Super 8 to VHS Transfer

Archived Q&A and Reviews

October 2002

I'd like a recommendation/suggestion on where I can transfer my old super eights to tape for a decent price. gerrit

I don't know any place that will do film transfers for a ''reasonable'' price. But I do know Access Video Productions in Berkeley will do a good job of it. If you're really on a budget, I've heard that you can do a decent transfer yourself by projecting the film onto a matte surface and using a DV camera lined up as closely as possible to the projector to capture the images. A crude method, but might be worth a try. I'm sure a Google search would yield more information. Patrick

I'm going to be starting an inexpensive film-to-VHS (& DVD) service after the holidays. If you can wait until then, I'll be offering discounted rates for new customers. I will be able to convert 16mm, 8mm & Super 8 film. Take a look at my Website and send me a message if you'd like more information. http://www.HeritageAV.com/ --Patrick

First of all, you definitely don't want to transfer your Super-8 movies to VHS alone: you'll want to get a high-resolution DV (digital video) master! Second, you may want to reconsider your desire to get it done cheaply. You have to be careful and selective because many cheap transfer companies will send you a DV tape that is a just copy of the VHS tape in other words, has no more info than a VHS tape.

If you have only VHS tapes made you will never be able to make copies that are any good at all and you will lose LOTS of data from your original film. You can make crisp stills from home movie film, but a video still (as you'll note when you pause your VCR) looks terrible.

I just did a big project editing home movies. When movies are transfered cheaply they flicker so horribly that they are painful and nauseating to view! THis is because when they are recorded the recorder captures the closed camera shutter as an image resulting in dark screens being inserted in your film every third frame or so. The difference between a good transfer and a bad one is huge.

Reading this tutorial helped me to understand the issues, but I cannot vouch for the services provided by this person, because I didn't use them. I just had to work with the junk I had, since, sadly, the original films had already been thrown away: http://film-to-video.com/Tutorial.html Good luck! susan