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Info Wanted: has anyone tried a Star Wars Super 8mm to DVD preservation project?

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Has anyone ever tried to do this? If not is there anyone here that can transfer super 8mm film to dvd. I think this would be a cool project to do.
I would love to watch star wars with that flicker and in the sound add the soft sound of a projector. I have a brand new copy of star wars on super 8 if anyone can help please let me know.

What do you guys think?

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Personally, I'd love to see this done. I have a friend who is a film major, and there's equipment at his school to do this. Perhaps I shall ask him.

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Hi everybody. You’re all awesome. Keep up the good work.

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Check the google ads.

Such as this site.

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I checked with my friend, apparently the thing there is not much more than a mirror and a videocamera. Sorry.

I used to be very active on this forum. I’m not really anymore. Sometimes, people still want to get in touch with me about something, and that is great! If that describes you, please email me at [my username]ATgmailDOTcom.

Hi everybody. You’re all awesome. Keep up the good work.

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Yes, such an undertaking is in the works. That's all I can say for now.
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Where were you in '77?

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If you want a professional transfer done from 8mm to DVD (or DV), go to www.pro8mm.com. They do fully professional digital transfers of 8mm material.

Don't use a lot of these other sites on the web. Like ReverendBeastly said: it's just a guy setting up a video camera in front of a screen.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Sigh. I guess we're now going to get a tonne of posts pointing people with film to a whole bunch of places that can transfer 8/16/35mm film to video, but will not, because the owner of the film doesn't have permission. These are not home movies were talking about.

Listen: if you haven't personally checked out the place by sending some film from a Hollywood movie, then these "you should send your stuff here" posts are almost useless. I like the enthusiasm, but they're frustrating because they make a solution sound trivial. But it's really not that simple. If it were, then everyone would be doing it already. I mean, you think people who have figured out how to get film haven't figure out how to use Google?

Sorry to sound harsh, but this topic comes up again and again, and yet nobody actually does any legwork towards making it a reality.
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Thank you Karyudo, yes people if it were that simple I would have taken care of this already. I have done some research found some info, very little, on how to do this at home. There are basically three ways, two of which are mostly the same and come down to recording the playback of a projector with a camera. The other, which I would love to do if I could figure it out is using a flat bed film scanner, like the epson 4180 which i have, to scan the film in making it a true digital conversion. I have found two site that tell somewhat how this is done but they dont provide the software they use, and so far have not replied to any emails. The nice thing about the websites are that they make the film capture automatic, I dont really want to do it by hand.
Here are the site:
Legacy Film to DVD Project
8mm Film Scanner
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how the hell did you get this anyways?
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Just to let everyone know someone has contacted me and said that they could transfer super 8 to dvd for me. They prefer not let their name be know for reasons of legality. So watch for an update on this project soon (I hope).

Not sure if ESB and ROTJ are out on super 8, I have only seen ANH.
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A few things to keep in mind if considering doing it at home (which seeing that no commercial transfer lab will touch it, is your only option really).

1) The standard mirror and screen system gives you a grainy picture with a very low ANSI CR, and a low ON/OFF CR as well. The grain of the screen adds to the film grain and looks pretty awful.

2) The flatbed scanner method. Better CR and colour reproduction, but is brutally unforgiving on dust and scrathes due to the collimated light source. A scanner using "digital ice" is the only way to go if considering this path.

3) The above option also means scanning effectively a frame at a time, or a few frames at a time. A two hour movie consists of more than 172,000 frames. So if you scanned and saved a frame every minute it would take 2,880 hours, or 360 days if you did it 8hours a day.

4) The best way would be to purchase a true telecine rig. You need something that doesn't go through condensors or screens or any other shennannigans. The DV8 sniper pro is what you would need to get anything better than what is on the laserdiscs - it can be purchased here. http://www.moviestuff.tv/dv8_sniper_pro.html. There are DIY alternatives, but at the end of the day you need quality glass lenses and a quality CCD broadcast camera ,and a modifiable Super8 projector - so it doesn't come cheaply.

You also then have to balance the exposure, do the endless scratch and dirt removal and go through and colour grade the result and do a separate sound pass - it isn't easy and is extremely time consuming, but can be done.
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Segaflip, do you have the whole movie or one of the short versions?
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Where were you in '77?

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Yeah sorry I jumped the gun I have the short version, I am starting to look for the full version, if there is one.
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Originally posted by: SilverWook
Yes, such an undertaking is in the works. That's all I can say for now.

Would love to hear more if you can?
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There are versions kicking around on Super8 and even better on 16mm, so keep your eyes peeled.
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Originally posted by: segaflip
Not sure if ESB and ROTJ are out on super 8, I have only seen ANH.
Originally posted by: segaflip
Yeah sorry I jumped the gun I have the short version, I am starting to look for the full version, if there is one.


From my very brief research it appears there were no full Super 8 Star Wars flicks and no ROTJ reels at all.

The best you can get are the two-part 17-18 minute reels for ANH and ESB, so a total of about 70 minutes

[edit]Apparently there were two versions of the first ESB reel, so you possibly could get another couple of minutes out of both.[/edit]

http://www.kineticpast.com/starwars/thecheatlaserdisc.gif
Ooh, a laserdisc. The Cheat's playin' something on a laserdisc.
Everything is better on a laserdisc. Whatever happened to the laserdisc? Laserdisc!

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Originally posted by: zion
I'm pretty sure the full ANH exists on super8.


Hehe, by 'very brief' I meant five minutes of Googling just before the post!

http://www.kineticpast.com/starwars/thecheatlaserdisc.gif
Ooh, a laserdisc. The Cheat's playin' something on a laserdisc.
Everything is better on a laserdisc. Whatever happened to the laserdisc? Laserdisc!

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There are super8 and 16mm prints of the complete movies for all three.
They were made for Army bases and the like to show the films. Quite a few prints were done at the time, unfortunately many on eastman stock which has since gone pink, or on other stocks that have since gone green, but there are probably a few out there that were done onto decent stock that has survived. T
he trick is to find them.
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Hey guys,

I got a hold of Star Wars parts 1 and 2, and also ESB parts 1 and 2, both on Super 8 color & sound. Also someone from the forum has offered to transfer them too dvd. Should not be long now!
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Is there actually a possibility to transfer them to MORE than just DVD-resolution? I mean, I don't know the quality of this, but maybe scanning it to HD-XviD (720p or more) might be a great thing.
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Man, I wouldn't want to pay for that transfer. Cha-ching.
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Originally posted by: Laserschwert
Is there actually a possibility to transfer them to MORE than just DVD-resolution? I mean, I don't know the quality of this, but maybe scanning it to HD-XviD (720p or more) might be a great thing.


That is a great idea, I will ask if that can be done. Or maybe they will read this and pm/email me the answer!