Have you ever thought about converting your old 8mm film over to a digital format? Much of the film we have, hasn’t been seen for over 20-30 years and is perfect to bring out during a special family gathering or event. Being able to see footage of your family from 50+ years ago is an incredible experience, and it’s amazing that technology has allowed us the privilege to watch important events from the past.

Here is one example of an 8mm film transfer, taken from an amusement park. The screen has been split to show the original colors on the left, and the restored film on the right. As you can see the film had been heavily color-shifted to red/magenta.

At DVD Your Memories, we can even take your old film and restore it to it’s original colors and vibrancy. Now you can watch your film, digitized, and fully restored to it’s original quality. You can even combine your film with images from slide scanning, or photo scanning jobs as well. Watching this old footage will definitely bring a tear to your eye! This is truly a priceless service.

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• Buzz it up
• share via Reddit
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post
• Tell a friend
• Print for later

Technorati Tags: 8mm film, 8mm to dvd, film to dvd

Near the Los Angeles or Culver City area? If so, did you know that converting your 8mm film was right in your neighborhood? DVD Your Memories is now serving Los Angeles county and helping our newest customers transfer their precious memories recorded on film, video, audio and images. We actually specialize in transferring this type of media and we use dedicated technicians for each type of order!

8mm film is an older type of media that is still taking up room in many closets. Due to the nature of 8mm film, and the material it’s composed of, the images stored will not last forever, and depending on how it was stored, it could be at an advanced stage of decomposition. When it comes to precious memories such as your families archive of 8mm film, or 16mm film, you now have the option to digitally transfer these home movies to archival quality DVDs, or put them onto an external hard drive.

Over the years, film such as 8mm or 16mm will actually color-shift generally to either blue, purple, or magenta, depending on the material of the film. With the premium film transfer, you can have your film completely restored to it’s original colors, and make sure that your under and over-exposed scenes are corrected in real time. Take a look below for a couple of examples of some restoration work on some of our film to DVD Los Angeles transfers.

The Premium frame-by-frame film transfer is by far the highest quality film transfer available today, as each full frame of film is individually transferred one after another.

Our retrofitted projector is one of the few in the world that has a manually adjustable brightness control which can make under or overexposed scenes look much better. We use this machine for both 8mm Film to DVD Los Angeles, and Los Angeles Super8 to DVD orders. The transfer technician will watch your film on a standard monitor as well as a waveform monitor and adjust the back-light brightness accordingly. This type of brightness adjustment is a custom fitted attachment, and is not available at most other companies. With a frame-by-frame transfer, you are then easily able to manipulate the film once it’s been captured to your computer.

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• Buzz it up
• share via Reddit
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post
• Tell a friend
• Print for later

Technorati Tags: 8mm film, 8mm to dvd, culver city, film to dvd, los angeles

8mm film and Super 8 film look surprisingly similar at first glance, which can make it difficult to figure out which is which, especially if you have both types of film. Fortunately, when you get it up close, it’s easy to spot a couple key differences which will make telling them apart much easier in the future. 16mm film should be instantly recognizable, as it’s twice the width of 8mm and super 8 film.

As you can see from the above image, Super8 film has much smaller sprocket holes, and they are aligned to the middle of the frame, versus in between the frames on the standard 8mm. You’ll also notice that the size of the frame is 50% larger on the Super 8 film. Super 8 was an upgrade to the standard 8mm film which offered a sharper picture. This sharper picture can be attributed to the much larger frame size. Lots of times, people will have the first of their films shot in regular 8mm, and then over time switching over to the superior Super 8 format.

If your film is stored in film cans with leader tape, you can easily spot which film you have by examining the leader tape. Like in the actual film itself, the sprocket holes are much smaller. The leader tape does not contain actual frames, so the sprocket holes would be the only clue as to what type of film it is. Our film to DVD technicians are very knowledgeable and can answer all your questions about your film transfer. We are also one of the few companies who transfer 8mm film that clean every inch of the film prior to transferring. This cleaning process using silicon cloths will give you the best film to DVD transfer possible.

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• Buzz it up
• share via Reddit
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post
• Tell a friend
• Print for later

Technorati Tags: 8mm film, 8mm to dvd, film to dvd, Film Transfer, super 8, super8

When it comes time to transfer 8mm film to DVDs, you may be wondering just how it’s done, and what the best quality transfer is. The type of film transfer service that is performed on your footage can make a world of difference in the end. It’s best to your own research to determine exactly what you want to get out of your film transfer, whether it be quality or cost. Many of the companies out there today will use cheaper, lower-quality methods such as a real-time transfer.

Real-Time Transfer

Film is naturally around 15-18fps, and when it’s telecined to 30fps video, you will get some blending of frames, which often creates a fuzzy or soft look to the picture when watching in real time. Many times with older film, you’ll notice that there are much more color problems with a real time transfer as opposed to a frame-by-frame transfer due to the way film naturally shifts in color over time. Also with this method, your frames will often be cropped off so you lose a lot of image data, and you’ll also notice some flickering when watching due to the frames being captured in real time.

Frame-By-Frame Transfer

The Premium frame-by-frame film transfer is by far the highest quality film transfer available today, as each full frame of film is individually transferred one after another.

Our retrofitted projector is one of the few in the world that has a manually adjustable brightness control which can make under or overexposed scenes look much better. We use this machine for both Film to DVD San Diego, and Film to DVD Orange County orders. The transfer technician will watch your film on a standard monitor as well as a waveform monitor and adjust the back-light brightness accordingly. This type of brightness adjustment is a custom fitted attachment, and is not available at most other companies. With a frame-by-frame transfer, you are then easily able to manipulate the film once it’s been captured to your computer.

Check below to find out more information about our great Film to DVD services:

Film Transfer San Diego – Film Transfer Orange County

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• Buzz it up
• share via Reddit
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post
• Tell a friend
• Print for later

Technorati Tags: 8mm film, 8mm film to dvd, 8mm process, 8mm restoration, 8mm to dvd, film to dvd, Film Transfer

Years ago, the process of capturing important memories on film often meant a time-consuming and expensive process. In addition to using heavy, awkward equipment, you had to then get the film developed at a facility, and then, most of the time, you had to splice everything together onto a larger reel for continuity. On top of all this, it was also a challenge to store all of the media, while keeping in mind the potential hazards such as moisture or heat can pose to your film. Having an old box of film in your attic is one of those “out of sight, out of mind” kind of situations, where people simply don’t think about it until it’s too late. Over the years, people have slowly begun to realize that their film is not going to last forever. Unbeknowst to countless people worldwide, their precious film is suffering from severe degradation at this very second, and before long will be destroyed without them ever knowing about it. Even today, thousands of people across the country are still holding onto boxes and boxes of old reels that could benefit highly from a service such as an 8mm film to DVD transfer in Orange County.

Transferring 8mm film to dvd or hard drive is currently the best way to preserve your film, and to stop the degradation dead in it’s tracks. Typically, film transfer services will capture each individual frame directly into the lens of a broadcast quality 3-CCD camera, and then specialized software will interpolate these individual frames into a movie and remove the flickering effect, in what’s called a “frame-by-frame” film transfer process. Frame-by-frame film transfer will provide you with the highest quality film to dvd in transfer in San Diego available, often looking much better than when shown on a projector. In addition to having a smooth, seamless capture, you can now perform color enhancements and restoration or editing with video editing software, if needed. When comparing film transfer companies, be sure to always ask about the method of transfer. There are still some companies who will project your film onto a white wall or screen and simply record the image with a camcorder. The quality of this method comes nowhere close the that of a telecine transfer descibed above.

It’s often wise to have a specialized film transfer company handle the transfer of your old film. Quality telecine transfer units typically costs thousands of dollars, and for most consumers, it just isn’t worth the cost to transfer a couple thousand feet of film. However, if you do plan on transferring your film yourself, a cheaper alternative would be to project the film onto a high quality screen, and record it using a quality digital camcorder such as Digital8, MiniDV, or a Hard Drive camcorder. Just know that the results of this method simply do not compare to the quality of a frame-by-frame premium film transfer.

Here at DVD Your Memories, we use a unique retrofitted projector with a built-in manually adjustable brightness controller to adjust over and under-exposed scenes in real-time, which can provide the highest quality film to dvd in San Diego.

Next time you’re going through the old attic or closet, please keep note of the box of family memories on film in the corner, as it simply won’t be there forever!

• Bookmark on Delicious
• Digg this post
• Recommend on Facebook
• Buzz it up
• share via Reddit
• Share with Stumblers
• Tweet about it
• Subscribe to the comments on this post
• Tell a friend
• Print for later

Technorati Tags: 16mm to dvd, 8mm to dvd, film to dvd, Film Transfer