frame scanning Archives - DVD Conversions

Transfer of negative 16mm film from Spitfire camera

It’s not often we get to work on something as historically significant as this – 16mm film circa 1940’s shot from the wing of a Spitfire MK V during air-to-air training.

This job was a bit of a challenge as all the film clips were not wound on reels and in some cases the film strips were very short, only a few seconds worth of images.
We added new acetate leaders between the short lengths and spliced the various short pieces together to form a single length of film. To prevent unnecessary handling of the film we scanned as is, in a single pass through our scanner. Once scanned we used our AVID Media Composer software to get the film back to the way it should be. In some cases we had to invert the image (L to R and top to bottom), reverse the direction and invert from negative to positive.

Below is the information provided by our customer.

This film was shot using a ‘G45’ 16mm film camera shooting B&W film at 20 frames/sec mounted in a Spitfire Mk V. The Spitfire was taking part in in an air-to-air gunnery course, Course 66, at the Central Gunnery School, RAF Catfoss, East Yorkshire, UK, in June 1945, prior to the pilot being sent to fight in the aerial war against Japan.
Air-to-air targets during the course included ‘drogues’ (large windsocks towed behind an aircraft), bombers e.g. Wellingtons and other Spitfire Mk V aircraft.

Customer feedback.

Thanks. Very well done indeed managing to get all those scraps copied. I have just gone through and watched them all, and the quality of the conversion, especially with 80 yr-old film, is much better than I anticipated. Really good. Before I found you at, I rang around a number of organisations big and small who said they couldn’t convert the film, offering various excuses like not having double sprocket film handling. Maybe they didn’t want the responsibility of dealing with old film?

The images are taken from the 16mm film.

A challenging and rewarding job, history preserved and above all – a very happy customer!

What’s the best method for transferring film?

In this post we will discuss the different methods of converting film and touch on some of their disadvantages.

There are basically 3 different methods of film transfer.

Point and Shoot
Telecine
Frame scanning

Point and Shoot

The point and shoot method is the most basic. This method involved setting up a projector and screen and filming the image directly from the screen. This is a very clumsy method as it’s near impossible to get the camera and projector correctly aligned, and due to variations in frame rate between film (24fps or less) and video (25fps for PAL and 30fps for NTSC) it is likely that there will be black bars scrolling through the picture. This phenomenon is caused by the stroboscopic effect or differences in speed between the projector shutter and camera shutter speeds. Some video cameras (generally the semi pro cameras) have the ability to adjust the shutter speed which minimized this problem. A lot of resolution is lost using this method.

Telecine

The Telecine method is similar in concept to the point and shoot method. The major difference being that the camera and projector are aligned in such a way that the projector projects directly into the lens of the camera. A series of lenses invert the image. There are similar issues to the point and shoot method in that there are speed differences between the two devices and this also leads to black bars and incorrect film speeds. Resolution is slightly higher than the point and shoot method depending on what camera or imaging device is used.

Frame Scanning

The frame scanning method is by far the best option when compared to the above. Frame scanners scan each individual frame and the accompanying software reconstructs the individual frames into a video clip. This method allows you to output a file at the frame rate the film was initially shot at and also totally eliminates the stroboscopic effect. There are numerous other advantages to frame scanning as the film is transported through the machine by direct drive servo motors, there is no other mechanical handling of the film, no claws or sprockets which could damage the film. In addition a cold light source (LED) eliminates the risk of burn through.

DVD Conversions specialize in frame by frame scanning of the following film formats.

Regular 8 Film.
Super 8 Film.
9.5mm Film.
16mm Film.

There are a lot of film scanners available however very few can scan at Full HD (1920 x 1080P). Our scanner scans film at 1920 x 1080 and outputs files up to 1080P resolution.

We can offer file types such as