How to Digitize old 8mm movie film?

[preni1]

Hi,

I have a vast collection of very old movies taken by my grandfather and father on 8mm film. I want to digitise this stuff and tranfer archive to VCD. Can anyone give me any help on how the old movie film can be captured to a avi file or meter still a reasonable good MPEG-1 for VCD.

Thanks
preni

[resnullius]

Well the easiest way is to pay someone to do it, there are severl places who do such in most cities. an other way is getting a projector, a dv cam, and a transfert unit(i've seen some on ebay)...
you'll most likely get a better quality from getting it done professionnaly and it doesn't cost that much...
hope that helps

[kitty]

Do a forum search on this topic - you'll see more answers.

Most involve a professional transfer or

Buy a variable rate projector
Get a camcorder
Adjust frame rate just right
Film projected movie
Convert tape to digital

[smchgait]

Hi

it´s not cheap to digitize the movie with the help of professionals.
You never know how good they do their job.

The idea of filming the projected movie is not so good, as you will get bad quality.

Buy a film scanner ( an ordinary one) and scan each picture of the film roll. You need a programm, that creates an AVI File out of the pictures.
Search the internet. There must be programs which can do this.
Instead of a film scanner you can use a normal scanner, but then it takes a long time to process one movie.
Virtual Dub only can save a image sequence from an AVI file and not the opposite.

look under this links, there is very interesting content.

www.film-restoration.com
http://diamant.joanneum.ac.at/
http://www.vcpc.univie.ac.at/activities/projects/FRAME/
http://iis.joanneum.ac.at/iis/default_Eng.asp

bye Christian

[kitty]

With thousands of feet of film that would take, politely, a long time yes?

[fravel]

You'll need:
- A video camera
- A multiplexer (probably with a flickering gate)
- An 8mm movie projector
The video camera will go to one side of the multiplexer and the projector at the other. Radio Shack used to sell simple multiplexers for 8mm movies. I don't know if they carry them anymore.
After you capture your film on tape, you can read the rest on the How To/Capture section at your left.
For more information try to contact skittelsen thru e-mail (look for his e-mail, he is a moderator here). Probably, he can help you more.
Good Luck!