Transfer 8mm Film

Preserve your camcorder memories with professional 8mm tape transfers by DVD Your Memories in Orange County. Our Irvine team specializes in converting Video8, Hi8, and Digital8 formats to DVD or digital files, right here in our local lab. These compact camcorder tapes offered higher quality than VHS, making them a favorite for home videos throughout the late ’80s and ’90s.

Now that these formats are outdated and prone to degradation, transferring them ensures your footage remains safe and accessible. If you’re wondering how to transfer 8mm video to digital, our team has you covered with expert guidance and reliable results.

Our 8mm film transfer process is performed entirely in-house by trained technicians. We inspect and clean each tape, then convert 8mm film to digital using industry-leading equipment. The result is a high-quality digital copy preserved on archival DVD or as a digital file.

Sony introduced the 8mm video format in 1985 with the launch of the Handycam camcorder. Its smaller size and higher quality made it a popular alternative to bulky VHS and Betamax tapes.

There are three types of 8mm tapes:

• Video8 (8mm): The original analog format.
• Hi8: An upgraded version offering improved resolution. Some professional Hi8 equipment included a track for digital audio.
• Digital8: A fully digital format that uses the same cassette shell but records in DV format.

8mm film is typically measured by the foot. To get the approximate footage of your reel, you first must measure the diameter of your reel. Most of the consumer format reels we see are about 3 inches in diameter, which are 50 feet long. Use the chart to the right to figure out the approximate footage of your 8mm film. Unsure of what kind of film you have? Take a glance at our film conversion chart.

Your 8mm tapes face many threats that worsen with each passing year. Understanding these risks emphasizes the urgency of a video transfer service:

• Magnetic deterioration causes gradual quality loss and color fading.
• Tape stretching results in audio-video synchronization problems.
• Oxide layer degradation leads to permanent image loss.
• Humidity damage particularly affects Orange County’s coastal climate.
• Equipment obsolescence makes playback increasingly difficult.

Video8 and Hi8 tapes typically came in 30, 60, 90, and 120-minute capacities. Digital8 tapes usually hold 30 or 60 minutes of recording. Regardless of length, all formats are susceptible to age-related deterioration that accelerates in Orange County’s unpredictable climate.

When preparing your film for a film to DVD transfer, it’s probably the first time you’ve pulled it out of the can in a while. If you pull it out and notice a strong odor of vinegar coming from the film, then it’s suffering from what we like to call “vinegar syndrome”. If you discover that one or more of your reels of film are affected by vinegar syndrome, quarantine them from the rest of the film as soon as possible to prevent spreading to other reels.

In 1948, the film industry began using cellulose triacetate as the main material used in the manufacture of film. Sadly, film was just not made to last forever. Every day more and more people are realizing this fact, as their film collections have been degrading for years. The term “vinegar syndrome” is derived from the fact that once cellulose triacetate breaks down, it releases acetic acid, which is the key ingredient in vinegar and responsible for its acidic smell. Film is more prone to this condition if stored in warmer, tropical climates as opposed to dry, colder climates. The chemical instability of this material, which was unrecognized at the time of its introduction, has since become a major threat for film collections.

With acetate film, acetyl groups are connected to a long chain of cellulose molecules. After being exposed to heat, moisture, or acids, these chains break from their molecular bonds, which result in acetic acid being released. The acid is first released inside the plastic, but slowly diffuses to the surface, causing a vinegar odor.

• During the initial breakdown, acetic acid is released, causing a strong vinegar smell. This marks the first stage of the degradation process.
• Next, the plastic film base becomes brittle, which in turn weakens the film, causing it to break apart into pieces at the slightest touch.
• After the plastic base degrades, the film will begin to shrink. With advanced degradation, film can shrink up to 10%!
• As the acetate base shrinks, the emulsion does not shrink, which will then cause buckling, referred to archivists as “channeling”.
• Crystalline deposits or small bubbles will form on the emulsion. These are evidence of plasticizers, additives to the plastic base, becoming incompatible with the film base and oozing out on the surface. This discharge of plasticizers is a sign of advanced degradation.
• In some cases, pink or blue colors appear in some sheet films. This is caused by antihalation dyes, which are normally colorless and incorporated into the gelatin layer. When acetic acid is formed during deterioration, the acidic environment causes the dyes to return to their original pink or blue color.

The first step in a 8mm film transfer order is the cleaning and repair procedure. Bad splices will be re-spliced to ensure the smoothest transfer possible. Depending on the age, condition and type of 8mm film stock being transferred, the cleaning process will differ, but we really do clean every inch of the film.

This initial inspection and cleaning process can sometimes take longer than the actual transfer which is why we usually ask for 2 weeks to complete your order. The cleaning process is something that many companies do not perform but is essential for this type of service.

Once the 8mm film has been prepped, it is time to perform the telecine transfer. Your film is projected directly into the lens of a broadcast quality 3-CCD camera. When comparing 8mm film transfer companies, always ask about the method of transfer. There are many companies out there which simply project your film onto a screen and record that image with a camcorder. You will lose detail in your film if the transfer is performed this way.

Please contact our film transfer technician if you would like to view a full quality demo reel.

We can combine multiple short tapes onto one DVD at no extra cost. This is great for grouping similar events, like all of your child’s birthday parties into a single compilation. Each archival DVD holds up to 2 hours of video, so we recommend combining tapes with shorter runtimes.

DVD Your Memories uses exclusively premium 100-year archival DVDs for all 8mm video transfers, ensuring your memories remain accessible for generations. We offer a comprehensive compatibility guarantee to back up our confidence in transfer quality.

Never worry about disc read errors or compatibility issues with your transferred 8mm collection. Our guarantee ensures your converted videos will play flawlessly on any standard DVD equipment.

Planning to edit your footage? We recommend transferring your 8mm tapes to a hard drive. Files are delivered in NTSC DV AVI format, ideal for video editing on both PC and Mac.

If you provide your own hard drive, please ensure it has enough space (13GB per hour of video). We also suggest using a new drive, but if yours has existing data, you’ll need to sign a data-loss waiver. We take every precaution to protect your content.

Need a different format? After transferring your footage to a hard drive, we can convert it to .MOV, .MP4, or any other format you need. Just let us know your preferred settings, and we’ll take care of the rest.

Every transfer includes basic cropping to remove blank footage at the beginning and end of your tapes. For a more polished result, take advantage of our basic editing services:

• Remove unwanted sections
• Combine short clips from multiple tapes
• Cut out old TV commercials
• Add photos, slides, or film to your video

You can also create custom highlight reels, montages, or themed compilations for sharing with friends and family.

We’re often asked if DVD content can be edited. Technically, yes, but it’s not ideal. DVDs use compressed video, which makes editing more difficult and can result in reduced quality.

If no other media is available, we can edit from a finalized DVD. However, we recommend transferring from the original tapes when possible for best results. Call us if you need guidance on the best approach.

Enhance your 8mm film to DVD order even more by adding title slides. Title slides are short clips inserted into your video at any scene of your choosing which will provide the viewer with a title and/or description before the scene starts. Instead of watching your 8mm film in it’s entirety, title slides will allow you to put short breaks between scenes which will add production value to your 8mm film transfer. This is a great element to use for dividing up holiday scenes, birthdays or slides of the family.

Looking to add some music to your 8mm film to DVD transfer? Either bring us your own mix of songs, or use ours! Feel free to preview some samples of some of our stock music using the player below. All of our stock tracks last a whole two hours to ensure your whole DVD has a complete soundtrack. Ask your 8mm film transfer technician any questions you may have about music selections.

The Premium Real Time Transfer is our highest quality 8mm film transfer service and can bring your 8mm film back to life by restoring color and brightness on a scene-by-scene basis.

Our retrofitted projector is one of the few in the world that has a manually adjustable brightness control which can make under or overexposed scenes look much better. The transfer technician will watch your 8mm film on a standard monitor as well as a waveform monitor and adjust the back-light brightness accordingly. This type of brightness adjustment is an exclusive service we are proud to be able to offer.

The Premium transfer also includes scene-by-scene color correction. Almost all 8mm film will shift in color over time, usually to blue or red. The film transfer technician will go scene-by-scene to painstakingly correct all discoloration. Please note that severely discolored or extremely dark 8mm film is nearly impossible to bring back to the original color vibrancy, but we can get as close as humanly or digitally possible.

Video8 is entirely analog, Hi8 offers improved resolution with some digital audio capabilities, and Digital8 provides full digital recording quality similar to MiniDV format.

Yes, we specialize in transferring Video8, Hi8, and Digital8 tapes using professional equipment designed for each format’s specific requirements.

Each DVD holds up to 2 hours of footage. We can combine tapes if the total runtime allows.

Yes, all original materials are returned after the transfer is complete.

DVD Your Memories in Orange County makes it easy to digitize 8mm film or convert it to DVD. Contact us today or stop by our Irvine location to preserve your 8mm video memories.