8 mm & Super 8 mm Film Transfer

Soon after we married, I discovered that my husband's family had a basket of 8mm and Super 8mm film reels. When I learned of them, I dreamt of being able to transfer those onto VHS so the whole family could share them. Luckily I didn't attempt this with just a VHS camcorder and very manual editing or I could have become disgusted with the whole process.

I researched the web to determine how to get the best quality video into a computer for editing. There is no simple inexpensive way to do this. The main way that people transfer film into the computer is rather hodge-podge. Basically you project the film onto a screen or special box and aim your video camera at the image. To eliminate flicker, you should use a variable speed projector. I've also found that extra bright bulbs will cause some flicker, so you might consider lowering the brightness of the film. You then connect your video camera to your computer as usual and pull in the video for editing. Once I have the video in, I edit out the obvious bad spots.

If you want to take a crack at it yourself, here is a link to a very good discussion about film to video transfer. http://lavender.fortunecity.com/lavender/569/filmtovideo.html

Don't feel up to it or have the equipment, then we'd be happy to take a crack at it.

Pricing

• $75 for one DVD or VHS tape with up to one hour of video.
  This includes
  • Basic editing to remove bad portions of tapes
  • Chapters using the titles on your reels or titles that you supply
  • Soundtrack, my music or yours. I use primarily use instrumentals and laid back tones or jazz but do have some comical stuff for the kiddie scenes."
• $15 for each additional DVD or VHS tape
• Optional sit down session to edit your videos together $15/hour (preferably on Saturdays). This is helpful if your reels are not very organized or if you want to prune some of the footage. You can also use this time to add narration to your video if you like.

This pricing assumes a few things:

• The film is in good condition. My husband's films were in horrible condition and I'd rather not have the responsibility or heartache of splicing and fixing someone else's family memories. In the past, we have done some minor splicing of the leads at no extra charge.
• DVD + or - formats are acceptable. I am able to burn both formats and even our oldest DVD player plays both without a problem but there are older DVD players that won't play either. If you let me know the make and model of the DVD players, I can check to see which format is most compatible. RW formats are also available at an extra charge since these blank DVD's are considerable more expensive than the R formats.
• No major edits will be done other than cutting out obvious blank areas and adding in titles and background music.