TomFama

Has anyone converted 8mm film to digital? We have about twenty 5" reels of video (about 200 feet each, I'm told) to convert. Seems like it would be cost effective to buy a machine to do this myself. Anyone with experience on doing this that could recommend equipment, etc please respond.

Thx Tom Fama

Stardust Loc: Central Illinois

Tom, I had a similar situation with Super 8 (no sound) and similar amount of footage, so after getting quotes to convert higher than I wanted to pay, I mounted my hi-def digital camcorder (now would be 4k DSLR) right over my projector to be on same plane, lowered the exposure a notch, and shot the projection off a regular 5'x5' screen. In my video software stripped the noisy sound track off and enhanced the important copies. They came out better than original.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Sounds like good advice. I've seen generally bad reviews of the consumer machines that are supposed to digitally record movie footage a frame at a time, to create a digital video copy. Complaints vary from poor quality to continually getting stuck.
With this method you can convert your reels in real time in a few hours instead of days, and if you are not satisfied with the results you haven't lost anything but time. Bear in mind you will probably want to tweak the contrast, brightness, shadows, highlights and saturation, possibly the hue, in a video editor to make the footage look it's best. If you underexpose a bit, post processing can make darker video come to life, but if you overexpose it can't fix burnt out highlights. Figure out the best camera settings and post processing settings on one or two reels before you video all the reels.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Forget it, the only good way to do that is to use a "flying spot conversion", but those units cost upwards of half a million dollars, so nothing the normal person is going to buy! All those cheapy outfits will do a very crappy job, and nothing can beat the joy of watching it on a big screen anyway! There is not any TV in existence, that can even get close to that!

hpucker99 Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

You might want to check out professional services that will convert the 8mm to digital. There have numerous threads on this website on digitizing slides and many of those firms mentioned also do 8mm film.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Tom, Go to Costco. They do a great job at a reasonable price. They will even put your selection of music to it.They convert it to a DVD.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

A few years ago, I bought an old 8mm projector on eBay and copied the films with a camcorder. That worked fine. You can also pay businesses to convert them. We have a local camera store that just advertised half price conversion. A professional, digital conversion would probably turn out better.

Blair Shaw Jr Loc: Dunnellon,Florida

NICE WORK......thanks for sharing the technique

sabfish

A few years back I used an outfit called Scan Cafe to convert 8mm and a large number of slides to digital at a very reasonable price. I was pleased with the results. They send the film to India. If you prefer US conversion, they have that option at a higher price.

DickDougall

I bought a machine on line and have converted several hundred feet of 8mm film. I think it worked well. I even had a relative overseas send me his film and did that. If you need make etc. email me.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Bear in mind a DVD is SD (standard definition) while you can copy a film reel with a camera at HD and tweak the result in an editor. SD is about 1/4 the resolution of HD. Maybe try one reel each way and see if it makes a difference to you.

theoldman

I am no expert by any means but I have successfully converted 1000's of feet of my old 8mm and super 8mm movie film to digital. I have used various methods, including a dedicated Wolverine digital converter.

The dedicated Wolverine machine produced acceptable results quickly. Check the reel size it will accept before you buy! It uses a small 3.3 mp chip and the results are OK, but a bit grainy. I would consider it seriously if you want to convert your reels and don't own movie projectors and bulbs. Given your limited volume, you could sell it used on Ebay and recover some of the cost when you are finished with it.

I own both 8mm and super 8 projectors and bulbs, so I usually project my films and use my camera to video the movie. It works very well, but is more trouble than the dedicated converter.

If you do it with projectors, I have found a white non glossy wall or a mat white art board I can buy at a dollar store to be better than a screen. If you align the camera and the projector on the exact same axis you may get a hot spot in the center because the projector does not evenly distribute the light. If you put them a bit off axis you can correct the keystoning in a video editor. A room with some light is better than completely dark as some light reduces contrast usefully. And it is better to project and video a larger image because it reduced the hot spot effect.

As a side note, I have a rear projection device designed for movie conversion with frosted projection screen which I consider a waste of money. The center of the screen is far brighter than the edges, to the point of distraction.

And of course there are commercial services, but I have never used them.

I often put my old movies up on You Tube or Vimeo for friends and family, so if you want some examples of my results, I can guide you to them.

shelty Loc: Medford, OR

No way. The reel I had processed there was so out of focus you could identify anything.

BBurns Loc: South Bay, California

Agreed. Take them to Costco.