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Basic Training: Take Your 8mm Film to Digital (page 2)

Getting a Professional

If you're not going to be doing a lot of transfer, or if your film is damaged, sending it out to a professional might be the most expedient method. Some pro shops are actually using Elmos or Gokos, but the best ones use professional telecines designed for the motion picture industry. These high end machines, like the Rank Cintel (which you may find used from $60,000 to more than $160,000) have much better color correction and control over the final image.

Costs

Having a movie house do your transfer will cost something between seven and twenty cents a foot, depending on how much needs to be done with it.

Some questions to ask your transfer house:

  • Can they handle your format? Some will be able to do 16mm but not 8mm, and vice-versa.
  • What type of equipment are they using to do your transfer?
  • Will they clean and lubricate your film before transferring it? (Film can become brittle after being stored for a long time and showing it without first lubricating it can damage the film.)
  • Will they be able to give you a high resolution master on Mini DV? (Remember: MPEG-2, the DVD format, is a lossy form of compression, and eventually you might want to transfer your home movies to HDV.)
  • Are they capable of performing color correction?
Conclusion

Ultimately, factors of expediency, importance and access will lend the most weight to your decision. Amateurish copies can always be made by simply recording your projected image, preferably with a variable speed projector, which you can set to 20 fps. Better than that is a mid-range unit like the Goko or Elmo. These devices open the door for the industrious, but neither will be able to touch the quality of a high-end, dedicated professional machine in the hands of a competent engineer.

Kyle Cassidy is a visual artist who writes extensively about technology.

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