Building a film scanner

[Evit]

For the really low budget basically the only real limit is to find a 35mm projector. Can you be more specific about the "broken"? When buying a broken projector is there anything that we need to avoid and/or features to look for?

[BronzeTitan]

Well, what I have already outlined *is* the cheap version, for between two and three thousand dollars or so you will get identical results to the forty thousand euro  Muller HDS+ film scanner (http://www.filmfabriek.nl), and similar results to the $100,000 ScanStation.

That's awesome!     Guess I should just step on a bank for a few gold bars (I'm sure they won't mind that from a 10-story bronze titan).

But for the really low budgets (under a grand) ... that is still worth bothering with ... will give close to professional level results for around $700 if you shop around and scrounge. ... but the camera and lens and light source are where the quality is.

Sounds like an excellent starter (to test & work things out)!      Thanks again!

[poita]

All you need is for the film transport to be working.
i.e. for the film to be able to move through the projector.
You don't need the lamphouse (light) or the lens, or the shutter, or any of the readers etc. You really just need for the gears and sprockets and gate to be working.

For the really low budget basically the only real limit is to find a 35mm projector. Can you be more specific about the "broken"? When buying a broken projector is there anything that we need to avoid and/or features to look for?

[Evit]

With working transport is it possible also to add optical audio capture? What is the needed equipment and how much would that cost.
Again, thanks so much for this guide Poita.

[poita]

Optical audio capture can be done in software, using free tools, so the extra cost is zero dollars.

[Evit]

I hear there are still a lot of limitations to that method, mainly the resolution of the scan that has to be very high to begin with. Does it work just as good with sensors that are not 4k? While I can settle for ~2k video (or even less) instead of 4k, I wouldn't want a bad audio output.

I'm checking now the AEO-Light manual and it says

"The frequency response of an input file will depend in large part on the number of pixels in the sound track region available for analysis. In general, the lower the scan resolution, the lower the frequency response."

There is no further information on what's low and how it compares with a regular optical audio capture.

[poita]

I have no issues with Audio at 2K with a good sensor, it sounds the same as 4K to me.
Otherwise the other option is to capture sound from a working projector by running the output from the sound amplifier to a PC and recording it in realtime.
The optical audio is often not great anyway, so if available the sound is far better from another source (DTS discs, DVD or LD audio etc.)
AEO Light is only one of the software options out there.

[Evit]

I'm happy to hear that 2K is still a workable resolution because in many cases the optical audio from 35mm film is the only source available besides terrible VHS tapes in mono! With the B-movies I dabble in that's often the case.

If, eventually, you will want to add a section of the guide dedicated to all the software options available... I'll be very happy. For now I'm looking for a projector with working transport so optical audio capture is the last of my worries but definitely not the least.

[DoomBot]

There is a project in development called OSIRes that is based on AEO but far superior to it. I have no idea when it'll be ready for the public to try it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1DyNa7scwg

https://forums.kinograph.cc/t/the-missin...are/134/43

[poita]

Yes, there are multiple programs out there for audio.

I'm going to be focusing on image capture for this, as there are a ton of different ways to handle audio.