Way O/T ! Anybody ever transfer 16mm film to video?

I recently had some 16mm films and three projectors drop in my lap (boy did it hurt, too !)

There are WWII anti-aircraft training films as well as material about childbirth, Florida tourism, a college football game from 1962, Travel footage, someone's borthday party and even a stag film or two.

I have looked into haivng thtem transferred to video by the pros but the cost would be around $3,000.00 for all of it. I have over 10,000.00 feet of film.

I think I am going to do it myself with a mini DV camcorder.

Has anybody ever done this?

I found a few sites on the web and it is relatively straight forward.

I think I will transfer some of it myself and see how it works. I think it will make osme good raw material for our next music video.

Those sound like the sort of thing you'd find at archive.org's moving image archive (http://www.archive.org/details/movies). Might be worth checking there before you do the conversion in case someone else has already done it.

Or conversely, consider dropping copies there when done.


I suspect the major problem will be getting the projector and camera to synchronise.

I've done this from 8mm to vhs using a transfer mirror system which I nolonger have thanks to burglars. I had to do it the old fashioned way of pointing both projector, and cam at the screen after that. Not as good as the transfer system, but it worked.

I'd transfer it right to a dvd recorder, or a PC with a huge hard drive.

Get ready to shell out for lots of lamps. 24 hours per lamp. How many hours is 10,000 feet?

In this format 10,000 feet is about 5 hours and I have three projectors so I can probably make it on what I have available.

I am going to purchase some lamps anyway because once I get the film transferred I want to set up the projectors at gigs and shine the folms over us while we play.

I think I am going to go straight to Mini DV and then transfer it all to DVD's and computer files. At that point I will try to edit it all together into some kind of cohesive videos.

Gordon, I will check them before I put too much effort into it.

As far as synchronization, I will have to slow the projector down just s tad to match up with the video frames per second. I know that sounds wrong but if you slow it down you will end up with a good match, sometimes a frams of film wil appear more than once but there will be no flicker.

That's true about matching the FPS between projector, and video camera.

Going to mini Dv, and then to DVD sounds like you should get the same great quality as if you'd gone direct to DVD. I just wonder if it's worth the extra effort to go to mini DV first.

It's more a matter of logistics. I have access to a Mini DV camcorder but not a DVD burner at this point.

If I ever get this stuff transferred I should be able to put together a pretty cool retro video.

Between the old aircraft footage, the childbirth films and whatever else is there, there ought to be enough wierdness to keep someone's attention for a 3 minute song.

I can't wait to see what you do with all that footage. Sounds cool!

To diggy dog. I am from jackson ms and I'm looking to get another 16mm projector mine broke. I searched google and came up with you having one. Will you please contact me at aholcomb69@yahoo.com if you will sell me one. Would like to buy before friday but cant spend a lot of money.

Alan from jackson ms

Hey, I live there too. Have you tried Sound and Communications, and Bowie Adio Visual?