In article , says...

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

The recent thread (in the W7 'group only) about converting VHS (to DVD
was in the title of that thread, but to disc file equally) made me
wonder:

What experience have people had with converting old cine film? (Or
new for that matter! But I can't imagine many people are still
shooting it.)

I have a certain amount of standard and super 8 film; fortunately not
sound, so that's one less thing to worry about. I _think_ I still
have the projectors (-:!

As noted in the W7 group in my reply, and only if you're willing to pay
more for someone else to do the conversion instead of you having to buy
the hardware and software and learn through trial and error, the Costco
photo center will do conversion from reel to DVD. Walgreens will
convert tapes but they don't list reels. Having someone else do it
means you can check their work was correct before paying but the cost
goes up by whatever is the "certain amount" of reels you need to
convert.

There are other places to do the conversion but some seem rather pricey.
http://www.homemoviedepot.com/ advertizes they will convert whatever you
can fit into a FedEx medium-size box for $300. Uffdah. That's costly
for just one large reel but then you can probably shove in a whole bunch
of those 8mm palm-sized reels. However, Costco only quotes "starting at
$19.99" so until you present them with what you want them to convert
then you don't know what they will really charge.

Pointing a digital camera (to record video) at a screen where you
projected the film would be the worst way to convert. The conversion
machines that I remember reading projected the film onto a CCD panel
that did the recording. It was all inside the "projector". Also
remember that your eyes are melding the frames together. A digital
camera pointing at a screen would capture all the flicker between frames
on the film and the framing within the video might not match.

I doubt you have the inclination to learn or the money to buy a
Rank-Cintel film-to-tape machine. It's a behemoth that occupies a room
and costs $150K (for a used price). Guess they got cheaper since about
2005 and are now /only/ $90K. Choke choke. That's what the movie
industry uses to move their movies from film (that deteriorates) to
video to store on more stable media.

https://www.videomaker.com/article/c...eo-tape-or-dvd
(quite a bit less than "7 pages")

If you can get the output to SVGA or Composite then the easiest way by
far is simply connect playback device to a hardware dvd recorder. Older
gear usually has that feature. I have a combo DVD/VCR hooked up to my
hardware DVD recorder as part and parcel of larger entertainmenet
system. I've easily converted VHS to DVD without issue with acceptable
quality given source quality. Same with the odd copy protected dvd I've
encountered I couldn't find any way to rip so copied it instead the old
slow way Pain in butt when forced to do that but it works 100% of the
time regardless of copy protection; else it won't play in dvd player so
they have to accept that one can do that.

Only complaint I have is that my dvd recorder only "sees" DVD+R disks
which seem harder to find then DVD-R disks. It was $100 more than a
few years ago now so no complaints given it plays many pc formats video
natively, e.g. avi, mpg etc. I have a supply of DVD+RW's I usually use
to record and then I copy that disk using a pc to a normal DVD-R disk
(which is lossless so doesn't really matter other then few minutes
longer).

To original poster, you only have a couple of vcr tapes then look at
email and figure out reply, come visit and I'd do them for free. Note -
it'll take at least as long as tapes are plus time for introductions,
setup etc. so might instead want to leave them and come back, Also note
- I'm hour outside town in Musq. Valley area.