home movies to dvd

[virginia sustarsic]

<p>have been given some reels of home movies, some are from the early fifties, years may vary on others, they are family treasures, and would like to have them transferred with as good quality as possible to some digital format, probably dvd...any suggestions on locating a place that can do this well, thanks, virginia</p>

[mendel_leisk]

<p>Hi Virginia. By no means an expert, but since no one is jumping, in, what I did:</p>

<p>walked into a reputable local camera store and talked to them. They knew a guy, the charge was $50. It worked out well, the quality's good. My only quibble was there was some sort of copy protection on the disc, which I managed to circumvent.</p>

<p>I'd suggest to try similar, with a single reel, and see how it goes.</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>Just about any camera store at the mall can do this for you, and there are many places online.<br /><br />Two thoughts:<br />1) if you just want to watch the footage, just about any transfer would be fine. But if you want to be able to edit the footage, look for one of the online places that can do a transfer to .avi files that are put onto a DVD formatted as a data disc, not a regular movie DVD. Regular movie DVD files are highly compressed and don't work well for editng.<br />2) Whatever you do, hold onto the original film after the transfer. Don't discard it. As you've discovered, movie film from 50-60 years ago and longer can still be watched and transferred to whatever the latest media is (analog videotape a few years ago, then digital videotape, then DVDs, now online files, etc. and whatever comes next). If you just transfer to DVD and toss the film, you -- or your grandkids -- will be sorry.</p>

[virginia sustarsic]

<p>thanks for the responses, i've found a couple of options, i'm in athens, ohio, there's a guy in dayton who does this, his name is Selzer, also someone in cleveland called master computer video...not sure how to compare them...saw some others online, but mostly they were far away and/or chains that you bring or send them to, and they then send them away to someplace else...these look like 16mm, we have about eleven 7 inch reels</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>"these look like 16mm"<br /><br />16mm is about half an inch wide. Sprocket holes can be down one side or both. Reel size can run from about 3 inches diameter up to over a foot. A seven inch reel holds 400 feet and runs anywhere from 11 minutes if shot at sound speed (24 frames per second) to about 16 minutes at silent speed (16-18 fps). <br /><br />8mm is about a quarter inch wide, with sprocket holes down one side only. Reel sizes typically 3 to 7 inches. A 7-inch reel holds 400 feet the same as 16mm but runs twice as long since each frame of film, in addition to being half as wide as 16mm, is half as high as 16mm.<br /><br />If there's somebody local you can actually hand the film over to as opposed to shipping it off, it avoids the risk of the film getting lost somewhere along the way.</p>