8 mm Film Conversion

[Dsherm112]

I have rolls of 8 mm film from the 70's. I have transferred my tapes to DVD. Is there a way for a do-it-yourselfer to convert film to DVD?

Thanks,

Sherm

[dcsos]

You need a device called either
a TELECINE FILM CHAIN or FILM-TO-TAPE or DATA CINE

very expensive at the pro end

Elmo used to make an 8mm telecine transfer machine. They show up on ebay from time to time. They usually sell for $1500 to $2000

Goko used to make a Telecine Player model TC-20. There are 8mm and Super 8mm models. You can pick these up on ebay too. They usually sell for $1000 to $1400


then you take the video out and go into an analog capture board

[Dsherm112]

I guess I'll check with the commercial converters.

Thanks,

Sherm

[mkelley]

Actually you can do it yourself with very nearly the quality (and mostly the same techniques) as small converter shops.

Unless they have a true synced to shutter projector (which cost upwards of $50K) most shops merely project the film directly onto a CCD and just adjust the film speed to deal with sync issues. You do the same thing by getting a variable speed projector (you can pick one up used at a garage sale often for less than $50) and just slightly detuning it downwards while watching your video screen (project onto a white sheet of paper or cloth with your camera as close as possible to the lens of the projector to avoid keystoning).

If you can't find a variable speed projector you can often just slow the film down by holding your hand lightly on the feed reel, but note this may strain both the film as well as the projector -- not recommended for heavy usage but good in a pinch.

If you're going to have your film done commercially make sure you get a quality house that will use techniques to give your film better treatment than you can give it -- this will usually cost a minimum of $100 per half hour of film. Anything less and they are just doing what you can do yourself.

[housepig]

there is also the super masochist method, if you have a scanner and a lot of time to kill.

there's a program called 8mm2avi where you scan in strips of film, the software determines the frame borders and makes an avi out of the strip.

again... if you have a scanner that will do film, no money and lots of time, this might be an option... otherwise, go with Mkelley's advice.

[DivXExpert]

What about a film scanner? Wouldn't that prove best for quality?

[housepig]

What about a film scanner? Wouldn't that prove best for quality?

well yeah, that's called Telecine, they run your film through a high-quality scanner and put it into digital form.

last price quotes I saw for that is around $300 per hour.

if you do it yourself with a film scanner, you're going to have to cut every frame out by hand, and assemble them into a contiguous video file.

that's all 8mm2avi is doing - except with that, you can adjust a square marker around the first frame, and around the last frame, and it will automatically find the intermediate frames, cut them out and sequence them into an avi.

it's still a tedious, time consuming method. The estimate that sticks in my head from their website was 45 minutes of scanning, setup and processing time for every 15 seconds of film.

[DivXExpert]

How fast is a telecine? A pro one, not a do it yourself thing.

[housepig]

as far as I know, it's close to realtime... basically the film is passing across a specialized scanner.