Reg 8 film capture for DVD

[tluxon]

I have about 4000 feet of regular 8mm film from my grandfather that I'd like to convert to DVD while he's still with us (he's 91 now).

I have an AIW Radeon 8500 and am using MMC 8.7.

Can anybody suggest to me what settings will work well at capturing from this source? I am guessing at 352x480 framesize, 29.97 fps (would 23.97 with 3:2 pulldown be better? - being that it comes from a 18 fps source?), with an average bitrate of 2500 kbps. Is this overkill or is it not good enough to preserve the best quality?

I haven't seen anything on doing this so I will appreciate any suggestions I can get.

Thanks,

Tim

[jggimi]

I've captured reg 8 ... but only after it had been converted to NTSC by a film transfer firm.

If I recall correctly, regular 8 is designed to be projected at 18 fps. The NTSC transfer process speeds up the film speed 11% to 19.98 fps. At that speed, each frame fits neatly into 3 NTSC fields.

For this particular project, I began with the VHS transfer, captured to HuffYUV, then converted to SVCD. I left the transition frames combed (MPEG-2 was encoded interlaced), as the SVCDs were for the family's standalone DVD players.

The VHS transfer was probably done in the 1980s, long before digital video transfer methods. These days, film transfer firms can go direct-to-DVD for you.

[tluxon]

Originally posted by jggimi
...regular 8 is designed to be projected at 18 fps. The NTSC transfer process speeds up the film speed 11% to 19.98 fps. At that speed, each frame fits neatly into 3 NTSC fields...
Now that I've actually hooked up my camcorder to the box the projector was playing into, I think I understand the problem. My projector has a variable speed dial, but can't lock into any one framerate. I get a bad flicker that pretty much goes away when I reach what must be the 19.98 fps you mentioned, but the projector just can't lock into that speed and it's not long before it's flickering again.

I'm obviously not going to be able to do a transfer with this projector. Do you have any idea where I might find a projector that can play that speed? If I can't find one, I guess I'll have to find someone to do it for me. Any suggestions on how to find a good source of transfer?

Thanks,

Tim

[jggimi]

There are many companies that have the equipment needed to do the transfer. A www.google.com search using "regular 8mm ntsc" finds companies like www.film-to-video.com, www.16mmoviemaking.com, www.vipvideoservices.com, www.spectraphotovideo.com, http://mistervideo.net, and www.homemovie.com.

Services differ, I recommend doing your own research to find the service most applicable to your specific needs (and price range).