TRANSFER 8mm FILM TO DIGITAL PROBLEMS
Your family's old home movie film (8mm, Regular-8 and 16mm) will not last forever!
TAKE ACTION TODAY!
Imagine opening up that box in your closet that has been holding your family's home movie films and THIS is what you see! Your heart drops and your family's memories are gone forever! Time, heat, humidity will eventually warp and dry-rot old media such as 8mm movie film, regular-8 film and super 8 film. Don't let this happen to your family memories. Act today to get your home movie film reels digitized before it's too late!
MY FILM SMELLS LIKE VINEGAR
Does your old Super 8, 8mm, or 16mm film smell like Vinegar? Does it have a white powder film on the reels? Chances are, if you see these two indicators, your film is deteriorating rapidly and will not last much longer! We call this Vinegar Syndrome. It is a sign that you had better try to get these digitized today rather than waiting one more day!
As you can see from the examples, film becomes brittle, curled or warped and eventually becomes one solid brick of plastic and destined for the garbage. Gone forever! I am not making a sales pitch, I am telling you from 30 years of experience, what can happen if you procrastinate digitizing your film reels.
WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS FOR VIEWING MY HOME MOVIE FILM REELS AGAIN?
1. DVD discs (holds up to 2 Hours)
2. SSD Drive - Solid State Hard Drive
(Its like your phone's memory)
3. Flash Drive - USB Drive
Only holds a small amount of videos.
DVDs are slowly going away. SSD Drive is your best bet for the future. They can be used on Big Screen TVs as well as computers.
FILM TRANSFER F.A.Q.s
VINEGAR SYNDROME: Technically "cellulose acetate decomposition". This is more commonly known as "Vinegar Syndrome".
The symptoms of vinegar syndrome are a strong vinegar smell followed by shrinkage, becomes brittle, and buckling of the gelatin emulsion.
Storage in warm and humid conditions greatly accelerates the onset of decay. Once it begins, the remaining life of the film is short because the process speeds up as it goes along. Once film has vinegar syndrome starts, there is only a small window of time, before the film starts to physically morph -- curl and stretch and then shrink.
Once the film shrinks, it becomes brittle, and bowed. (See example to the right).
Act now and have your films preserved on DVD! Once Vinegar Syndrome starts, there is no way to reverse it.
Once film has vinegar syndrome detected, all reels sharing common air space should be quarantined individually and transferred to DVD immediately.
Converting your film to DVD s the only way to salvage the images on the film.
COLOR FADING: Color fading is caused by chemical changes in the image dyes of color films.Many older films have taken on a distinct purplish cast, caused by the rapid fading of the cyan and yellow image dyes.
BAD BATHS: Super 8mm film can go bad due to "bad baths" during the original processing with a crystalline "snow flake" build-up within the emulsion of the film which was not washed / rinsed properly at the time of development. (See example to the right)
AGING & MOLD: Film is made of plastic "tape" (backing) and an organic "film" on the tape the "gelatin emulsion". Made from plant and animal by-products, all color and black-and-white information is stored in the gelatin emulsion, which cracks with age. Even the color dyes "get tired". This "organic" media is vulnerable to mold that grows in dark damp places.
Film that "gets wet" will contact mold that will literally "eat it up". This appears a as blue-green mosaic in your film and occasionally as "black specks". Also, mold can grow in the scratches in the emulsion of your film, which discolor over time. (See example to the right)
We suggest NOT running them on an old projector with a hot bulb. You may do more damage by trying to organize them rather than having ustransfer them as is.
