Hi everyone: I'm not sure if I'm in the right thread, so please bear with me. I have a whole bunch of old 8mm film reels from my father that I'd really love to convert to any form of digital video (avi, mpeg, etc.) My Dad tried the method of projecting them to a white screen and capturing it with his camcorder but unfortunately the quality was very bad, plus the picture flickered and was unwatchable. I also looked into paying someone to do that, but after pricing it with many people I realized that there's no way that I can afford it. My question to you -- is there a device to capture old 8 mm reel film and transfer it into PC?
I am attempting to do the same. I too discovered it is very expensive to get movies transfered to digital format by professionals. I am trying to find/use a camera with manual shutter speed and focus controls and project the movie through a video capure box. I too tried projecting on a screen and got poor results. I am still trying to find a relatively inexpensive camera to transfer film movies to digital format in my HP Media Center computer.
So Jim you're saying that there's no device to automate this process? Those professionals must be doing it somehow -- I can't believe that they do it manually?
There are stand alone devices that become available ocassionally. Check ebay and companies that sell professional movie poduction equipment. Go to ask.com or Google.com and search. The equipment is still expensive, no matter where you find it, used or new. You CAN can convert the movies one way or the other. Professionals have invested MANY (10,00 to 50,000 or more) thousands of dollars in machines that do all the functions automatically. They work on volume conversion to pay for the machines. Their machines take pictures of each frame and correct color, brightnes and etc frame at a time. We can ocassionally find a telecine unit or parts on ebay for a few thousand dollars, but be careful, they are for SuperMM Or 8MM, sometimes both OR 16MM or 35MM. That's still too costly for me. I am trying to make my own telecine unit, getting piece at a time. It will never get the quality of the professional units, but it will be fine for the quality of the old movies I have. They always seem to have projectors with speed control and the projection boxes. I have a projection box and a regular projector. Now,I am trying to find a movie camera at a reasonable price. I'll try this before I look for an inexpensive projector with speed control. Good luck and have fun.
