Archives for June 2011

When you transfer your 8mm, Super8, 16mm film reels to DVD at our on-site Film transfer lab in Newton, along with your original film reel (cleaned and conditioned) and a finished DVD, you also receive a digital backup tape as a standard part of the service.

Q. What is the purpose of the digital backup tape?
A. Insurance. Film transfer is labor intensive, therefore costly. The film has to be cleaned and conditioned – by hand, any sprocket damage or bad splices repaired before the film digitization transfer can even start. It’s common to spend a few hundreds of dollars to transfer a family collection of film. What happens if you put a scratch on the DVD, or break it? You have to spend hundreds of dollars all over again? That’s the purpose of the digital backup tape. If you break, scratch, lose your DVD, you can simply bring the backup tape to us and we can create DVDs from them. Creating DVD from film reels is hundreds of dollars, but creating a DVD from your digital backup tape is only $20 per tape.

Q. Is there any other purpose to the digital backup tape besides saving me money if my DVD breaks?
A. Yes. Once a video is put on DVD, it’s compressed. The digital backup tape, on the other hand, carries the full-resolution, “lossless” digital backup of your video. If one day, you decide to edit your video, or you want to upgrade to Blu-Ray DVDs, you can transfer the full-resolution video from the tape, as opposed to the compressed video on the DVD.

Q. What’s the best way to store the backup tape?
A. Store it in a safe, cool, dry place. One customer stores it in her bank safe. Wherever you store it, position it vertically, like a book, not flat down (see picture below). If you put it flat down, then the film ribbon is standing on its edge, that creates more pressure on one edge of the film than on the top edge of the film. If you position it vertically, like a book, the film lies flat with respect to the surface.

Q. Can I play or watch the backup tape?
A. If you have a mini-DV camcorder, or a mini-DV walkman, you can pop the tape into the player and watch it. If you don’t, just store it safely for one day when you need it. You can simply bring the tape back to our store and we can create a DVD out of the tape for you ($20/tape).

The majority of 16mm, Regular 8, Super 8 film home movies are silent. The latest format, Super 8 film was originally a silent system only, but in 1973 a sound on film version was released. The sound film had a magnetic soundtrack which is visible as a thin copper strip on one edge of the film (see diagram below).

The reason there’s not a lot of Super 8 SOUND film out there is because not very long after Sound-On-Film became available, the VHS came out. The VHS (trivia: VHS: Video Home System) recording and playing standard was launched in the US in June of 1977. If you weren’t an early adopter of Super 8 Sound, you would skip the new sound-on-film recording and move straight to the VHS.

So, if you are transferring 16mm, 8mm, or Super 8 film to DVD, chances are your home movies will be silent. Which is charming in itself. We do, however, offer the option of adding background music to your silent movies at no extra charge. You have a choice of 4 music genres: Easy Listening, Light Classical, 50’s/60’s Rock ‘n Roll, and Big Band. The most popular choice is Easy Listening. When I have some time, I will post a few samples here. If you are transferring the film to DVD for your parents, ask them what kind of music they associate with the period, that’s how we end up adding Big Band music to many film transfer projects.

Whichever genre you decide, do choose something, if you hate it, you can always mute it and you are back where you start. But there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy watching your silent home movies with a soothing, emotion-evoking light music in the background.

If you are converting your film to digital files on a hard drive, we will not add background music because most customers who transfer their home movies – VHS, miniDV, 8mm, Super 8 film to a hard drive (as opposed to a DVD) have the intention of editing the movies – trimming out unwanted sections, putting titles, transitions, and adding your own background music before burning the final edited movie into a DVD.