Converting film to digital

[chrisb]

I have several reels of old family 8mm film movies I would like to digitize. I have been reading about it on the internet. It seems many of the professional places actually just play the movie onto a screen and then film it. Other places will actually do a frame by frame scan.
I have tried the shoot the playing film and it actually works quite well but I want better if I can get it. Do you think the frame by frame method is worth it? I think they use a Telecine machine for this?
There is a Japan camera local that will convert 8mm for $.20 a foot according to their website. I haven't contacted them yet to see what method they use and if I can get the raw file from them. Some places(Walmart) do not provide the raw file.
I need to do this soon as some of the films are starting to deteriorate. Some of them (ones I'm not really needing) are already distorting and the others are showing the signs of going bad, vinegary smell from them.

[dkerr]

I would not let them age any more than they are now. Years ago we had telecine chains that shot the image from a projector angled in with a mirror into a special camera but it was 16mm, I suspect that 8mm versions are out there but I have not used them. Video is really multiple frames anyway, 16 mm was 24 frames per second we had to convert to the broadcast standard of almost 30 frames a second which was accomplised by a 3 / 2 pull down method, 3 pulses of one frame, next frame pull down then 2 pulses and so on. I am not sure if frame by frame recording is any better or not, if they have comparisons to see it would help. Most broadcasting places have done away with telecine

[chrisb]

Some of the units I have seen on the net have LED cold light and the shoot the directly through the film into what looks like a CDD camera. If I was to ask for the frame by frame raw data would it be difficult to work with? Or should I just let them convert to a DVD file?
I'm not going to let go much longer. Sometime within the next two months I will them digitized one way or another. I didn't realize the problem the films were beginning to have.

[chrisb]

When I shoot the film myself should I project a large or small image on the wall to film with my digital camera?

[dkerr]

You want an actually video file but some video file codec formats may be of better quality than in dvd format. To shoot on a screen and record, you would want the room in total darkness with camera on a tripod, and a good screen.

[chrisb]

I was shooting off an actual projector screen but I found it better if I used a piece paper taped to the wall. I was wonder if the size of the image I project should be large or small. Right now I am shooting on a small 8.5x11 sheet of paper. I am using a tripod. The files are coming off the camera as AVI.
Would it be better to go larger?

[chrisb]

More questions. As you can tell this is a learning project for me. And now that some relatives have heard I am doing this they said "OH I have some films. Maybe you can do mine too".
I am currently using my old digital camera that takes movies in 640x480. Would it be a benefit if I picked up a webcam? Many of them show at least 1080 as the resolution.

[dkerr]

never tried a webcam for this but the higher resolution the recording the better, it will allow you during the editing process to do movement effect / zoom in without becoming distorted. I will also note another factor besides resolution is the quality of the lenses of the camera itself can in turn relate to the quality of the image being recorded and I am not sure how good image quality wise webcams are even if higher resolution?