Is there anything I can do to reset the green tint value? It's stuck so far one way and will not move or adjust either way anymore.
Modding the Kodak Reels 8mm Film Digitizer (Firmware Hack)
- Thread starter Mac84
- Start date
It works with 32GB cards, standard FAT32 formatting. The histogram fails on 64GB, I will have to look into that next.
Your example footage didn't look particular green to me. The green tint is the middle value.
256 is neutral. 114 minimum, 368 maximum.
I'm no professional. I take an old cotton hankerchief which does not have lint and swap isopropanol on it. I have to renew every one or two minutes the liquid on an other part. I use an old Super 8 viewer which has a hand crank so I can make the speed I like.
If you look at the attachment on post 704, that is what my footage currently looks like. When trying to adjust the left and right rockers, it no longer adjusts the green tint either way. It seems to be completely stuck where it is. I'm sorry for being ignorant,
edit: I have re-attached the file to this post. You can see it is heavily tinted green. Also if you go to the minute mark in this youtube video you can see the buttons have no effect anymore. I know i'm only hitting the right arrow, but the left arrow also no longer has an effect
I can confirm that all the values went back to default. Having the numbers on the screen really helps!
I'm so lucky with this settings. It's working fine to me and I'm so thankful that you have invested so much effort. This software should be delivered with all of the new sold scanners ...
Thank you very much
I now use EV 2 and with the color settings using the histogram I can individually tune the white on every film.
Now I start to scan a bigger reel of around 200 feet and after that a much bigger one. I'm courios if the smal little lines will appear on the screen, hopefully not.
I did not get a chance to do any captures last night, I was only able to flash the new FW and get the film set up. I feel like there has been so many new additional settings added, can we get a description or cheat sheet of What new features and functions there are and how they affect the image? @Mac84 can @0dan0 get his own pinned post that he can regularly update?
The changes are documented in the boot screen messaging.
V6.9 adds: Exposure stats (to the LCD), Green Tint < or > (buttons) and EV bias + or - buttons in capture.
Can you confirm if it is after 16384 frames (15m10s at 18fps)? If so that is an easy fix.
I have an update. I was scanning a reel with 6.9c firmware and I could not get any color into the image. When I looked down at the film with the light behind it I could clearly see color, I decided to go back to stock fw 2.0 to see if I could see a difference and I could! There was actually color In the image. I made sure I had everything set at default in 6.9c. sorry for the paragraph I'm on mobile. I've attached photos.
EDIT: I ran some additional tests, and confirmed that the issue is apparent in the type c model firmwares (at least on my unit) I have tested version 6.3, 6.6 and 6.9. When I flash back to the MAC84 2.0 FW i get accurate color to the frame showing in the viewfinder.
EDIT: I ran some additional tests, and confirmed that the issue is apparent in the type c model firmwares (at least on my unit) I have tested version 6.3, 6.6 and 6.9. When I flash back to the MAC84 2.0 FW i get accurate color to the frame showing in the viewfinder.
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So excited to see ongoing development from 0dan0, with feedback from others here. I wish I had the time to commit toward testing these improvements. Hoping that in December I can re-scan the family film collection so my parents, aunts, uncles, and other family can see this material in glorious high definition.
I’ve been recently screening some previous scans (using Mac84s firmware) with some mild-to-moderate de-noised footage (and artificial grain added back in). Now I’m leaning toward skipping the denoise.
Anyways, on the topic of physically cleaning the film before scanning, I will share that I’ve generally benefited from cleaning with Film Guard. I put some on a pec pad and pinch top and bottom sides of film while running through a hand crank (attached to an old viewer). Doesn’t take very long, and helped to remove a lot of dust/dirt. Only occasionally did this cleaning result in a form of minor damage (small number of blue vertical streaks). After some research into this issue I landed on the idea that these were emulsion scratches from long ago (they were faint streaks before cleaning), and then my cleaning removed most of the flaky/loose emulsion where the film had been long ago scratched, leaving just some blue streaks. They weren’t horrendous and only occurred on a very, very small percentage of all the footage. The benefit of cleaning was worth the risk in my case.
Some of these cleaning techniques would break old splices and I’ve had to learn how to re-attach with press tape but I may redo those with cement for better longevity amidst various cleaning solutions.
Also, for some 70+ year-old film that have suffered from curling/warping (won’t lay flat and typically not advance through the machine) I am trying a year-long soak in Film Renew liquid to allow it to (hopefully) flatten back out and successfully scan. Will probably need to re-wind them and re-soak further). I even researched various curling irons to help flatten them but the heat seems dangerous and the process is not scalable for how many feet of film needs flattening.
I’ve been recently screening some previous scans (using Mac84s firmware) with some mild-to-moderate de-noised footage (and artificial grain added back in). Now I’m leaning toward skipping the denoise.
Anyways, on the topic of physically cleaning the film before scanning, I will share that I’ve generally benefited from cleaning with Film Guard. I put some on a pec pad and pinch top and bottom sides of film while running through a hand crank (attached to an old viewer). Doesn’t take very long, and helped to remove a lot of dust/dirt. Only occasionally did this cleaning result in a form of minor damage (small number of blue vertical streaks). After some research into this issue I landed on the idea that these were emulsion scratches from long ago (they were faint streaks before cleaning), and then my cleaning removed most of the flaky/loose emulsion where the film had been long ago scratched, leaving just some blue streaks. They weren’t horrendous and only occurred on a very, very small percentage of all the footage. The benefit of cleaning was worth the risk in my case.
Some of these cleaning techniques would break old splices and I’ve had to learn how to re-attach with press tape but I may redo those with cement for better longevity amidst various cleaning solutions.
Also, for some 70+ year-old film that have suffered from curling/warping (won’t lay flat and typically not advance through the machine) I am trying a year-long soak in Film Renew liquid to allow it to (hopefully) flatten back out and successfully scan. Will probably need to re-wind them and re-soak further). I even researched various curling irons to help flatten them but the heat seems dangerous and the process is not scalable for how many feet of film needs flattening.
What do the scans look like, overexposed?
Those images look very overexposed at the source, in the film tray and on the LCD. Histogram shows the overexposure. Try a different section as Type C firmware is working fine.
Here is mine Type C with the same ISO 100, 2047us exposure.
I can see it is blow out, as you shows the image is a bright as the sprocket holes
This is more what the film should look like:
That is correct. Just at reaching 16384 ( 14 bit ).
At frame 16504 the black stripes appear. Not on display but in the file. From this point on they are at every frame.
Correction : 16385 the first of 5 stripes, then 10 frames without, then another 5 with stripes, 10 without, 5 with and so on ...
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I do agree that the scene is overexposed which is causing for a somewhat blown out image. However, I am leaving the film in the tray untouched and I can switch back and forth between the firmwares without touching any settings and the difference in color that is available between the stock and 6.9 is pretty evident.
I'm currently driving, when I get back in front of my computer I will see if I can upload some sample footage between the two
Here is my side by side. The 0dan0 custom FW recording is on left and the MAC84 FW on the right, I feel that this is the closest i was able to getting color in these overexposed frames. You can see later in the video it does a much better job with the color and matches the right side more. With the MAC84 firmware, I am able to see more color in the overexposed frames. Maybe i'm just not cut out for all the manual settings in the custom fw lol. There are some nice frames at the very end you can compare