8mm movies to DV to SVCD

[Bree]

Does anyone have any first hand experience with a REPUTABLE and RELIABLE outfit that will convert old 8mm movies to miniDV video? I eventualy want to convert them to SVCDs but want them initially in DV format for quality archive purposes.

[alucard2050]

i guess 8mm is the films that i have. real small reels of film. no sound. there is a local company where i live that can convert them onto dvd or vhs. somewhere in the range of 50 bucks for 45 min. i have like 10 hours worth. i am keeping an eye open for a machine that can play the film with an out port on it so i can plug it into my vid card. it would be nice to do...

[waldok]

Hi Bree,

If you have inputs enabled on you dv camcorder, you can do this by plugin the analog output of your 8mm camcorder to the analog input of the DV cam (Canon MV400i) if it has one.

Otherwise, you don't need to go through DV to produce great SVCDs from your 8mm tapes. Just capture and MPEG-encode your 8mm material.
To do this, I'm using Ulead DVD movie factory (based on the Ligos MPEG encoder) : I capture from my 8mm source, edit if necessary and generate SVCD with menus and chapters.
Great tool and quality is really OK.

I hope this helps.

Waldok.

[EricB]

I think Bree is talking about 8mm film, not 8mm tape. The conversion companies charge quite a bit to do this process. My understanding is that you can get very good results by projecting onto a small screen (plain paper on a wall) and taping it with your DV camcorder. If you don't have an 8mm projector, you can probably buy or rent one for much less than the conversion costs.

[Tommy]

I've seen a tape that was transfered with a small screen, projector and camcorder. I can't say the quality was great, but considering what the original looked like it was pretty impressive. The only "problem" i noticed is that you can hear the projector running in the background.

[Nelson37]

use white or silver screen, dark room, lo-light on camera, angle as close as possible, experiment w/settings, turn sound off. you can capture direct to HD, run a noise filter, add audio etc. results were fair, at best, but professionally done was too expensive for 10-15 reels.

[waldok]

Oooops ! My mistake. Sorry about this, It's just that here in France, 8mm very often refers to camcorder tapes (at least as far as I know).

I'm happy you found some good advice anyway !

Good luck.

Waldok

[Shannafey]

The problem with shooting it off the wall with a camcorder is a framerate issue. 8mm is 18fps, video is 30fps. You will have a flicker in the picture no matter how hard you try. A professional service will use a telecine that will match the framerate and eliminate that flicker, but if you are looking for cheap, camcorder and wall are the only way to go. That's how I did mine. I am somewhat happy with it, but it would be nice to have it professionally done in the future. Maybe when I get a DVD writer.