How do I convert 8 mm movies to iMovie

Are you referring to 8mm film or 8mm digital tape?

You take it to a service company and pay them to convert it to digital.

I just went through this. Here is what I did:

1. I used YesVideo (yesvideo.com). Ship the film reel to them.

2. They'll xnsfer to DVD *and* put the video in their digital proprietary format (aka - a digital library). Note: The reason I used them is b/c they made it easy to share my "video library" of converted videos so that other family members can buy DVDs of the converted movies directly from YesVideo without me having to be the middle man.

NOTE: YesVideo is NOT a service that xnsfers from 8mm file directly to an h264 mp4 digital file format. Their business is primarily around creating DVDs; the "digital file" they create of your film in your YesVideo library is not in a format that you can do anything with...it is primarily for viewing purposes only. In order to get my footage into a mac-friendly digital file, I had to do a second step.

3. YesVideo then mailed me back my 8mm film and my copy of the DVD containing my converted video.

4. I then used a mac DVD-to-MP4 converter and then imported that h264 mp4 into iPhoto and iMovie. This step was free.

DVD is "standard definition" and all new machines and most TV's can now do "high definition".

If I were spending money (lots of it, by the way) I'd ask about converting them to an HD format. Even 720 is ten times better than SD video.

Agreed all around. I wasn't aware you could "upscale" an 8mm file or VHS tape to HD format (when it isn't HD to begin with). Regardless, the end result I have is a pretty decent quality to my untrained eyes.

Agreed all around. I wasn't aware you could "upscale" an 8mm file or VHS tape to HD format (when it isn't HD to begin with). Regardless, the end result I have is a pretty decent quality to my untrained eyes.

Actually, 8mm film is a higher resolution than VHS tape. Therefore it may make some sense to do an HD transfer from 8mm film. There is no point of going from VHS to high definition. Making a standard definition DVD from VHS is the normal procedure.