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Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

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Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby akcorcoran » Tue Oct 28, 2008 12:54 pm

I have old, reel-to-reel 8 mm film (with the camera, actually) and am looking to establish a relationship directly with a vendor to convert these. Ideally to DVD directly, but possibly to tape, then DVD if necessary. I have some services locally here in Baltimore that "send them out" and my understanding is that one of the few places on the East Coast is here in Maryland - and that's where most "send them." Anybody know of such a company or have a recommendation in the mid-Atlantic?

Thanks!
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby Chuck Engels » Tue Oct 28, 2008 3:56 pm

I don't know of any personally but I would like to recommend going to Mini DV Tape rather than directly to DVD.
You can capture and convert them anytime you want to, and you can edit out anything you don't want without losing any quality that way.
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby akcorcoran » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:03 pm

Good point - yes, I should have thought of that after my countless hours of learning here. Thanks! Hopefully, I'll find someone - and that will be an option! Thanks, Chuck - :)
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby Chuck Engels » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:07 pm

Alexa, Do you have a projector as well?
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby akcorcoran » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:09 pm

Yes - but no outputs as far as I could see?
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby Chuck Engels » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:24 pm

There won't be any outputs, they use a telecine machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine

It is possible to do this process yourself with pretty good results and a fairly low cost.
Some of the members here have transferred 16mm and 8mm film to MiniDV Tape :)
Others have used professionals to do this for them, but the option is there to do it yourself.

Here is what the professionals use
http://www.tobincinemasystems.com/page19.html

Here is what you can make at home
http://www.movie2video.com/

Here is a site that looks promising, not sure where they are located but they give lots of info including pricing.
http://www.homemoviedepot.com/film/8mm_transfer.php

The equipment is rather expensive so the prices are pretty high to transfer, some charge by the foot.
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby akcorcoran » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:38 pm

Wow - That is amazing! I'm going to absorb the website and think about it. Not my usual type of project - but my brother-in-law is an engineer who might want to take it on. (I'm an historian by education - hate to even think of changing a button on an old projector!) But... it's a great option to have, thanks. Your knowledge of all topics movie never ceases to amaze!

And, I had stumbled upon Home Movie Depot as well - interesting with their offering of ability to customize the DVD online for 30 days - very clever. Unfortunately the customer we're facilitating the transfer for (we let her know we wouldn't be doing it ourselves) would prefer somewhere in a driving distance so we don't mail the film away. But, I'm glad to get a second eye at that option - it's affirming. The one local place we've talked to here charges by foot, which is fine, but their reputation is less than steller and I *know* they send it out - I just can't pry out of anyone where they send it to in the mid-Atlantic. Someone mentioned a "pick up" on Fridays so that leads me to believe there has to be a vendor here in MD or close by.

Thanks, Chuck -
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby Chuck Engels » Tue Oct 28, 2008 4:49 pm

Here is one in Rockville, looks like they do their own work.
http://www.colorlab.com/contact.html
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby akcorcoran » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:02 pm

AH - supersleuth (sorry - my kids' Tigger and Pooh is playing behind me here) - that's probably it! I kept searching in Montgomery County but all I found were web companies, not the actual lab doing the conversion. And, it looks like they offer all options - (interesting how they offer supervised and unsupervised prices!)

Thanks, Chuck - awesome.
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby jackfalbey » Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:54 pm

You can also cheat it if you need to, as long as you have a projector, a smooth high-quality screen, and a 3-chip prosumer-grade camcorder. You position the camcorder and projector side-by-side as close together as possible, project the film onto the screen at fairly close range (to preserve brightness and contrast) and record with the camcorder. You'll have to experiment a bit to find the best distance and to compensate for being slightly off-angle, but the results can be quite good if done properly and a lot cheaper than sending it out or buying specialized equipment.
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby ScrugneysGundogs » Wed Oct 29, 2008 1:37 am

As Jackfalbey said, you can do it yourself. I transferred my old Super-8 home movies without any fancy equipment, and the results were quite good. If you consider what the average 8-mm home movie looked like when you projected it on a screen, the end result of my transfers looks better than that! Along those lines, how much better could one of these professional systems do with film like that? How much more detail could they possibly get out of that, and is it worth the cost?

Here's what I did:

Set up the projector on a chair and set a white projection screen about 3 feet from it.
Run a few test projections, focus the projector as sharply as you can.
My projector also had a variable speed control. I slowed it way down to capture more "frames" of the film onto the video camera. (More is better than less - you can time stretch it in post processing).
Next, the camcorder goes on a tripod as close to the projector as you can get it.
My camcorder was a Sony dcr-trv140 digital. You want to use manual focus. Tape a magazine page on the projection screen and focus the camcorder on it. Once it is focused, remove the magazine page. The camcorder also had settings for how many frames per second it was recording. I slowed it way down for this, trying to match the projector's frames per second.
Next run the projector and zoom the camcorder in to fit the size of the projected image.
Now, to get rid of rolling (like the spokes on a wagon wheel going backwards in the old movies) Do a test run and play with the variable speed of the projector and/or the camcorder until the picture is rock solid without any rolling.
I did all the recording at night and in a closed, darkened room to get the best contrast.

O.K., after recording, use your favorite non-liner editor (Premiere Elements, perhaps?) for post processing. You can adjust the speed, lighting and anything else you want. The soundtrack is worthless, unless you like the sound of the projector running?! Add your own.

I had a neat idea when I transferred my parent's wedding video from 8-mm film to DVD...I recorded it, then did the color, levels & speed correction and burned it to DVD. Then I took the DVD to my mom's house and played it for her. Meanwhile, I set up the camcorder on a tripod and recorded her watching it! I got her comments for the sound track ("oh, there's so & so", "that's the church", "the reception was at ____", and so on) AND when I re-edited the video, I added some Picture-in-picture of her giving the comments. I think it came out really nice!
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Re: Vendor for converting 8 mm film in mid-Altantic?

Postby GerryB » Wed Oct 29, 2008 3:46 am

Alexa,

I have just gone through the same 8mm process but your mid-Atlantic reference did give me a false start!! I have a large 8mm collection from the 50s taken by my father and I have had it converted to MiniDV which allowed me to recompile the material into some sort of logical order. My brothers are now left with preparing their contributions to the final script!!

The downside for you is that I had the conversion work done in West London (England). If you draw a blank with a suitable source in the US then I can pass on the contact details.

Best wishes,

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