Question: "My films are so old .. can you tell if they are still any good?"
Answer: If your films have not been in a fire or a flood, they are fine.
If you think yours are old, we have restored and saved much older.
We transfer films from the early 1920's 30's & 40's all the time, that are in
excellent shape.
Question: "I am not sure what is on the reels or what order they are
in.. I want to find a projector and review them. Should I place a want-
ad in the newspaper for a projector."
Answer: a want ad? That’s a long shot. Your not even going to find a
projector that in good working order on the Internet .
That’s time wasted and more damage done to the films.
If your films have been spliced on to a larger reel, either 200-foot, 300-
foot or 400-foot ( 5 inches, 6 inches or 7 inches across the center of the
reel edge to edge), this is usually the best footage of all the types of
reels you may have in your collection. Because someone years ago had
taken the time to edit the best of the small 50 foot reels.
Question: "Do I get my films back when your done transferring them?"
Answer: You will get them back in better condition. They are cleaned,
splices fixed, leaders added. We do not charge for film that is not usable,
blank or overexposed.
Transfer old film to DVD: One customer's experience
Customer: "Since I had over 75 400-ft. reels of Super 8 movies that I
wanted to burn to DVDs, I felt commercial copies were far to costly. So..
I found a old beat up projector and purchased a Sony Hi-8 camcorder."
Master CV: Lets stop here... he should have purchased the best quality
projector he can find. And why is he using a Hi-8mm?, that’s 1980's
technology ..at least have a three chip digital camera approx. cost $2,500.
Customer: "I started this project about four years ago and completed it
this year."
Master CV: Four years? What we have here is true die-hard do-it-your
self'er. We could have turned this around in one week and saved you
time and money.
Customer: "I projected the movies directly into a reflector box and filmed
them to tape."
Master CV: reflector box ...bad idea.
Customer: "Keeping the projector speed at approximately 21fps [frames
per second,] worked best. Because of the age of the projector it had a
tendency to vary speed itself, so it meant a constant vigil at the monitor."
"I then captured the movies into the computer and edited them."
"I kept getting computer crashes and full disk errors. I didn’t have
enough disk space, memory and processor for this project. I was very
disappointed with the outcome of my project. And I wasted over four
years in my attempt. It was a headache all the way."
Master CV: You should have paid the price and got it done right!
