Record 8mm Home Movies w/Digital Camcorder?

[stahlhart]

I did a search here, but could not locate a guide -- has anyone here had the experience of converting old (old, as in film) 8mm home movies to more modern media, either analog video or perhaps all the way to DVD?

I have a collection of old family films that date back 40-50 years, and would like to archive these to DVD to share with family members and also to preserve them (I'm not sure how long I have before the film starts to deteriorate; it seems to be holding up well so far).

My father and I have budget a digital camcorder for the project, as it appears that our older analog 8mm camcorder has some issues that are going to prevent us from getting a clean capture -- we ran into brightness flickering in the capture, which I think might be related to the camcorder attempting to automatically adjust focus and or/exposure while the film is running.

I've found this thus far, which seems to be a step in the right direction:

http://www.dvdhomevideoeditor.com/ARTICLES/TUTORIAL_howto_trans_8mmfilm.htm

...but was hoping to learn more before investing in the camcorder, in order that I get the right one for the job. Any assistance that could be offered to get me steered in the right direction would be tremendously appreciated; thank you...

[classfour]

You need to look in the restoration forum.

[thecoalman]

we ran into brightness flickering in the capture, which I think might be related to the camcorder attempting to automatically adjust focus and or/exposure while the film is running.

I don't much about it but that from what i have read that is related to the difference in the framerates .

[bendixG15]

Took a while, but I found it .... May have some info for you ...

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic252746.html

[stahlhart]

Thank you VERY much for the responses!!! It's looks like the PC magazine article that came from bendixG15's link got me the needed focus here.

I was aware of the film transfer businesses, but unfortunately I am extremely loathe to give the film to strangers -- the film is irreplaceable, should anything bad happen to it, and I'd rather not let it leave my possession. I'm certain that the ones who really know what they're doing would do a better job than I could ever hope to, but I'm just scared of anything happening to the film.

I think that I've got enough information here to get started now. I had a feeling that there would be critical abilities in the equipment to do this correctly -- 1/60 shutter speed on the camcorder, variable speed projector, etc. Our film projector does not have a speed adjustment, so that's one of the first things that is going to need to be addressed.

Thanks again to everyone for the prompt responses and help... I really appreciate it!

C.

[handyguy]

If you want the best quality, you use a scanner. Scan your film in strip by strip & paste together. Boy, that takes a long time I heard.

[Richard_G]

I've recently done just this with 21 rolls of Super8 film that where shot between the early '70s and early '80s. I projected the film onto a screen that was only about 18" away from the projector and angled it slightly to one side. Set the focus to get it as sharp and bright as possible. Set my Sony VX2000E on a tripod next to the projector pointing at the image on the screen but at a reciprocal angle to that of the projector. This meant that the slight distortion caused by the film being projected at an angle was cancelled out by the camcorder recording at a slight angle.

Camcorder settings were, manual white balance (set to the projector lamp shining on the screen), manual focus and shutter speed set on 1/12th and Neutral Density filter 1 switched in. I could adjust the shutter speed until I could see at what setting the flicker became noticable and then back off one. This was using a non adjustable 18fps projector and a PAL standard 25fps camcorder. Looking at the end result frame by frame showed that some frames on the camcorder had two film frames on them which I thought might make movement appear jerky, but it didn't in the end. I did think that shooting in progressive mode might have been better than standard interlaced but as I didn't think about that until I was part way through, didn't try it.

Some of the films colour had suffered due to poor storage conditions and I used the colour correction filters in Ulead Mediastudio Pro (my standard editing package that I use for my normal work) to get it back to something like as it should be. Once authored and burned to DVD, playback on a standalone player into a Panasonic 42" plasma TV looked no worse than watching the original films projected onto a screen.

Considering that these films were shot by my partners parents and were only found when clearing their former house following the death of her mother (her father died some years ago), the finished DVDs made a nice reminder for the other family members.