Film to DV?

[SPaulovich]

My local historical society asked about transferring reels (and reels and reels) of 8mm/Super-8 to DV. We've got a lot of history, the town was incorporated in 1636!

I know there are a number of companies that perform film -> DV transfer, but I'd like to make it a community project and handle it ourselves.

Does anyone have information about inexpensive transfer hardware? Moreover, does anyone have success stories (or dire warnings) about film to DV transfer?

Thanks,

Steve P.

[sonnyboo]

To do this professional grade transfers, the machines are in the upwards of the $70,000-$600,000 range.

I'd recommend - Call KEVIN MARCK of Inde-Post. He can do this and his prices are amazing considering his qualifications. He has transferred all of my 16mm and 35mm film for me in the last year.

513-205-3829 kmarck@earthlink.net

Tell him Ross sent ya!

[soundonscene]

You can do this yourself. There is a guy online someplace, i don't know his name, but he has designed a kit that converts a projector into a capture device that takes a frame by frame digital photo of each film reel image, and captures it onto your hard drive.

He has done this by rigging up a mouse to click at each frame somehow. It's relatively trivial, and way cool, if you were a film purist, and wanted to edit digitally, and well who wouldn't?

[SPaulovich]

Soundonscene - I saw that web site - and bookmarked it - now it seems to have gone offline for some reason. It's a clever idea.

I've thought about experimenting with a 35mm film scanner, modifying the feeds to handle 8mm film. Another time consuming frame-by-frame method, but could be viable.

Sonnyboo - thanks for the referral. If we can't figure out a way to do it locally, I'll call Inde-Post. I really wanted to try making it a "community project." But if we can't do it ourselves, it's good to know someone who does it professionally! Thanks.