I am interested in knowing if there is any way that 8mm can be copied directly to DVD's.

Thanks
dbliss

Hi dbliss

Your question is a little unclear. Do you mean 8mm video tape or 8mm cine film?

if 8mm video tape then this is possible if you have a video in card in your PC.

8mm Cine film is more difficult and is usually done with expensive 'cine to video' transfer projectors. These machines remove the flicker and give the best results.

There are a couple of methods to transfer cine to video at home.

1) project the cine film onto a screen and video it with a video camera.

2) scan in each frame and make the frames into a movie in the PC.

Does this help?

Ken.

Ken;

I was specifically interested in taking old super 8mm home movies and putting them directly on a CD. I getting the impression that the only recourse that I have is to project the movies on a screen and Video tape and then convert to a CD.

dbliss

You can get good results if you get everything set up correctly.

Some prefer to use white (or painted matt yellow) melamine instead of a projector screen. And the cine projector and video camera lenses should be as close together as possible.

There are transfer units available which transfer the images straight from the projector the video camera without the need for a screen at all.

All good camera shops will offer this service as well. But it can get a little expensive if you have a lot of film to convert. Count up your films and ask for a quote.

Ken.

Got the same problem, except mine is 16mm. Film taken all over the world. And dying fast.

The cost is prohibitive, so it may never get processed for CD, DVD, or whatever.

What is the gadget for direct transfer that you refer to, Cameraken?


Steve C.

Hi Steve.

A Video Transfer Unit was a box containing lenses and mirrors. A cine projector could be positioned at one end and a Video camera at the other. This unit helped to transfer cine to video without a screen and without the associated parallax errors that a screen could introduce.

16mm film will require a 16mm projector. These are not as common as they used to be. We used to hire these out but unfortunately no more. If you do not own a 16mm projector you may still be able to hire one for a weekend to get the transfer done. (ring round the local camera shops)

Or you could use a scanner to scan in each frame and remake the movie in the PC but it would be a slow process.
A quicker way is to use a DSLR with a 35mm slide copier attached. Cardboard masks can be made to align the film and each frame can copied.

If the film is deteriorating then the scanning option could be a safer way. If film breaks whilst running through a projector then many frames may be lost or damaged before the projector can be stopped.

Hope this helps.

Ken.