It takes time and a little patience, but you can transfer 8 mm film to DVD.
Over time, old 8 mm movies may degrade. Either debris, dust or other substances get into the film canisters, or the fragile, tiny film strips suffer some other damage. The sooner you can digitize your old film strips, they more likely you are to preserve them relatively intact. The process takes some time and effort. You will need to dig out an old projector and hope the bulb and mechanisms work. You also will need to copy them in real time. There is no at-home process to speed up the transfer. You can preserve all those family memories with some time and patience.
Instructions
1. Use a can of compressed air to clean the entire 8 mm film strip. You can slowly, by hand, move the film from its reel to a take-up reel, or you can use an 8 mm film editor if you have one. Do the same thing with your film cleaner and lubricant on a lint-free cloth. You need to have the film in the cleanest state possible to make a bright video transfer. You need the lubricant to make sure the film passes through the projector smoothly.
2. Black out the windows in a room where you can project the film, such as a cellar. Even passing car lights can introduce flares into the transfer. Set up your projector screen and place your projector as close as you can get it to the screen where you will get a bright, sharp image. Note that you will need to leave enough room for the video camera.
3. Place the video camera on a tripod as close as you can get it to the same plane as the projector lens to avoid warping the image. Focus the video camera as you do a test run of the 8 mm film. Make sure you have a square and even image, close up.
4. Start recording with the video camera, then start the projector. You can cut off any blank part of the video with your video editing software later. The intention is to get the entire 8 mm film strip recorded.
5. Plug the video camera into your computer via USB or FireWire cable. Set up your video capture software. You will need a standard format for your digital video such as MPEG or QuickTime in order to use it on a DVD. Start your video capture software, then start the video camera's playback. Once you have captured the video, transfer it to the DVD with DVD burning software, or take it into video editing software and make adjustments.
6. Use your DVD authoring software to create a DVD that will play back on a standard DVD player. Usually, such software offers tools to insert chapters and even music for your films. The specifics vary according to the software's brand. Because 8 mm film strips typically run only three minutes, you can get quite a few on each DVD, depending upon the video resolution you use.
Tags: video camera, will need, your video, capture software, editing software
