Convert 8mm to DVD at Home
Many people think that backing up their old 8mm home movies to DVD is a lengthy and expensive process that is well beyond their means. They think they have to take their films to a professional business and pay hundreds of dollars just to ensure their home movies don't disintegrate over time. This is, of course, not true. By using a standard camcorder and your DVD drive, you can quickly and easily make a digital copy of your favorite memories that will stand the test of time and last forever.
Instructions
1. Project your 8mm film onto either a clean screen or a white wall using a normal 8mm projector. Make sure everything is in focus and running smoothly. The smoother, cleaner and whiter the surface you project onto is, the better the digital copy of your film is going to be.
2. Take your digital camcorder and place it on a tripod directly in front of the surface you're going to project your 8mm film onto. You can put your camcorder onto any flat surface, but a tripod is ideal as it allows you to adjust your angle smoothly and easily. Make sure the camcorder is focused (just because your film is being projected in focus doesn't mean your camcorder is recording in focus) and white balanced (the process of defining the color white to your camera, which affects the way it processes all colors) before you continue.
3. Record your film from start to finish using your camcorder. Line up your camcorder perfectly so you both aren't losing any picture information but you also can't see anything around the projection surface. Running a few quick tests to make sure everything is adjusted properly may be necessary to get things perfect.
4. Capture the raw video data from your camcorder to your computer. From here you can use any standard DVD burning software to burn the digital copy of your 8mm film to DVD. Depending on the quality of your software, you can also add features like music or enhance the overall picture quality by changing colors. When you are completely satisfied with your digital copy, burn it to a DVD for use in any standard DVD player or drive.
Tags: your film, your camcorder, digital copy, copy your, digital copy your