Anyone transferred their old cine films?

[Crackle]

Did you use a service or do it yourself and if a service what would you recommend?

I was going to do it myself but my old standard 8 projector just shed it's belt, in fact it disintegrated. No surprise really, it's at least 50 years old. I doubt I can get a new belt, it's the internal one, not the external ones.

I was toying with the idea of buying another projector but then I still have the faff of taping everything, so I thought professional service. Get it transferred into .avi and then I can edit it at home but of course some of these films are older than me and I'd really like some recommendations before I send them off to some stranger, which will give me palpitations. I must have, gosh, 500 to a 1000 foot of film.

What have you done?

 

[Brains]

We transferred about three hours of 1940's to 1960's cine film to DVD a couple of years ago, we used a very good chap down in Newquay (which was reasonibly close to my parents), I seem to remember the cost was about £30 per hour, the DVD's came back with 3 copies of each, complete with titles and backing music
http://www.duplicate-image.co.uk/

A lot less hassel than trying to do it yourself

 

[MontyVeda]

I was watching a doc the other night with old cine footage of steam trains at Carnforth... at the end of the film the voice over said, "If you've got any old cine footage, send it to us, we'll transfer it to DVD for free and if any is used in our films you'll also get a royalty and a credit" Not sure if they specifically wanted trains or not, but I'll post the contact details when i watch part two of the same doc.

 

[Crackle]

We transferred about three hours of 1940's to 1960's cine film to DVD a couple of years ago, we used a very good chap down in Newquay (which was reasonibly close to my parents), I seem to remember the cost was about £30 per hour, the DVD's came back with 3 copies of each, complete with titles and backing music
http://www.duplicate-image.co.uk/

A lot less hassel than trying to do it yourself

Aye, I'm leaning that way. Can't find any spares for the projector.

1000ft of film is going to cost me about £150 but is likely to be better quality than I can manage at home.

 

[Brains]

1000ft of film is going to cost me about £150 but is likely to be better quality than I can manage at home.

£150 is very little when compared to the original cost of developing that amount of film.
I'd guess if you took inflation into account the cost would have been several thousands at todays money.

At least once it's digital you can keep the film for ever, as it becomes easy to convert from one digital medium to the next.
200 years from now your family will thank you, as it will be the oldest moving images of your family available

 

[Crackle]

£150 is very little when compared to the original cost of developing that amount of film.
I'd guess if you took inflation into account the cost would have been several thousands at todays money.

At least once it's digital you can keep the film for ever, as it becomes easy to convert from one digital medium to the next.
200 years from now your family will thank you, as it will be the oldest moving images of your family available

This is true Brains.

After much research, I found this place online, which seems to be by far the most sophisticated and professional outfit I've found.

I had no idea that they could scan at HD definition and that it would make a difference and am trying to decide if that's what I should go for and whether to go for an editable output as well or just capture off their DVD.