Hey guys. I just wanted to share some good news about a project I recently did. I gathered up about 53 Super8 film reels from my dad's house and sent them to a place in Georgia called Cinepost. I had planned to try to project the films and videotape them myself to save money, but ran into several issues. The main thing is that the frame rate of film is 18 frames per second, which doesn't sync with NTSC video's 29.97, so the effect was a constant strobing of the image.
The process of properly transferring film to video and matching frame rates is called telecine, and it is done with big expensive equipment operated by experts. I had priced some services around the country, and found it to be too expensive, but later happened to run across Cinepost through a mention in a PC Magazine article online.
They use a wet process that actually fills in the little scratches as the film runs across the scanner, so it really restores the image considerably. It is totally non-destructive. Some of my films had damaged sprocket holes that would not even play in a projector, but it was no problem for Cinepost. They had a good turnaround time, a very competitive price, and the films look incredible on video. I would recommend them to anyone who has been considering restoring their old films.
http://www.posthouse.com
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12-13-2006, 08:40 AM
Transfer old films
