Herb Desind Cineroc movies
 

Hi, was into the hobby long ago and I met and flew w Herb. Whatever became of his cineroc reel? Did someone transfer to digital?
Many thanks
jz

He had them transferred to VHS a while back and they just weren't as much fun. When he was using the projector he did slow motion most of the time and would occasionally pause it to show a particular image. You can't do that with super 8 to VHS transfers due to the fact that its almost always blurry when slowed or paused because you stop the images between frames.

This is exactly correct. I have some Cineroc movies I made in the mid-late 90's and thought it would be a good idea to transfer to DVD. What you describe is my experience as well. The ability to flip through a movie frame-by-frame is what makes these films fun.

I really would like to get a couple of smallish prints made from some frames though. I know they will be grainy and I can't go crazy with the enlargement, but there are a few frames on a couple of films that are just spectacular. On one film I have the camera is looking right down the body tube as the parachute is being ejected. In about three frames you see the parachute and wadding being blown out the tube with this orange fireball right behind it. In another film (a two-stage flight) there is this really cool burst of flaming black powder chunks being blown away as the first stage drops. Its pretty awesome.

I had a digital VCR (a Toshiba that I bought on closeout at Sears I think) back in the late 80's that would freeze, variable slo-mo, even frame by frame, and fast forward and rewind, without the massive amount of fuzziness and "noise bars" at the top or bottom of the screen like a typical VHS would have... I used it to make some slo-mo videos of liftoff that I recorded... and to dub in the soundtrack from "Man's Greatest Adventure", narrarated by Orson Welles...

If the original film still exists, the "cleanest" transfer would be from 8mm direct to DVD... most large photography shops used to offer this service, or could ship it out to subcontractors who would... nowdays one would probably have to find someone online to do it.

If the original film isn't available, then a VHS to DVD transfer is still possible. DVD would allow for "slo mo" and still frames to be gathered without the distortion and noise present in the VHS tape format.

Later! OL JR :)

Well, the biggest problem is frame rate mismatch, or just frame mismatch. A Telecine is needed or frame-by-frame scanning to video. There is still a rate mismatch but at least one frame on the film is one frame on the video.

Devices to scan slides and film negatives are available. With today's cheap robotics and microcontroller technology, it should not be that difficult to automate a scan of Super-8 film.


Bill

Hi All, many thanks for the info, but is this cineroc film available somewhere? I read on an older blog that they were donated to NASA in Maryland and if you ask you can get a copy?? It's been so long.....
any thoughts?
Thanks
jz

A lot of places do it, Yale Film and Video (the place I got my Super 8 film processed) is one, Colorlab is another. Most charge around $100 an hour, some have setup charges.

Was that from one of your flights or mine? ;)

I was waiting for you to ask that because I can't remember. You can tell from the movie though, your two-stage flight went perfectly straight up and mine weathercocked a bit. You can tell which is which by the angle of the camera at apogee.

The movie that shows the parachute ejection and fireball is a single-stage flight I made at the County Grounds.

We should have a movie night and watch those films. I think my projector still works.