rapidly Covered in This Video are:
1. Preventing Hang-ups caused by:
2016 model track design,
Guide post friction buildup,
8mm film midpoint overlap splice,
Bad splices or sprocket holes,
and "Slack on the Track."
2. Film Preparation:
Film Cleaning,
Leader, and Splices.
4. Scanning:
"Frame Adjust" for full capture,
Use an external monitor.
5. PowerDirector Tips:
Crop & zoom (not masking),
Video speed corrections, and
Nonlinear Editing (NLE).
6. Side-by-side comparison of the original
Film2Digital model and the Wolverine Pro.
My involvement is purely for personal
use. No business use.
Note: You may wish to pause at
some points to read the commentary. - Розваги
I've been thinking about purchasing a Wolverine Pro for over a year now. After watching your excellent video, John, I now have the confidence to take the plunge and finally digitize
all of those dozens of Super 8 and 8mm movies from years gone by. Thanks so much for all of the great information you shared with us! It is much appreciated!
You're welcome, Craig. I think you'll be happy with the results. Good luck with the project. It will be worth it in the long run.
Super advice and idea John, thanks for sharing. I just started using my Wolverine
You're welcome, David. Good luck with your project.
View this excellent video before you convert your first film, then come back and review it after you've done a few. The manufacturers ought to pay Prof. Renzi!
Thank you for your kind words. I am not looking for any payment other than the awareness that this video is useful to others. The manufacturer did ask if it's OK to post this video on their website and I said to be my guest, sure. I am very happy to help folks with their video projects through this video and a few others I've shared on my experience with the Wolverine Pro.
Excellent tutorial John!
Thank you!
Excellent video very helpful. I just purchased the same unit and enjoying seeing movies from long ago. Great tips thank you again for your work and videos.
You're welcome, Denver.
Thanks for sharing. I'm preparing to convert many reels of 8mm and Super 8mm to digital and your tips are much appreciated.
Gary Tolbert You’re very welcome.
Excellent video with lots of great advice - Cheers!
Thank you. Glad it helped.
Thank you for this video. I'm looking at the Wolverine Pro to do a transfer of my dad's 8mm & Super 8 stock. Between your review on B&H and these videos I have a much better idea of what to expect and what equipment I'm going to need. I think with this as reference I'm ready to commit to the project. Thanks again!
Thanks for the feedback, Brent. Good to know these videos and the review could help. Wishing you all the luck. I’m sure you will be very successful.
Thanks for the super advice John. I have been looking at the Wolverine as a way to convert many of my dad's large reels of film from the 50s-70s. I almost goofed and got the cheaper version which would not have handled those 8" reels. And since I use Power Director as my video editing software, your tips there will be very helpful. Thanks again for your valuable help! Now on to a massive project. ;)
Thanks for the feedback, Jim. Good luck with your project.
Great info and demo! Thank you!
You're welcome.
Great Video John! I am at the point of purchasing A Wolverine and your tips surely helped!
Glad to help, Chris.
I wished I saw this video clip earlier. ..start all over now. Thanks for the video.
You're welcome.
Very helpful! Thanks.
You're welcome.
Предстоит записать около 10 часов архивной 8мм пленки. Данное видео очень полезное. Спасибо за ваш труд!
Всегда пожалуйста. Удачи с вашим проектом.
By watching your video I figured out how to do frame adjustments. The manual doesn't show you how and neither do other videos. In fact your video (that I know) doesn't explicitly show how to do this but what I did was I started recording, stopped the recording and then went to frame adj and was able to see the film frame and then adjust the frame .
You're correct that I didn't dwell long on it but I briefly showed the process starting at 3:37 in the video: Press the 2nd button, "Menu/Mode", then advance to "Frame Adjust" and adjust the X, Y, and W values to get what you want.
Thanks for this super useful video John. I've got my wolverine Pro up and running now and beginning this slow journey to capture all my films. I've got a few 8mm that go back to the late 1940's that I'm hoping still have image on them! Question for you: do you think it's better to just set the exposure at 0 and sharpness at default or low, and then adjust the exposure in software or would it be better to preview the film first, then adjust exposure up or down as needed for the capture? Unsure if there is a benefit to optical exposure vs software exposure. Thanks!
Personally, I would stick with the default settings that come with the Wolverine Pro for the exposure and sharpness and, at most, experiment with the exposure levels and sharpness in your software later if you determine it needs improvement. I suspect those settings on the machine are there for convenience for those without the NLE capabilities in post processing. You can do your own experimenting, though. I did, and found that PowerDirector did a better job. These scans take up enough of your time.
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi Right on ~ thanks for all the info!
Very helpful. About to buy a machine.
Thanks mate!
I'm considering purchasing one of these to digitise my family's 50+ 50ft (and more!) film reels. I think it would cost me a fortune to have these digitised professionally, and I'm pretty handy with video editing myself.
I hope you're earning a commission from Wolverine. 😜
Cheers!
You're welcome, Andrew! No commission; just like to help good folks like you! Take care and best of luck.
John, I've converted several flims with my Wolverine Pro, but I seem to get an excessive amount of noise and/or film grain - especially compared to your samples in this video. Are you removing the noise post-process or do you think there's something wrong with my setup?
Same here Cameron. Did you ever find the reason for the excessive amount of noise and/or film grain?
Thinking about taking the Wolverine plunge. Your videos are so helpful...thank you! I've got Regular and Super 8, plus Super 8 sound (sometimes two tracks). I assume I could record the sound separately into the computer, and try to sync using Power Director or other software? Any thoughts? Thanks!
Your plan sounds perfect to me, Mike. If you’re able to record the original soundtrack onto your computer, then you’ve got it made. I’m guessing you need your old projector that would play sound and assuming there is an auxiliary out jack (or equivalent), that would output the sound as a pre-amp signal. Then, using an interface that would take that signal and port it to your computer, you would then have your audio track. I’m sure there are multiple ways to accomplish that part of the project - and inexpensively. Maybe you already have that capability, e.g., create a CD from a tape, or use a simple Hauppauge device or something?
Once you have that, and are able to scan the film using the Wolverine Pro to an .MP4 file, you can sync it to the sound track using PowerDirector. When you import the video and audio files, use the Power Tools > Video Speed > Speed adjustment controls as shown in this video at 5:57 to adjust the speed of the film track to sync with the same time duration as the audio track. You will likely be first trimming both clips, and maybe into shorter segments to work on one at a time (particularly if you are editing out parts of the film that you don’t want). And you will also likely be using the “New video duration” option instead of the “Speed multiplier” option. Fine tuning the duration as well as sliding the audio track left and right will eventually get them synced. Good luck!
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi thanks. Yes, I have the projector. It has 2 audio RCA outs, so I can use an interface to get it into computer. Lots of work ahead. I will start with the old regular 8mm silents and work my way up. Learning curve!
Great info! Do you have to use Power Director for editing? I currently have Final Cut Pro X.
No, not at all. That's just what I use. I hear Final Cut is good stuff, too.
Do you think this machine could be used to professionally transfer film to dvd for paying clients or is it more for personal use?
@@rickovideo I think more for personal use because, though it is superior to common analog methods used by many professionals, it takes longer and, unless you really get your system down well and do a great job, you might be disappointed in the hourly rate you will be able to charge and still attract customers.
Thanks for sharing john what version of power director do you use
I used PD15 at the time I produced this video. I am now using PD18.
Very helpful video, thanks! What version of Power Director are you using?
I recently upgraded to PD 18. I was using PD 15 for this video.
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi Thanks!
nice videos, my wolverine pro 8 shifts sideways when scanning, the image is then shaky, I can't find the cause
Thanks for an excellent set of explanations.
I have the latest Wolverine MovieMaker Pro and discovered on my last 400ft reel of film I had some spots showing on the finished footage that I thought were on the original film. But not so they are from the scanner itself, most likely dust? But how to remove it? I had been using the "puffer" but that seems ineffective. I have also been wiping the gate area with Pec Pad non abrasive wipes.
How can I get to the area where the dust is?
All okay, I resorted to a high pressure Air Duster as that was far better than the included Air Puffer Brush.
@@rolandpenhall4526 Great! Glad that worked out and good to know. I was just coming back to look at your question again. Your solution will no doubt help others. Thanks.
This video is what sold me on the Wolverine Pro! Second reel is currently chugging away. Now I need to buy a user friendly editor that I'll only use for the movies I'm digitizing. So, I have a question on the editing. When you frame/resize the movie, and then push play, do you need to watch the entire movie, and stopping for key frames? Or can you use the cursor to fast forward through, stopping when you see the framing has changed? I have 7" reels and sure don't want to watch every moment during editing.
Very good question, Julie. I have actually done that, i.e., go fast forward for a bit, even drag the play point forward at a pace to look for fluctuations in the picture position that would warrant adjusting the cropping. Doing it the way I showed with all those keyframes, I was trying to keep the maximum area scanned, yet crop to maintain a clean, sharp border.
But you can certainly just crop a bit more, enough so that, through the entire length of your film, you don’t need to adjust the cropping at any intermediate frames. I’ve done that, too, and it works great, saving you time, especially if it really doesn’t matter that you cropped out some of the periphery. The slightly extra zoom might be a good thing. Have fun!
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi Thanks!! That helps. Loving that after 50-60 years of unseen movies in a box, I've been loaned the family films to transfer.
@@jazzy1849 Yep. You are very popular in your family right now.
Great video, John. Is rubbing alcohol really safe for cleaning? Some people (Van Eck) say it ruins the film. I want to use it but I feel insecure.
Good question. On this very point, let me just copy/paste an excerpt from the middle of a lengthy 5 star review I wrote about the Wolverine 8mm film scanners on the B&H Photo website on August 21, 2018:
"Regarding the sticking frames and repeat scanning the same frame, after doing quite a bit of research and close examination, the primary recommendation I can make is that, above all else, DEFINITELY clean your film before scanning. I did a lot of research on various cleaning methods and chemicals and even lubrication. The pros and cons went on and on. I almost bought a product similar to the old "FilmGuard" product but then read somewhere the horror that can happen if the film isn't completely dry, literally for days, or it can stick to itself and be completely destroyed trying to unroll it. That's all I needed to read to scare me off. How the heck can I allow a 50' roll of film dry unwound? Hence, I also do NO lubrication of the film.
Here is what I do: I take a clean lint-free cloth (such as you might use for cleaning eyeglasses) and place it on the top of an open bottle of isopropyl alcohol, and invert it to wet a spot. Then fold that spot of cloth (single layer) over the film, pinching lightly with thumb and forefinger, while manually winding the film from one free-wheeling reel on an old projector onto a free-wheeling reel on another projector a couple feet apart. (I use a pen inside the film hub area to turn the reel.) This allows for some evaporation of the alcohol over the two-foot distance. But I don't assume it's totally dry of the alcohol so (as I have to rewind it back onto the original reel anyway), I pinch the film lightly with a clean dry lint free cloth on the rewind. Guaranteed dry now. It has made a big difference in the scanning process not getting stuck. Before that rewind, I also clean the inner hub and sides of the empty spool of any mold, using isopropyl alcohol and a paper towel. This process will also help you find any bad parts of the film (such as torn out sprocket holes) that may need reinforcement with splice tape. Ask me how I know."
Hope this helps. Key is just a spot of the alcohol and be sure to do the drying rewind step and use hi-quality lint-free cleaning cloth.
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi Thanks a lot! I will do as you have described. The drying rewind is very important.
Thanks for all your help. After two mediocre tries at capturing a 50 ft S8, I succeeded thanks to your tips and the 'how to place film in tray' in the Wolverine manual. Two questions: First, what output setting do you use, give the Wolverine output of 1440x1080,10Mbps, 20 fps? Second question. are you aware of Stan Jelavic's Wolverine Hawkweye mod to the Wolverine Pro?
Not clear what your question is. Output from PowerDirector? If so, it depends on the use for the video. If uploading to UA-cam, I use MPEG-4 1920x1080/30p (16Mbps).mp4 30fps. If producing a Blu-ray quality level video file, MPEG2 1920x1080/60i (25Mbps).mpg (this is 30fps; the "60i" is interlaced.) Regarding your second question, I don't follow Stan Jelavic; just haven't had a reason to.
i know Im asking the wrong place but does anyone know of a method to log back into an Instagram account?
I somehow forgot the account password. I appreciate any assistance you can give me!
@Imran Leonidas Instablaster =)
@Muhammad Brantley Thanks for your reply. I got to the site on google and im trying it out now.
Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
@Muhammad Brantley It worked and I actually got access to my account again. I'm so happy!
Thanks so much, you really help me out !
do i need a program editor i have already windows movie maker i have difficult problem with 8mm to have a good sharp image because if you take the film to a projector it s very clear like i see from your video you use a program power director if you can help me thank you in advance
Hi John, do you have any tips for Wolverine Pro (should be the very most recent - purchased 2 weeks ago directly from wolverine) when the super-8 film is too wide? Maybe 3 of 20 super8 films get too hard to push through even after cleaning (following all your tips) as I believe the film is too wide. Wolverine recommends something odd: a piece of paper folder over 4 times and shoved into the door - that didn’t work. I’m going to call them tomorrow but I’m pretty unhappy; they should have made a more variable width or one with a spring loading to handle these width distortions. Any suggestions?
meganerchia Did you actually measure the width to be certain it’s too wide? Seems very unusual. What brand of film? Do those films stop at any particular spot? For example, could you verify that there is not a splice where it stops, including any lap joint that can catch on the leading felt edge at the tray? I’m assuming you’re not experiencing the friction problem on the fourth guide post. Finally, you do have three white hold-down tabs on the tray, don’t you? And you’re careful to hold light tension on the film as you close the tray door?
Another thing to try is to start the film a few inches past the stuck location. I know that means missing a little bit of the film in the scan, but if the width problem is just a local part of the film, that’s a small price to pay. Good luck.
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi Wolverine is telling me that it is usually due to the thickness of the film, not the width. That may be more likely. I'm finding out more information - most likely my Wolverine Pro will be sent back as an RMA. They are also addressing an issue where I am getting periodic jitter at the bottom of the frame - on/off all the way to the end of the movie (different ones). Seems mechanical to me and on a second try one of the films came out clean. I will share more info as soon as I have it or if you have some commentary that might be helpful also to others it seems this is a very common problem (found on another board)
@@meganerchia Interesting comment about the jittery effect at the bottom of some frames. I have just bought a new Wolverine MovieMaker pro and have experienced the same thing. I also ran the tape through a few times and some of the problem was resolved while other parts remained jittery. I asked Wolverine if it was possible to export single frames instead of a compiled movie - but evidently not. Will have to explore this further to see if the issue is in the original footage or a product of the scanning and film export. Just to clarify - my jittery effect is the bottom one third of the movie seems to compress into the remaining top two thirds. It's as if the bottom third is being stretched or blurred. A pic is probably the best way to illustrate :)
My Wolverine has started jamming at random intervals. It appears that the little metal claw that goes up and down to move the film along the sprokets is getting stuck in the up position, so it stops feeding.
I've used canned air to make sure there is no dust buildup. It's not every film, and when I run the same film in my 2nd machine (same model) it runs fine, so not a film problem. Any fix it tips?
Mary, which model is it, the Wolverine Pro or the Film2digital? Did you first clean the film? Is it 8mm or Super 8? If 8mm, is it possible it got stuck over a mid-point overlap joint? If so, did you apply a single Kodak presstape over that lap joint to smooth the discontinuity? Were you certain to take out any “slack in the track” when laying the film in the tray? If none of the above are faults, did you try wrapping a lint-free cloth around the last post to reduce friction as I showed in the video? Another problem I had to deal with a couple times was with some Super 8 film that was badly warped. I really doubt the advancing pawl was stuck in the up position.
On film cleaning could you give any advise as to how to clean old 8mm film that have been through a flood. i have about 10 5in reels of old 8mm b&w film from the 50's i believe and am wondering if it can still be cleaned and digitized after being in a flood.
Sorry about the flood. I never had to clean film that has been through that. If the film is totally stuck together and won't unroll without tearing up, then it's probably ruined. If it does unroll, then maybe the method I show in this video will be a good first try. But it may also be that you will want to apply a very minimal amount of lubricant on the film. You would need to research that. But I would caution you to be sure to do a few passes of the dry lens wipes to remove any excess of the lubricant so that doesn't end up sticking the film together. Again, research that. Maybe others have suggestions.
Thanks you for your great video. Are you using latest version of PowerDirector? Also when you crop & zoom to remove sprocket holes do you lose resolution?
There's another version ahead of me. I'll be upgrading early in 2020.
And regarding the crop & zoom, I don't believe any noticeable effect on the resolution, but nevertheless, it's what is necessary to maximize the image size. This is because the recorded image wanders slightly relative to the sprocket positions (probably due to mechanical inaccuracies in the camera, which is why I have to adjust with keyframes here and there as I showed in the demo. The alternative would be to zoom more on the initial scan and always result in less image.
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi I have found I get black bars on top/bottom and the sides of video by using the freeform crop. Is there any way to avoid the black bars top/bottom? I don't mind the black bars on side.
@@microheliaddict The Tools > Power Tools > Crop & Zoom actions shouldn't cause the top/bottom black bars, regardless of whether you use free form cropping. What you might check is this: Click on the video clip to highlight it. Then click on "Keyframe", open "Clip Attributes", and check that "Height" = 1.000. I suspect "Height" is less than 1.0 which would result in the black bars above and below. Also under Clip Attributes, check that for "Position", X = 0.5 and Y = 0.5, unless you intend to reposition the image. Good luck.
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi Thanks for reply. I found the height was under 1.0 under clip attributes. But when I change this to 1.0 it crops both sides off the video so ends up being same as selecting 4:3 in crop. I'm using PowerDirector 18 so not sure if something has changed in this version?
@@microheliaddict Verify that your project is set to 16:9 and not 4:3 by looking at the very top of your screen (File Edit View, etc.) See the little box third to the right of the save icon. If it says 4:3, click the drop-down arrow and change it to 16:9. If your project is indeed set to 16:9, then setting the clip attributes X, Y, Height, and Width won't change the Tools > Power Tools > Crop/Zoom > Freeform back to 4:3.
When setting the clip attributes, be sure you have the full clip set, not just at one point of the clip. That is, note that when you set the attribute, you are creating a Keyframe and giving it that value. Be sure you are at the beginning of the clip and set the Height to 1.000. If you see additional little diamonds later in the same clip, you might have them set to different values unintentionally. You can delete them if you don't need them (click on it, then right-click > remove) or change their values. Keyframes takes a bit to get to used to but they are a very powerful feature.
Has anyone tried to replace the image sensor? Even the 1080p version seems to have a very low quality sensor, like from a 15 year old cell phone. I'd love to buy one of these and upgrade the sensor with higher dynamic range and 4K resolution. The mechanism seems fine, but the quality leaves much to be desired due to the terrible image sensor.
Can you recommend a good video editing software John?
PowerDirector
Your info n demo are very helpful. My family is deciding the best method to transfer 8mm n super 8 to digital format. We may go Wolverine Pro if the ‘just project film on a sheet n videotape it’ doesn’t prove worthwhile. Ideas on that?
Nancy Needler I don’t understand your question. What does “if the ‘just project film on a sheet n videotape it’ doesn’t prove worthwhile” mean?
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi she was asking whether video taping a projector screen would be good enough compared to scanning.
I think we can both safely say that scanning is the better option.
@@AR7271 , thanks for checking back in. I wish you well.
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi thanks for the awesome video!
In the graphic the film has 8 sprocket holes per frame, it looks like it could be 8/70 (IMAX knockoff, used to be common with loop cabinets for theme park stuff) but the frames are too square.
Thanks so much for this video! I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but the machine sputters after advancing a few frames and turns the display off. The tension on the take up reel is so tight, I don't see how it could advance. What am I doing wrong? I cleaned the film, dusted the machine, advanced the film past the leader film, had no slack in the track, and it will still only advance a frame or so. I used Wolverine's 'wider film' troubleshooting FAQ and used paper to wedge the door a bit, but that had no effect. I also tried a different film that is about 10 years younger and a different brand to no avail. Might this be a motor issue? Thank you in advance!
Wow, really sorry to hear of this much difficulty. You probably need to consult with the manufacturer on this one. It sounds like you tried all the reasonable things but first just a couple of thoughts:
1. Test running the machine with the film going directly from the supply reel to the take up reel, completely bypassing the tray and posts to be sure it freely goes forward.
2. I don’t like that FAQ ‘wider film’ test that uses paper to wedge the door a bit because of the strain on the parts. But at least you tried it and can report that it didn’t help.
3. I have to ask, but are you sure you have it on the correct setting for the film type: 8mm vs. Super 8?
4. Is there anything unusual with the film, such as worn sprocket holes? It sounds like you tried several films and have likely positioned good, intact film in the tray, but just need to rule out a bad film.
Did you try to rewind the film first so that it is not as tightly wound? So basically use the rewind mechanism two times and then try it again.
I know this is an old post but I am getting into film scanning right now and that maybe one way to fix a tightly wound reel.
@@AR7271 Hi, it was the machine, not the reel. The film wasn't actually tightly wound. Thanks for the comment.
@@stephmaras ahh... that's too bad.
Sorry my comment didn't help!
I followed your advise at 2minutes and 10 seconds into the video and used rubbing alcohol with a lint free cloth to clean the video first. My transferred videos to MP4 are really "grainy". After the fact, I pulled out the user manual and it says to use a "Non Alcohol" lint free cloth to clean the film first, suggesting otherwise that you could damage the film and the machine. I find that hard to believe, but in any case my video is not turning out very good at all with all the grain, and I had better results filming the Super 8 films with a DLSR camera off from a projection screen. When running the film through the projector, they don't look anywhere near as grainy as using the Wolverine. Any thoughts??????
Bill, Very good question and I think I understand your dilemma.
Cleaning:
I doubt the graininess has anything to do with the cleaning. Go the B&H Photo website and read my review of the Wolverine Pro dated 8/21/2018, "Must-Know Tips on Cleaning Your Film before Scanning”.
Partial background on my summary of the part where I’m suggesting cleaning with a small spot of rubbing alcohol: I reviewed a number of sites suggesting various specialty film cleaning products. I contacted a supplier of one of the products and asked specifically what was the cleaning agent in that product. I was told that it was alcohol based.
On a 16mm film forum I found, extensive research that was done by the writer on film cleaning and lubrication was summarized. The writer, a professional working with films in both cleaning and lubrication, referenced a warning from Kodak against using any kind of alcohol as a film cleaner, claiming that it can soften the emulsion or base. But that same writer disagrees, saying “After five years of use [of rubbing alcohol] the Author has failed to ever experience any such result with Isopropyl Alcohol.” (Maybe soaking film in alcohol for a time would soften it, but the quick slight wipe we’re doing will not.) He also warned against allowing film to wind up on a wheel wet, that it would lead to the film getting stuck on itself and getting damaged. Thus, my cleaning recommendation to go easy with just a spot of the rubbing alcohol on the soft cloth, and do the repeat drying wipe.
Graininess:
In my B&H Photo review, I also commented that the old Kodachrome 8mm film from the 60's has retained its color much better than the Ektachrome Super 8 film of the early 80's. The two types of film had a very different developing process and I was very disappointed with some of the scans of the Ektachrome Super 8 films. Some of those films have all but lost some of their color dyes and I have concluded that the poor color tones have nothing to do with the Wolverine and everything to do with the stability of the film dyes over the decades. I’m wondering whether what you’re observing on the graininess is in part the degradation of the old film itself. I, like you, was very disappointed on the amount of film degradation I ran across in some of my films. Even in some of the old Kodachrome 8mm film from the 60's, but mostly the Ektachrome Super 8 film. It appeared to me that the film celluloid was breaking down, and that had nothing to do with cleaning.
I don’t know whether your films are Ektachrome or Kodachrome, but in any case, the relatively high-quality scan of each frame made by the Wolverine might make this individual material breakdown more visible than you would see in your analog method of conversion you’re doing by filming the Super 8 films with a DLSR camera off from a projection screen. I’ve attempted to reduce this video noise using NLE.
Regarding when running the film through the projector, that they don't look anywhere near as grainy as using the Wolverine, that’s interesting. Possibly due to the averaging effect on the frame images from the analog method of projection. Nice that you have a working projector. Just something to consider, keep a lookout for flicker caused by mismatch of frame rates between the projector and the DLSR camera. Also look for distortion of the images due to parallax. If your setup corrects for flicker and parallax, that’s very nice.
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi I'll check it out, thanks.
When the speed of the final product is reduced from 30 fps to 18 fps, how is that accomplished? Are 12 frames per second discarded? :)
Oh, boy! You ask a really tough question and there isn’t a simple or single way it’s done. And it’s not obvious, because the short answer is that one way is to add frames, not subtract. How many? It’s complicated. In the context of what we’re doing here, we are capturing (scanning) the frames of an old 8mm or Super 8 movie film and wanting to create a video that looks reasonably realistic in terms of the speed of motion. And for this discussion, I’m assuming you want to create a video from scanned frames from a Super 8 movie camera that will be played back at 29.97 fps (nominally 30fps).
The simple way of thinking about this is to recognize that the original camera theoretically shot those frames at 18 frames per second. So, since those 18 frames spanned the motion during one second of real time, then you need (approximately) 30 frames to display that same motion in one second of real time in your video. Since you cannot create interpolated frames, the software must add duplicates of existing frames (not subtract frames) if the .MP4 file output from the Wolverine scanner plays at a higher frame rate than the original camera that shot at 18fps. It is important to understand that we are not really changing frame rate but simply trying to match the original speed of motion. (More on that below.)
Based on your question, I’m assuming you’re using the Wolverine Film2Digital which outputs an .MP4 file that plays at 30fps. You may verify that the .MP4 file output from the Wolverine Film2Digital indeed plays at 30fps by right-clicking on the file > Properties > Details: it shows “Frame rate 30.00 frames/second”. Likewise, right-click on a Wolverine Pro .MP4 file > Properties > Details: it shows “Frame rate 20.00 frames/second”.
So, getting closer to your real question, if you have an .MP4 video file that is output from the original Wolverine Film2Digital model that plays at 30fps, then the software must add some duplicated frames for every second of playback time.
So, by way of example (since I’m no expert), I imported into PowerDirector an .MP4 file I had created using the Wolverine Film2Digital to scan a Super 8 film. It is important to know that the first thing done in PowerDirector is to map the imported file to the timeline which displays at 30fps. In this case, since the imported .MP4 file is also 30fps, the mapping is one-for-one on the frames. To prove this, I trimmed this video to a single second of a person walking at fast motion so it was easily verified when advancing this clip one frame at a time; every frame was different.
Then I went into Tools > PowerTools > Video Speed > Speed Adjustment > and set the Speed multiplier to 0.6. (Recall from the video that, in order to simulate the correct playback speed, the speed multiplier for this case is computed from 18fps/30fps = 0.6.) This extended the time duration from 1.0 second to 1 20/30 second; that is, PowerDirector added 20 frames. In this resulting clip of 50 frames, the duplicate frame pairs were 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8-9, 11-12, 13-14, 16-17, 18-19, 21-22, 23-24, 26-27, 28-29, 31-32, 33-34, 36-37, 38-39, 41-42, 43-44, 46-47, and 48-49. If I were to continue tracking successive 1-second intervals, the specific frames pairs might vary throughout the whole video but, on average, the adjusted speed appears to be correct because 1 20/30 second is 1.66667 second which is consistent with the multiplier of 0.6. That is, 1.0/0.6 = 1.66667.
In the case of the Wolverine Pro, which outputs an .MP4 file that plays at 20fps, then it’s even more complicated because of mapping the 20fps Wolverine Pro file onto the 30fps PowerDirector timeline. As a test, I took one of my scans of a Super 8 film, a Wolverine Pro .MP4 file that plays at 20fps, imported it into PowerDirector, and trimmed it to a clip of one second of time. I advanced the clip frame-by-frame to look for repeat frames. It turns out that since the imported clip that plays at 20fps is mapped onto the PowerDirector timeline at 30fps, the resulting frame-by-frame examination shows 10 duplicated frames. But remember, each frame on the timeline is only 1/30th of a second, not 1/20th second. For example, since 20fps is a slower playback, the first frame is still on display when PowerDirector is mapping to frame number 2 on the timeline, thus a repeat of frame 1. In this test case, the duplicate frame pairs in this 1 second (30 frames) were 1-2, 4-5, 7-8, 10-11, 13-14, 16-17, 19-20, 22-23, 25-26, and 28-29.
Then I went into Tools > … as above and applied a Speed multiplier of 0.9. (Recall from the video that, in order to simulate the correct playback speed, the speed multiplier for this case is computed from 18fps/20fps = 0.9.) This extended the time duration from 1.0 second to 1 3/30 second. In order to accomplish this, PowerDirector added 3 frames, but the total number of duplicated frames was 12. Those frame pairs in this case were 1-2, 2-3, 5-6, 8-9, 11-12, 12-13, 15-16, 18-19, 22-23, 28-29, 31-32, and 32-33. If I were to continue tracking successive 1-second intervals, this would likely vary throughout the whole video because, on average, a second on the original clip should be adjusted by the multiplier of 0.9, to 1.1111 second (i.e., 1.0/0.9). For example, successive seconds might be represented with 33 frames or 34 frames.
In summary, based on the above observations, I can say that, though I do not understand exactly how PowerDirector accomplishes all of these technical adjustments, it does appear to be a combination of mapping of an imported video clip to the timeline and insertion or deletion of frames to accommodate the desired speed changes.
You might find the following article interesting. Excerpting from "Frame Rates are Tricky Beasts":
larryjordan.com/articles/frame-rates-are-tricky-beasts/
Changing the speed of a clip is NOT the same as changing the frame rate.
1. Changing the speed of a clip always speeds up or slows down the action displayed in the clip by repeating or removing frames.
2. Changing the frame rate of a clip changes the number of frames passing an observer without changing the perceived speed of the action displayed by the clip.
Thank you immensely for this super informative explanation. I've read it five times already and will be back for more. Thanks again.
BadfingerFan OK, I just edited the above explanation to use the correct speed multiplier for the case of simulating the correct speed of a Super 8 clip exported by a Wolverine Film2Digital in a file that plays at 30fps.
Thank you
Is it possible to save each frame separately?
Not with the machine directly. But you can bring the file into PowerDirector and, before any editing of the time scale, make a picture of any frame you wish by clicking on the little camera icon above the timeline.
We were all crappy movie producers back then. Today, everyone is great at smart phone videos!
Why are all my file time lengths about 10 seconds or less? Also, what I ended up with was only the first part of the film being scanned, and even after going an entire hour on a large reel, it only scanned in the first part of the reel, and never warned me that it stopped recording. I did the same thing all through the scan, and it just failed to capture into the file.
I put in about 40 hours on this project.
I will now only scan in about a minute, and then check it in my computer to find out what the heck is wrong. Nothing on the scanner indicates that it is going to do this.
Also, why are all the files broken up into 5 to 10 second segments?
Good questions and sorry to hear of these problems. Never had those issues. Best to contact the manufacturer.
@@videocreationsbyjohnrenzi I believe it might be something with the SD card not making good contact I am now leaving the SD card in the unit and doing the transfers through USB and it seems like I'm recording longer. Of time
@@TimKaseyMythHealer Change SB card. Format with Wolverine.
Imo, I would stabilize first, then crop.
Good thought but as it turns out, it makes no difference in PowerDirector because even after doing the "Stabilize" in "Fix / Enhance" first, and then opening the "Tools > Power Tools > Crop/Zoom/Pan", you end up doing the crop operation on the raw full clip frame anyway. You even get the CyberLink PowerDirector message, "In the Crop/Zoom/Pan window, 3D mode is disabled and all applied effects are ignored." And if you choose to render and export the stabilized clip first, yes, some cropping is already done, but you would have no control over the amount of cropping of some edges. You might even have some edges cropped more than you want on this exported clip before you then conduct the subsequent cropping.
I bought 3 different Wolverine scanners over the years, never the 8mm/Super8 devices because I have thousands of feet of 16mm film to scan, can't afford the $4,000+ dollars they want from me to have them hi def scanned, frame by frame. WHEN IS WOLVERINE GOING TO PRODUCE A 16mm SCANNER?!?!? Thanks.
Is the heavy metal music nessary? Makes me think your for the big picture and miss the small stuff. The devil is in the detail.