8mm Tapes - How do I ...?

[MrBobFloyd]

Hi, a friend of mine has just given me an 'old' 8mm tape from her dead camcorder - it's got some stuff she wants to keep and I've been asked to put it on DVD. Besides buying a 8mm camcorder to play the tape is there anyother way of doing this e.g. cheap 8mm video player with a FW connection ??? I really don't know. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

[thecoalman]

A deck will probably cost you just as much as a camcorder, I know the mini-dv decks are ridiculously priced. Try and find a used camcorder.

BTW if by old you mean HI-8 tapes some digital-8 camcorders will play them, additionally you won't even need a capture card. Just hook the cam up via firewire to your computer.

[kimco52]

A Digital 8 will also play regular 8.
Bottom line is that you will need to have something to play the 8mm tape. If you don't have one, ask around. Someone you run into is bound to have one. If not, there are businesses that will do it for you.

[SingSing]

For one tape, and you don't own 8mm camcorder/player, you should advise her to send it to a local store like Ritz to get it convert. It makes more sense than buying equipment for just one tape.

[ZAPPER]

For one tape, and you don't own 8mm camcorder/player, you should advise her to send it to a local store like Ritz to get it convert. It makes more sense than buying equipment for just one tape.

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!


Now for the disclaimer.
I don't know what quality or services a shop will do, so it would be interesting to investigate and explore all of the options. Final format/compression, editing, packaging and so on?

[classfour]

If they can get a decent conversion to DVD elsewhere: Let them do it. Offer to make any added copies, and/or professionally author the conversion (menus, cover art, etc.).

I doubt they want to help you pay for a Digital 8 player or camcorder.

If you think you'll have tons of other requests, and it's an investment in the future - buy a Digital 8 camcorder: At least you'll get to record on it if you want to.

[MrBobFloyd]

Crikey Guys!! I wasn't expected such feedback - great stuff. Some really good ideas there especially getting someone else to do it thanks again, really appreciate it.

[handyguy]

Just buy one on ebay, they are cheap.

[ZAPPER]

So...I was just curious and I looked at the website for Ritz, not much help there. So I called the Help number at the website and I think I got a help desk in some far away land. Before I thought, I gave them my phone number (I am going to be one pissed off MFer if I ended up on a call list!) The yo-yo on the phone didn't know right off of the top of his head and asked me to hold, I said you only have a few seconds and I hung up after about a minute (I don't do hold or voice mail very well, it gives me too much time to think about how to kill stupid people)


So I called a local Wolf photo shop (Samething as a Ritz) The guys there have always put up with me just browesing and asking stupid questions before. At any rate he didn't know any of the detils about the program or compression that they used, just that they had a machine that did it. $30 for two hours of tape to one disk, $15 each additional disk. No editing.



I am sure that there are services out there that will do just exactly what you want done with your video footage, but the search for them is up to you.

I am thinking that VH might consider posting/reveiwing some of these video transfering services

[edDV]

Be aware that some of the cheaper range of Digital8 camcorders do not have the analog 8mm/Hi8 playback capability. Check the specs before you buy.

Also look for the analog capture (aka "analog pass through") feature available on some models.

[kimco52]

Yes, Ritz has this service. There is also a big video store in San Francisco that does transfers all the time. I forget the name right now. However, as previous ones have stated, you can look around and find places, usually camera or video stores, that offer the service. As I said earlier, you need to find someone (some place) that will do it for you. The $30 sounds about what I have seen from differing sources.

That is fine for all of us in the USA. However, the original poster asking the question is in the U.K. I believe, however, that you can find similar services over there. You just need to look for them. It may be just down the street from you but you don't know it because you haven't looked for it.

[theewizard]

wasn't there an adapter available at one time for playing these tapes in a VHS unit

in which case the tape could be played and the video output of the VHS used to feed the capture device attached to your PC, or into your DVD recorder

just last week I was given an 'ELMO Astron movie ECR-8S' 8mm movie camera' I assume it's Analog because of the age

camera , 3 batteries, the manual, tapes, and the combo charger power & AV adapter box,

the gift came from the widow of a friend, and i'm going to sort the tapes and transfer some video to DVD for the family

I ended up in ths thread because i was doing a little research

[thecoalman]

wasn't there an adapter available at one time for playing these tapes in a VHS unit

You're thinking of adapters for VHS-C tapes, they are just really small VHS tapes. The tape is still read the same way a regular VHS would be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS-C

[theewizard]

thanks for the reply, sorry about my faulty memory

never owned a camcorder until last week,

built my first computer in 1982, I know a lot more about PC's than i do video cameras