Blackmagic Forum

I was wondering what options exist for transferring old film reels like 8mm/16mm etc to digital without using the cintel machine? It is just out of the budget and I only have a couple films currently so buying such a setup to transfer them wouldn't make much sense.

James

It depends entirely upon where you are based. Here in the UK, I use a company that produces superb quality transfers (to ProRes422 in my case) of Regular/Standard-8mm, Super-8mm and 16mm with or without sound. What you need to avoid is the guy who'll do the job really cheaply with the knackered projector and a video camera whose results will be awful.

I'm in the usa, I prefer to do things myself instead of just hiring someone to do the work for me. While I would love to buy a cintel setup to but to be honest it would take close to 3 years of my salary to cover that purchase so will not happen. So I am looking for other options.

The choice after the Cintel, which is way overkill for family movie by the way, would be a RetroScan Universal HD/2K from MovieStuff, starting at around 6000$ US.

You have only a couple of movie to do and you're not a professional ? If you're wealthy and don't know what to do with your money, buy the Cintel or RetroScan and have fun.

If you're not rich, find a professional that will do a great job (ask if they use a scanner or modern telecine) for a couple of 100$ dollars.

If you're not rich and absolutely want to do the job yourself, find a second hand film projector that can run at 20 fps (adjustable, to reduce flickers), a camera, and project your movies on a screen while filming with the camera. This is less then perfect, and don't pay for someone how still do it like that.