Re-processing old 8mm movies

Doctor Keo

Newbie Location: Paphos, Cyprus Joined: May 25, 2014 08:07 Messages: 10 Offline

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Jun 29, 2014 08:00

I have several of my father’s old 8mm film which was put on DVD a long time ago – sadly the original film was destroyed. I would like to use the power of PD 12 to improve the video. Most of the video has serious camera shake. When the film was transferred to disk a date was put on about 90% down on the left hand corner, which of course ‘dances’ around if use the stabilizer. I am reluctant to crop the video to remove the date as proportionately I will lose so much of the video. Are there any solutions, without spending huge amounts on software, or am I just dreaming?
Thanks
Doctor Keo
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BarryTheCrab

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline

Jun 29, 2014 08:16

Is the date/time stamp a different color compared to most of the video content? Maybe you could chroma it out.
I did a tutorial of sorts showing a method I came up with to remove glare, it might help.
I suggest you could also blur out the stamp, while NOT stabilizing, produce a file, THEN you can stabilize, re produce, the blurred/altered stamp should then be less apparent as it jumps around.

The "TooTorial".
Removing a time stamp was always an idea for this, but I don't know if anybody ever tried it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jun 29. 2014 08:16

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Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Jun 29, 2014 10:09

Quote: I have several of my father’s old 8mm film which was put on DVD a long time ago – sadly the original film was destroyed. I would like to use the power of PD 12 to improve the video. Most of the video has serious camera shake. When the film was transferred to disk a date was put on about 90% down on the left hand corner, which of course ‘dances’ around if use the stabilizer. I am reluctant to crop the video to remove the date as proportionately I will lose so much of the video. Are there any solutions, without spending huge amounts on software, or am I just dreaming?
Thanks
Doctor Keo

How far does the date 'dance'?

An idea would be to stabilize the video, then produce the stabilized video.

Bring that video back to the timeline, put a color board the size of the 'dance'. Add the date back as a Title.
You would no longer have a transparent date but you would have a date that does not 'dance'.
And you would not have to crop the video. You would just lose the video under the Color Board.

Barry's solution works very well on the video he repaired. His result was amazing.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jun 29. 2014 10:15

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Doctor Keo

Newbie Location: Paphos, Cyprus Joined: May 25, 2014 08:07 Messages: 10 Offline

Jun 29, 2014 12:04

Hi, Thanks for your suggestions - I did watch Barry's video, but i can't see how I can apply that as the background changes so often - I seem to recall that the Super 8 (?) film was short and expensive - so maybe that is why each scene is short.

I have tried VirtualDub's Logoaway which seems to have some success - although I need to learn to use the setting on VirtualDub. I did try to upload the results of a ten second sample, but that failed (Maybe my Internet bandwidth)

Thanks

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