8 MM FILM TRANSFERS
by VintageMedia
8mm Film Stills 8mm Film Clips
Examples of Single Frames from Converted Regular 8mm Films
1941 1960 1961
Preservation - our primary goal
Our primary goal for your movies is preservation. Let it be your main focus as well! For excellent background knowledge on this topic, consult the Preservation tab of the Little Film website. It tells you how to store and care for your 8mm film. This website also has a wealth of information on all narrow gauge film formats, including 9.5mm and 16mm.
8mm Film to Video Telecine Transfer
If you do not have 8mm film projection equipment in good condition (make sure you do not damage your films with inferior equipment!), and you want to enjoy your movies now, then VintageMedia can make video copies onto modern day media, such as DVD and digital video tape. You can play these copies over and over again without harming the originals.
Conversion Method
Our transfers use widened gate projection and frame by frame copying of the 8mm film to video at low speed. This results in full frame, flicker free, image accurate transfers of superior quality, suitable for the quality as well as cost conscious consumer, including those who intend to further edit the resulting videos. As the examples above demonstrate, the quality is so good that in many cases single frames can be extracted as individual pictures, if desired.
Please note that some transfer houses use an inferior real-time transfer method, where the speeds of the film projector and video camera must be manually synchronized. This results in a "fuzzier" look (due to some of the individual video frames being double exposures of two adjacent film frames) as well as poor colour rendition of the resulting video . Additionally, the transfers are usually not full frame, may run at the wrong speed (usually too fast), and may even contain a certain amount of flicker.
Our 8mm film to video transfer method utilizes aerial copying, i.e. the projected film images follow a purely optical path into the video system. This means that the film is not projected onto a screen as part of the conversion process. The aerial method was chosen since an intermediary screen tends to degrade the quality of the resulting video, by making it grainy and less sharp with excessive contrast. In addition, our 8mm projector utilizes a low wattage diffused light source that does not burn your film. It provides evenly lit video images of outstanding clarity and true, vivid colours. To achieve this excellent performance and quality we use the fabulous Video WorkPrinter by Moviestuff coupled with a high quality 3 ccd Sony video camera. This combination ensures truly unbeatable results.
Services
The following services are currently available:
1. Transfer of regular 8mm and super 8mm silent movies to NTSC (North American Standard) video. As part of this service, films are inspected, cleaned and lubricated. Minor repairs are also included. Available video output formats are:
Digital Video Disc (DVD) for playback from DVD player to TV set or computer monitor. Excellent quality and immediately playable in most NTSC DVD players. Video Compact Disc (VCD) or Super Video Compact Disc (SVCD) formats are also available.
Digital video data file(s) on DVD. This provides the highest quality video storage of the transferred film. The video data can subsequently be imported into a computer for digital video editing.
Mini DV tape for playback from a Mini DV camcorder to TV set or input into a computer for digital video editing. Quality is equivalent to digital video data file on DVD.
Digital8 tape for playback from a Digital8 camcorder to TV set or input into a computer for digital video editing. Quality is equivalent to digital video data file on DVD.
2. Film editing before transfer to video, such as mounting the film from several small reels onto a larger reel.
3. Video editing after conversion to video.
4. Conversion between various video formats, such as VHS or Video8 / Hi8 to Mini DV or DVD.
Contact us for additional details of our transfer method or if you require services that are not specifically listed.
Favourite Links
My Father's Camera (National Film Board of Canada Video)