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Bronwyn
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A film projector? Can anyone give me a name of somewhere or a church that I can rent/use/borrow and olf film projector? TIA 
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Bronwyn
Guest
A friend of mine has come small reels of film that she wants to play. I think they are the old 8mm. I haven't opened the box yet to look at them. I guess I should do that first. I was just hoping that someone knew of a place around that would rent old projectors.
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Bronwyn
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MMDad said:
The four big reels say Super 8
Not that this answers your question, but if they're old family films, you should take them to a videographer and have them put on DVD so they don't deteriorate any further. Larry's step-mom did that with a bunch of their old vacation movies from when they were kids and it was really cool.Bronwyn said:
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Bronwyn
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vraiblonde said:
How right you are. My friend saw my grandfathers video that my mother made, who is a videographer. She wants to transfer her old film to DVD as well, adn get some editing done. I am trying to help keep costs down for her by at least getting the projector for the first step.
Bronwyn said:How right you are. My friend saw my grandfathers video that my mother made, who is a videographer. She wants to transfer her old film to DVD as well, adn get some editing done. I am trying to help keep costs down for her by at least getting the projector for the first step.
I went down this road. First, I had to get a new bulb for the projector. I finally found one at a place in Alexandria and it was close to $50. The bulb I needed was not to be found anywhere but I found a chart somewhere on the web that listed modern substitutes and that's actually what I bought. It worked fine.
Second, I bought a special box that was made for transferring projected images to a video camera. It was a cheap consumer-grade piece of junk and gave very poor results. So, I projected the films onto a bright white surface and recorded onto my DV camera. I had to really play with the exposure and focus settings to get something that was passable. If your camera doesn't let you manually set them, you'll get the image going in and out of focus and lots and lots of flickering.
Finally, when I was all done, I had an "OK" transfer of the films (dirt, scratches, and all) and a lot of experience with jammed up film reels (and risk of permanently damaging the original films).
I recommend taking or sending the film to a professional who will clean it and transfer it using a "telecine"-style box onto digital tapes. Also, many places will transfer things to DVD for you, but if you're concerned about quality, make sure you get the original tapes they used before transferring to DVD, since converting to DVD format (MPEG2) degrades the content even further.
While the results of my effort were entertaining and educational, I plan to take the films to a pro when I have the money. Last I checked it would have cost me around $400 for a few hours (most places charge per foot of film).
If I place any value on my time, added to the cost of the tapes, bulb, and useless transfer box, this is the road I should have taken to begin with.
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Bronwyn
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monzamess said:
I know how you feel. I work part time for my mom, who is a videographer. She doesn't get into transfering old film though, so she doesn't have the equipment I need to help out my friend. When we made my grandfathers' tribute video we had to project onto a wall and film it with digital. But we had the right camera, that have manual focus. $400 might be out of my friends price range. I don't think she has all those options right now. We just want to get them captured.