The Super 8mm camera was the DV camcorder of its day. Now you've got a closet full of super 8mm film reels sitting collecting dust or, even worse, beginning to mildew away. How best to preserve these memories? You could send them off to have them professionally transferred, but this can be expensive and time consuming. Instead, if you've got a DV camera, you can convert your super 8 movies on your own to CD and keep them digitally archived.
Instructions
Capturing the Super 8
1. Get your workstation ready. Find a table with plenty of space and set your Super 8mm projector at one end, close to a power source. If there are windows in the room, make sure they can be draped off so that no light can come in. You want the room as dark as possible. You want a nice, bright white wall to project your image on. If your wall isn't white, you can also put up a film screen or use a piece of white posterboard.
2. Turn on the projector's lamp. You should see a bright square on the wall where the film will show.
3. Position your DV camera so that it can capture this white square as straight on as possible. Zoom in so that the square fills the entire DV frame.
4. Thread the Super 8 movie that you want to capture into the projector and ready it for projection. If your camera has a variable projection speed, set this to 20FPS. Most normal Super 8MM projection is at 18FPS.
5. Turn off the lights in the room. Press record on the DV camera. Start the projector. Watch the viewfinder in the DV camera to make sure that the camera is recording and capturing properly. Make any focus adjustments as necessary. You may have to do this a few times until you get things exactly right.
Converting the Film To Digital
6. Turn on your computer.
7. Plug one end of the firewire cable into your DV camera and the other end into the DV port on your PC.
8. Start up Windows Movie Maker. On the left hand side of the screen, select "Import from Digital Camera." The capture video window will open up. Now that your DV camera is connected to your editing software, you can use the controls in Movie Maker to cue your tape up to the point where you want to start capturing.
9. Hit "Record" to start capturing. Hit "Stop" when you've captured the desired footage.
10. Move the captured footage down to the timeline at the bottom of the program. You can edit and add any titles here. When you are satisfied with the production, click the "Export to Recordable CD" on the left menu.
11. Insert a blank CD into your CD tray. When it is finished recording, the computer will eject the CD.
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