Reel to Reel to DVD

[Fairhope]

I first want to say thanks to all of you for creating, maintaining and actively participating in this site. I've learned, as an outside bystander, everything I know about VCD, SVCD and DVD from all the posts I've read.

I have one question to ask which I have been unable to find on this site. My father-in-law has some 8mm real to real films of family events. As you can guess, the majority of the people in these films have passed away. He has seen what I've learned from this site and has asked me if I can put his home movies on DVD to preserve for his children and his children's children.

The only thing I have been able to think of is to set my digital camcorder on a tripod aimed at the screen where the real to real is pointed and record. In doing this, the playback from the digital camcorder fades in and out. I assume this is because the camcorder records at a faster rate than the real to real can play.

Does anybody have any other suggestions that I might be able to try?

Again, thanks for everything I've learned from all of you.

[housepig]

there are a couple of ways you can do it.

You can set up a camcorder and record the film that way. Best is if you can rent or borrow a film projector with variable speed, so you can match the speed of the film to the speed of the camcorder.

I would do a search for posts from mkelley (if he doesn't jump in after me) -as I recall he has some good info on this.

You can also find a service that will do it for you - expect to pay by the hour or by the foot of film. But be aware, some smaller companies that do this aren't doing anything more special than projecting it and recording it with a camcorder...

If you're really a masochist, there's a piece of software called 8MM2AVI, which helps automate the process of putting your film on a flatbed scanner, and scanning it in strips. The software then asks you to tell it where the first and last frame are, then turns the scan into an avi file. Then you can assemble all the avi clips together and convert them. You would have to record any audio separately and combine it with the video. But again, this is the masochists' choice, I've seen estimates that a fast person using this program will take about 45 minutes for every minute of film to process....

but since you've got a camcorder - experiment! worst case is you find you just can't do it yourself...

good luck.

[Fairhope]

Thank you very much. I'll do a search from Mkelly and try to fish out his methods.

I'll also see if my father-in-law's projector has some sort of speed adjustment to see if I can match it with the camcorder - or at least get it closer than what I have now.

This film is so old, he's spliced a lot of it together with tape. I probably don't need to speed up the projector too much, I might be paying someone by the hour to piece it all together again.

Thanks,

[housepig]

actually, search for mkelley... not mkelly... my mistake!

[MikeV]

Check with your local Photo Labs. Some still do conversions from 8mm film to VHS tape. Also if you do it yourself you have to slow down the speed of the film to keep the dark bars out. I did ours several years ago and had to slow the film down.

[Fairhope]

Thanks. I would have thought it needed to be sped up. I'll try slowing it down first.

If I can't get the quality I'm looking for, I'll call some of the photo labs around town about putting it on VHS.

I looked for information from Mkelley, but he has quite a few posts. Nothing I found addressed reel to reel film. Hopefully, he'll see this post and maybe offer some advice.

[housepig]

try looking for the search term "8mm" - that might help as well.

[Fairhope]

Found it. It's titled 8mm and Super8 films...help.

It's just like you remembered, Mkelley gives some great advice as well as I_Am_Dave and Philbiker.

It appears I should be able to let the projector go at normal speed and slow down my digital camcorder. I then use Pinnacle Studio 8, which I have, and select 9/10 speed - whatever that is - to bring the speed back to normal.

I'll be up late tonight. Thanks for all your replies.