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  1. Member
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    Jan 2004
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    Hi,
    A friend of mine has finally talked Mom into giving him the family vintage footage (probably shot on a Hell and Bowell, circa 1960)...about 4 hours, on 30 or so small reels...He is considering various labs to scan/convert it for him...

    Any suggestions? Who's reasonable? Who's good? who's the best? who's the best and most reasonable?

    These labs have different levels of restoration? (at different levels of $, of course)...Whats prudent?

    Thanks in advance...
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  2. Member rkr1958's Avatar
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    Feb 2002
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    Huntsville, AL, USA
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    Last year, I used Wolf Camera to covert some 8mm footage from 1961 to Super VHS. I had four reels of ~15 minutes/each. The film had deteroriated and significant portions had faded on gone black. We were able to salvage about 15-minutes total. Even this was priceless. This flim contained some footage from Christmas 1961, when I was 3. My sister, who was 13 in 1961, was killed in a traffic accident in 1972. That footage was the first time since 1972 that I'd had seen her animated. I put the Super VHS footage to music on DVD, along with a slide slow with family pictures going back to 1910 and gave that to my Mom for Christmas. Anyway, I digress ...

    If it's just a few reels your friend needs converted I'd go with someone like Wolf Camera to convert from 8mm to Super VHS. To go from there to DVD I'd do that myself.
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  3. Master of Time & Space Capmaster's Avatar
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    Feb 2004
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    Originally Posted by bhbuckeye
    Hi,
    A friend of mine has finally talked Mom into giving him the family vintage footage (probably shot on a Hell and Bowell, circa 1960)...about 4 hours, on 30 or so small reels...He is considering various labs to scan/convert it for him...

    Any suggestions? Who's reasonable? Who's good? who's the best? who's the best and most reasonable?

    These labs have different levels of restoration? (at different levels of $, of course)...Whats prudent?

    Thanks in advance...
    This is also something I'm very interested in. I have reels of super-8 I shot as a kid, using a K-Mart Focal movie camera. And ...I still have a "Hell and Bowell" projector for it

    I've toyed with the idea of building a telecine to transfer to DV. Also, sending it to a lab to get it transferred to VHS, then just capping it myself.

    My problem is that I had done extensive editing ...you know the kind with the cutter and little pieces of tape. Well, they haven't survived all those years so well and require a tap on the projector's register lever to keep the film from jumping around in spots. It's a very dicey situation to play them.

    I'll be very interested to hear what advice is given here from members who have actually transferred 8mm
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  4. I just used a shop & they have a special machine to do it. They put it on vhs then & boy the quality sucks.

    Id probably use a dvd recorder, just film it on a white card with a camcorder, inputting into dvd recorder, which creates a dvd in real time.
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  5. Master of Time & Space Capmaster's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by handyguy
    I just used a shop & they have a special machine to do it. They put it on vhs then & boy the quality sucks.

    Id probably use a dvd recorder, just film it on a white card with a camcorder, inputting into dvd recorder, which creates a dvd in real time.
    Basically a homemade telecine I was thinking about building a little wooden box with a small projector screen and a hard mount for a camcorder ...basically the same thing you're suggesting. Problem is I don't own a camcorder and I'm not sure I would spend $300 for one just to transfer a few reels of film. But if I ever do, I'll be happy to do transfers for folks here that are in the same boat
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  6. Member
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    Oct 2002
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    Texas
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    I have the equipment and can do a quality job on this type of work. I have a website where you can see examples of my work. If you are interested, PM me. Take care.

    Labrat
    THOSE WHO DO NOT LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT
    - George Santanyana -
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