Family Reunion - Transferring 8mm and Other Video to DVD

 Several years ago I transferred over 170 super 8, 8mm, 12mm and 16mm films along with some newer VHS 8mm, mini discs and regular VHS over onto DVD for my family and my fathers side of the family. 

It was a labor that started over ten years ago when I watched and listed everyone on every 8mm movie I could find and after watching them all, I put them in order (or as best as I could guess without actual dates) and then made a master "word Doc" list that everyone could search for their name and look up every video they were in. I used my video camera and make DVD's filming it in a dark room.

A few years after that, while sorting boxes and boxes of stuff from my mothers two houses, we found a bunch more super 8 and 8mm films.  We also found the 12mm and the 16mm films. I asked all my family members if they had any 8mm films of the family that they wanted transferred over to DVD hoping I could get a good deal on transferring them over if we did them all at the same time. 

My uncle and his wife dropped off about 8 films that were priceless. They were of my great-great-grandfather swimming and pulling his grand-kids around on an inner tube at a local amusement park. There were lots of my father and his siblings and I was thrilled that he shared them with us. 

I asked my dad for any he may have and he gave me all that he had and all that I had watched before. My brother had a few that he took and made into a movie when all my cousins came over for a party one day, we made a movie. I added that to the stack. 

Just when I thought I had all the movies that anyone in our family had, my step-mother asked if my dad had given me the box from his father. I had no idea what she was talking about and asked my dad. He had no idea what she was talking about and reminded him that they had moved a box of slides and things from their old house and it was his stuff and she hadn't ever gone through it. 

He pulled out the treasure chest. I don't think it had ever been gone through since my grandfather died. There were black and white 8mm movies from 1938 and 1939 on in that box. I saw my dad as a child of about three with his sibling. My father was a triplet and on those tapes was their life from near beginning to end. There were some videos of people in the Lions club and some trips to Hawaii that didn't interest me much but the last few tapes were of my mother and father before they were married and actually at their wedding and those were in color. 


No one in our family had ever seen those movies and I wonder if my father had ever seen them. It was such a treasure to find those. 

I put them all in order, labeled them all. I watched them all before taking them to a man who would transfer all the different types onto DVD for me. I did the VHS myself but he did all the old stuff. He put it all through a filter to make the colors brighter. 

I then pulled off the master DVD set, all the movies that had my fathers side of the family on it and made a 10 DVD set of movies for them all. I included the "Word Doc" that had the file in it of who was in what video so they could search for movies of themselves. 

I also printed it out and we made little booklets for each family with a picture and poem of my grandmother on the front and my great-grandmother on the back. We included a genealogy disc and a picture disc. I paid someone to make all the copies of the DVD's for me and we put them all in a cute holder my sister designed. 

My kids, and my sisters kids, helped put them together so we could hand them out at the reunion a few years ago. 

Flash forward to this reunion for my mothers side. We were able to pull out the videos from our master DVD set and make them each a DVD with movies of them on it. You can see in the middle computer screen there is a man playing a guitar. That is video of my uncle playing classical guitar at my parents wedding. My mothers youngest brother is watching. That movie has never been seen by my mothers side of the family until now. 

In the end, the sorting, buying bins, buying DVD's, buying projector bulbs etc and having the movies transferred over cost about $5,000. But, that was for all the slides, pictures, scrapbook supplies, etc. 

You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you I am not through with everything yet but after looking at these pictures, perhaps you will. We had six pallets, six feet high of file cabinets and boxes to go through after cleaning out her two houses.

I have probably spent six months straight including day and night sorting, sorting, scanning, viewing, typing, organizing etc. Every few years, I go at it again. Who would have thought one person could have collected so much stuff? I guess it is more than one person but it has taken years of my life and my poor sister has a huge closet full of about 20 bins that I keep rummaging through and I'll take one home to scan or organize and then I take it back and grab another. It has been awhile since I worked on it until this past month and now I have two bins and two large grocery sacks of stuff waiting to be scanned. 

I wonder if it will ever be done but what fun it is to have movies of my parent's growing up and getting married. 

If you are going to do transferring, call around and make sure they do it on archival discs and find out how they transfer the images and if they will run it through any filters to take out the bad coloring or dust etc. Sometimes making calls to people whom they have worked with in the past can give you insight as well. If you are going to spend the money, make sure they are going to do it right. I was EXTREMELY pleased with the man that did mine. They came out amazing and some people run the video all together and there are no stop points so if you put it on a DVD, you can't sort through it with scenes as the entire video runs as one movie. These are some questions you should ask before beginning with someone. Good luck, it seems once you start, it never ends! 
 
I thought the bottom picture was funny. I was totally exhausted while working on sorting and transferring at my sisters and I pull out her oven mitt while making Sunday dinner and it is green and silicon and looked like a frog tongue so I had her take this picture. I was tired but when I saw it the other day, I couldn't remember what was in my mouth, my sister had to remind me it was her oven mitt. 

See what happens when you go for months on no sleep!