Expert: David Silver - 12/19/2004

Question
Hello,

I would like to know what is the best way that I can transfer super 8 movie films to a cd or dvd? I know there are professionals who do it, but I would rather skip those fees and do it myself even if it wont be the same.

Thank You

Answer
Hi Samuel,

Honestly, there is no "best way" for you to do such movie to CD/DVD transfers on your own.  The equipment necessary for this work is very, very expensive and quite large.  While you may "rather skip those fees", the truth is that the costs are a mere fraction of the initial investment to do it yourself!  Trust me, the fees most "professionals" charge are reasonable compared to the time and effort involved, and worth every penny.  Do some comparison shopping through the yellow pages, get price quotes, and by all means ask friends and relatives if they've had this service done for them.  Remember, an excellent job performed at a seemingly high price is infinitely better than a poor job done at a discount price, and you can only verify such results from former customers.

Okay, now to the dirty little secret about this service...

While there are plenty of places (good, bad, and sometimes really ugly) to do this, almost all of them suffer from the same understandable malady.  Time is money, nobody wants to sit working extra hours on your job when they all make a bigger profit doing as many jobs as possible, so little personal effort is put into proper editing of these films.  In other words, you walk into a place, hand the guy a dozen reels of super 8 movies from your childhood asking that they be placed on a long running DVD, he hands it all back to you a week later, and you go home and see the films reproduced perfectly on your television.  Unfortunately, you also see bits and pieces of unnecessary leader between reels, shots of the sky when somebody forgot to turn the camera off, those funny little orange burned waste pieces at the ends, worthless over- or under-exposed images that show nothing, and it all runs together without any sense of order or time.  Yes, perfectly reproduced, but much too perfectly!  And, the biggest crime of all, MANY of these places "destroy" the reels in the process claiming its necessary to streamline the service, so you've lost the original source!

You MUST edit the films yourself in advance!  Must, must, MUST!  However many reels you have, you must edit them, cut out the unwanted stuff, chop off the redundant leaders, splice it all together onto one (or more, obviously depending on how many small reels you accumulated over the years and how much of that you're going to preserve) giant reel, make doubly certain that the films are EXACTLY as you want them to appear, all carefully prepared into logical enjoyable sequences, and only then hand the film over to the transfer service.  And make it totally clear to the person that these films are now edited masters, and they MUST be returned to you exactly as you gave them to him!  There are several advantages here.  You greatly reduce the unnecessary mass of all those small reels, you create a far more enjoyable and cohesive history within the edited larger films, you take away any doubts the transfer person may have about what order to reproduce anything, and the original films will resist the inevitable deterioration from age much better after you've cleaned them up.

Can you do this by yourself?  Yes!  Super 8 editing equipment is cheap, there's gobs of it on eBay, and it's just a matter of looking at the film, picking spots to cut it, chop out what you don't need, and glue (do NOT use editing tape, use editing glue!) it together in whatever sequence pleases you.  I'm not kidding, it's really a great deal of fun!  THIS you can do cheaply, and it is by far the GREATEST service you can do to properly preserve the priceless images from your past!  Let the transfer man do the transfer, his costs are worth it, but leave the judgement and sheer pleasure of editing to yourself.

Have fun!

Best wishes,

David Silver