How To Transfer 8mm film to DVD

Surprisingly, Costco just offered this service for about $20.00

Then use MPEG Streamclip is extract the video if you want.

If you don't have a Costco, google film to DVD for pricing.

do you have a 8mm camera?

It seems Costco is using this company: http://www.yesvideo.com/ The Costco logo is even on their homepage. The description of the two services is identical.

The Costco price is much cheaper. $19.99 for the first 200 feet and $.12 per foot after that (from a brochure I just got today at the warehouse). The YesVideo MSRP is $29.99 for the first 50 feet and $.16 per foot after that. Quite a difference.

I heard you could simply play the film onto a screen and retape it onto modern video by cropping the new camera. Mini DV tapes are standard professional until soon enough large capacity SDHC Flash memory cards become available. Canon just released their new camcorder http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&mo delid=16186#ModelFeaturesAct using the Flash cards. The future is NOW!

If you just bought an 8mm camera you may as well spring for a projector. I've shot 16 mm film off a screen with a camcorder and edited it without problems. The cheap and dirty but it served its purpose. A feature that the projector had that helped was a speed control.

Adequate Machinery but seems like if I set up a projector in a dark room and showed the video all I would have to do is point my new camera at it>crop it> and whalla! Piracy at its best. Of course the owner is rerecording with permission. So what IS the difference here?

You are going to have a serious frame rate interference. If you want your work to look like 'someone pointed a video camera at a playing film', that will work, otherwise, you need to find a way to match frame rates. This is what the better telecine processes will do.

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You want to look to be sure that they do an actual frame by frame capture. I would suspect that at 12cents/foot they do not. Also it really helps if they can noise filter it at the source. I just had this done for over 1600 feet of old 8mm film. If you don't get frame by frame capture the end result can look even worse than the old 8mm. For a true frame by frame capture it is not as simple as simply video recording a movie projected on the screen. They place I had it done synchronizes the recording camera to the projector. As mentioned, you will need to run all the captures through streamclip to make a .dv movie so FCP can import.

My company transfers all types of films to dvd..

please visit www.realistvideo.com

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YesVideo claims to be synchronizing the film rate to video. Its explained here: http://www.yesvideo.com/services/filmtodvd/default.aspx

The downside for me is the DVD format which obviously is designed to be the final product and not re-edited. But for the amateur film I want to transfer, its probably good enough, and cheap enough.

Start looking at links from this site:

http://www.moviestuff.tv/

As people are alluding to above, you'll have to decide how pristine of a transfer you want. I would advise looking into local companies if you're in a decent sized town/city. Then you don't have to worry about where your film will be or go to. Discuss the techniques used with the proprietor. I was able to find a company in Maryland that did a terrific job with stuff going back to the 30s using equipment from Moviestuff. The main thing to keep in mind is that you should NOT attempt to run the films through a normal projector that has a full-brightness bulb, which can result in your film getting cooked instantly due to their age. Also, a quote from one transfer site regarding home projection:

"The films are subjected to the harsh pull-down claw mechanism of a projector that may or may not be in good working order. The films of the participants may leave dirt and debris in the projector that will scratch the subsequently projected films." (see http://www.bonofilm.com/super8reality.asp)

--JV

Message was edited by: jvolino

The first 8mm & Super8 transfers I did about a half-dozen years ago were done with a projector, screen and camcorder. That method works best if the projector has a variable speed control to sync the film speed to the tape speed. Otherwise, you'll get the flicker effect. Well, even with variable speed you'll get a flicker, but, with practice adjusting the projector speed, it can be minimized to where it's not even noticeable.

Then, then you can never get perfect perfect focus because the camcorder cannot be positioned exactly perpendicular to the projected image. Finally, there's the hotspot on the screen from the projector bulb.

The end product using that method wasn't up to my quality standard, so I did purchase a CineMate-15 from MovieStuff (see jvolino's post above.) All I can say is that everything MovieStuff claims its units can do -- they do. No flicker, no hot spot, and the image is in sharp focus corner to corner. Works perfectly with a Mac. (You have to buy the Mac software from another site, but that's all explained at the MovieStuff site.)

Tom T