How do I transfer old film to a DVD?

[Steve Turner]

This is a new one on me. It has little to do with a camcorder. A friend of
mine has inherited, from her Mother's estate, a great number of films she
shot during her lifetime. These are on original acetate shot with a film
camera. We fear that in time the acetate will go brittle and the film
useable. What we're seeking is a way to transfer the film stock to a DVD and
thus preserve the material. Has anyone any idea(s)? Does one get a service
to do this? Thanks.

 

[Steve Turner]

Thank you John.

====================================
I'm guessing these are 8mm? Super8?

Yes, there are services that can transfer the footage
to DVD.

Searching Google for: 8mm to DVD
will turn up lots of them...

As you might suspect...the conversion can get quite
expensive (especially with a large quantity of reels)
and you may want to attempt the task yourself. Here's
an article that may offer some ideas on how to get started:

Convert 8mm Movies to DVD
http://www.supermediastore.com/tape-8mm-to-dvd.html

--

John Inzer
MS Digital Media MVP

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

 

[Saga]

Steve,

I also have a few reels of Super 8 film that I would like to transfer to
DVD. I found a few services that do this. One had a cost of 10 to 36
cents per foot. They have available 4 processes, each one of different
quality. Of course the 10 cent/ft looks bad and the 36 cent/ft looked
nice.

Here is one:
http://just8mm.com/

This is the one I saw with the mentioned pricing:
http://www.videoconversionexperts.com/super-8-film-transfer.html

Here is another page within the same site with the pricing info:
(I clicked the link "here" after the main descriptive text on the page
above)
http://www.videoconversionexperts.com/Film_to_DVD/default.htm

This gives the prices I mentioned and briefly describes each process.

There is also a service near where I live. Having this info will allow
me to go visit them and ask some questions, but I will be Googling
much more before I actually make a decision. Although I don't want
to spend my entire retirement fund on the transfer, if I am going to
do it once, I should do it as best as possible since I know for a fact
that sooner or later the film will decay (ok, so will the DVD, but I
can make further copies much easier when the content is on DVD.)

Since I have just started doing research I don't want to recommend any
particular service, included those mentioned above. I listed them as an
FYI item.

John, I will be sure to come back here and report on which service I
used, hoping that it will will help others.

Saga

 

[Saga]

Doing it myself is an option, but I would have to compare that quality
with that offered by the services.

Saga