Old Super 8 reels to DVD??

[Rudyard]

I am trying to help my father in law convert his old super 8 reels to DVD. My dad got his converted to VHS (which i have since put to DVD) about 15 years ago and he said he watched the bloke do it and all he did was use a video camera to record the projector screen of the old super 8 projectors whilst it was playing!!

I looked at the old projector and there is no video out or anything like other more modern equipment.

How exactly would you get the picture of these things? Is the way my Dad got his done the only way in which case I could set up a camcorder and just record it or is there a better way?

If I paid someone to do it, would they video it like my Dads or is there special equipent with outputs on it??

Thankyou for any help.

[redwudz]

You are probably a lot better off having a professional do it, but here's a discussion thread on the subject: https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=222267&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

[stantheman1976]

The easy way of doing it at home is to just project the movies onto a screen and record that shot with a camcorder. There is a more professional way of doing it with a telecine machine which reads the cells and prints them directly to another medium. If you choose this method you need to let a professional service handle it because the TC machines are expensive and probably not worth investing in unless you plan on converting a BUNCH of movies or doing it professionally yourself. There are also some simpler machines on eBay that you point the projector into one end and the camera into another and record that way. Not sure if those work well, but they are realtively inexpensive.

[handyguy]

Pros use machines that do it frame by frame.

[greymalkin]

i've got one of those little boxes you point the projector at and record with your camcorder if you live near Houston, TX you can use it :P.

You could manually scan each frame and put it together but that would take aLOT of time and be quite tedious.

[ROF]

I did the camcorder aimed at a projector screen a few years ago. In my opinion, the results were not bad for an amateur who had really no idea what I was doing or what the results would be.

[greymalkin]

you might want to go ahead and hook the video camera into a tv via s-video and adjust the levels on the camcorder as it's focused on the 8mm film playing until you get it how you like it...then capture to pc.

[Rudyard]

Thanks for the advice all, I really had no idea how they did it.
I will read the other thread to, sorry for starting a new one I didnt see the other thread.

[rgs_uk]

The secret is to get the speed of the projector so it matches the frame rate of video. With the PAL TV system you need to run the projector at near 16 2/3 or 25 frames per second. Instead of the 16, 18 or 24 that are standard with cine film. Otherwise you will end up with dark areas moving up or down the tv screen. Luckily many cine projectors are variable speed. I have a device which originally I used to sync the projector to a tape recorder which serves the same purpose.

If the camcorder has a steadyshot system, turn it off, because that also interferes.

[Marvingj]

It always depends on what kind of quality you are looking for. Basic no thrills get a digital camcorder & a Variable projector. Professional used computers to clean video with color correctors etc.. Its harder than it looks...

[thecoalman]

You could manually scan each frame and put it together but that would take aLOT of time and be quite tedious.

I'm suprised there isn't a reasonably priced scanner on the market to do this. You can get excellet scans from negatives, although smaller you can still get great scans from film. Scanners are cheap, they would only need to add a small mechanism for advancing the film and save the scans as lossless images in a sequence. I've looked for one and haven't found one. I've seen many homebrew ones but as you mentioned this would rquire an exhobitant amount of time since all the homebrew models do not advance the film and each frame has to be cropped by hand...