8mm to DVD...need some advice

[tmac2085]

I have 13 8mm tapes and I'm wanting to turn them into DVDs for my mom for xmas (only gotta week) Would it be better to let someone do it in a store or do it myself, which i have no clue of what i will need. If i chose to let a store do it how much would it cost? Thanks for all your help!

[unclebud]

If you want it to look professional and edited for content then you will need to do it yourself or with a friend. This will take lots of time and work.

The easiest way to get DVD's is to use a DVD recorder. They start at $100 and go up. They won't be edited but you will have all the footage digitized and if then you want to edit it down it can be done.

[tmac2085]

what about having a store do it?

[ozymango]

what about having a store do it?

In terms of cost? If you need these done by Christmas, I'm guessing it won't be cheap. That's also assuming that when you say you've got 13 tapes, you've got 13 full tapes, 13 hours (or however much fits on an 8mm video tape ... I'm guessing an hour?).

Depending on if you want a plain vanilla transfer (no titles or chapters), I'd put a ballpark of maybe $10 per hour, that's base, and could go up easily depending on any extras you get. And speedy delivery could be even more $$$. So I'd say a best case scenario, and I mean best case, would be $150 for starters. And that would probably mean sending them out and taking a while to get them back. And we can easily double this cost if you want any editing done to these.

If you absolutely want it by Christmas, you may just have to call around your local stores and see what they might offer. And if you have no clue what's involved in this and you don't plan on doing this again, I'd recommend just biting the bullet and having somebody do this for your for $$$. Ouch.

If you already had a DVD recorder and 8mm camcorder for playback, the cost savings would be enough that I think it'd be worth trying this yourself -- does your mother still have the camcorder? Or can you borrow one? If so, even if you don't have a DVD recorder, you could get one (and blank DVDs) and you could do a plain transfer (just hook the output of the camcorder to the input of the DVD recorder, press "Record," stand back) that would very likely be as good as you'd get from any video store who would do this for the same amount of $$$ you'd pay for the DVD recorder. So that may be a possibility.

But if you don't already have a camcorder, then I don't think it's worth it to spend the $$$ and time to do this on short notice. I'd spend an hour calling places and getting quotes instead!

Just how dire is your situation? Is this a "I'd like to do something cool and I just thought of this" thing, or a "I planned on doing this for months and I dropped the ball and now I'm screwed" sorta thing?

[thecoalman]

what about having a store do it?

Be wary.... a lot of mom &pop places just use a DVD Recorder. Request the footage be burned to data disc as DV-AVI or some other low compression format. If they can't do that I'd suggest finding someone else to do it. They would just be running them through a recorder, nothing wrong with that but you can do that yourself.

If you really want to create some nice DVD's you'll have to pay through the nose or do it yourself. Doing it yourself is not going to happen before christmas, not all 13. Even having someone else do it is going to happen unless you just want simple straight transfers which again can be done yourself....

[tmac2085]

yea i think i'll bite the bullet. these are the only tapes i have and if i did buy a dvd recorder i'll end up using it probably this once. Any ideas on what store to call? I was thinking of giving Wolf Camera a start, which will probably refer me to someone else....

[tmac2085]

called wolf camera. the told me about a place called Photographic Systems. Their in VOB format 2hrs for $49...not really sure how many hrs i have, but since its a xmas present maybe it shouldnt matter? What do you guys think?

[ozymango]

called wolf camera. the told me about a place called Photographic Systems. Their in VOB format 2hrs for $49...not really sure how many hrs i have, but since its a xmas present maybe it shouldnt matter? What do you guys think?

We have a Wolf camera out here (Portland, OR), but I've never heard of Photographic Systems. But I'd guess they'll be pretty decent as Wolf is a big enough chain they won't want to deal with too many complaints from unhappy customers.

2 hrs. for $49, $25 per hour, sounds reasonable to me. I used to work at a place who did this kinda stuff (a while back now) and this was before DVD, but our rates were about $20/hour for a good transfer. Usually any good shop will give you a demo of their work, I'd ask up front.

But yeah, this sounds okay to me. Good luck!

[tmac2085]

maybe i need to go to the store. I was looking at the tape decks on ebay and they are freakin expensive. do you think getting all my tapes done by a pro will be cheaper than these?

http://search.ebay.com/8mm-deck_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8

[ozymango]

Well, "cheaper" needs a bunch of qualifiers. If this is a one-off thing, where you just need X number of tapes converted and have no need or interest in doing this again, then pretty much it'll always be cheaper (in terms of time, money, and tearing of hair) to have somebody do this for you. So yeah, if those are the conditions, I'd definitely just take these in to a transfer house.

But if you plan on doing this regularly and/or you have interest in learning how to do this yourself and find the idea of said learning worthwhile, then, long term, it can be "cheaper" to do this yourself. That is, you can definitely save money (with a few caveats) doing your own labor. And an investment in tools, while initially expensive, can "pay off" over time in that you'll only be paying for raw materials later.

Again though, a whole lot of caveats because if you do anything just to save money, it has a way of coming back and biting you in the butt. I like thinking more in terms of "value" myself, where my time and effort has value, and my enjoyment of doing this kind of thing has value ... I definitely save $$$ but if I wasn't enjoying it, I would probably just pay the $$$ to somebody else because you can't pay me enough to do something I don't wanna do.

In either case, the additional concern of having a deadline is just one more thing you have to deal with, so maybe you can alleviate that somewhat -- if you're still undecided about having somebody else do this versus doing it yourself -- by just doing maybe one tape for your Mom for Christmas, as a sample, I'm sure she'll love it no matter what, and then you can put a note in there saying, "More tapes will follow, as surprises along the way." Mom's have a way of not caring if we get everything done on time, it's really the thought that counts and this way you can even extend the enjoyment past the holidays. And it gives you a little less work to do between now and Christmas.

Based on that scenario, if this were me, I'd just take one tape in (if you can't view it ahead of time, hopefully it's labeled as to some special event or gathering in particular) to the shop, do it as test and a gift, and you'll get an idea of the quality and what you'd like future DVDs to be like, after you've viewed one. Also your mom may watch it and make comments about titles or chapters or whatever, and you can use her feedback when you make further copies, whether you do those yourself or have a shop do it.

Merry Christmas!

[tmac2085]

thanks alot for all your info and advice. MERRY CHRISTMAS to YOU!

[Sillyname]

maybe i need to go to the store. I was looking at the tape decks on ebay and they are freakin expensive. do you think getting all my tapes done by a pro will be cheaper than these?

http://search.ebay.com/8mm-deck_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8

Get a cheap Digital8 camera off of ebay. It will convert the 8mm video to digital. All you need is a firewire card to capture it then.

[tmac2085]

i'm gonna give a guy that works at Wolf $30 to fit all he can on a dvd...which is around 2hrs.