Archiving 8mm or 16mm to h.264

[diprotic]

Hi everyone,

Hope this is the right forum.

My grandfather has about 800' of either 8mm or 16mm (not sure which) of old family footage. He had it "converted to DVD" by some Mickey Mouse outfit that did an absolutely horrible job. 99% sure they just pointed a video camera at a projector. This was years ago so obviously I can't have them refund/redo.

What/who do you suggest to do a really good HD archival? I would like a really good archival for posterity.

Thank you!

[2Bdecided]

http://www.paulivester.com/films/runtimes.htm

If it's 16mm, that's only about half an hour of footage. Pay someone who knows what they are doing to transfer it properly.

If it's 8mm, that's only about an hour of footage. Ditto.




Plenty of good threads on DIY film transfer.


btw, film is for posterity. Film is an archival medium. Nothing you can transfer it to will last that long, though of course any digital file can be re-copied without loss.


8mm film isn't really HD though. A good SD transfer would capture 80%-100% of what's on it. No harm doing an HD transfer, but not much benefit either.


Cheers,
David.

[jagabo]

Look for someone who uses a dedicated motion picture film scanner. I don't know anything about these guys but they give some comparisons:

http://www.videoconversionexperts.com/Film_to_DVD/default.htm
http://www.videoconversionexperts.com/Film_to_DVD/Choose_Process.htm