From their introduction by Kodak in 1965 until the advent of video camcorders in the earl 80s, Super 8 movies were all the rage for shooting home movies. Watching a Super 8 movie today is difficult because the films are fragile, brief, and not compatible with any of the equipment in a typical home theater. Archiving Super 8 movies onto DVDs can be done commercially, but it's safer to do it yourself since there's no chance of it getting lost in the mail or being damaged by a commercial lab.
Instructions
Making a Digital Video of the Super 8 movie
1. Attach the glossy white paper to the wall with the double sided tape.
Place the Super 8 movie projector on a small table facing the wall.
Put the digital camcorder onto the tripod. Place the tripod behind the table supporting the Super 8 projector.
2. Turn on the Super 8 projector. Turn on the projector's bulb and move the Play knob to the "Forward" setting to start the movie playing.
Focus the picture while looking at the movie being projected on the glossy white paper.
Turn on the digital camcorder. Focus the lens of the digital camcorder while looking at the movie being projected on the glossy white paper.
3. Reverse the movie in the Super 8 projector so that it goes back to the beginning and start the movie playing again.
Start the digital camcorder recording.
4. Stop the digital camcorder recording when the Super 8 movie has finished playing. Turn the digital camcorder off.
Turn off the bulb in the Super 8 movie projector. Rewind the Super 8 movie back to the beginning. Remove the Super 8 movie and put it away.
5. Remove the glossy white paper from the wall. Put the Super 8 projector away.
Remove the digital camcorder from the tripod. Put the tripod away.
Transferring the Super 8 Recording to the Computer
6. Download and install the DVD Burning Xpress software program to the computer's desktop (see link in Resources).
Restart the computer.
7. Attach the Firewire cable to the Firewire output of the digital camcorder and the other end to the Firewire input on the computer. Turn the digital camcorder on and set its the playback mode to "VCR."
8. Run the DVD Burning Xpress program. Press the "DV Capture" button on the program's main screen to start the digital camcorder playback. Press the "Start Capture" button on the "DV Capture" screen to start recording the video and audio from the digital camcorder onto the computer's hard drive.
9. Press the "Stop Capture" button when the playback is finished. Press the "OK" button to close the dialogue box that has now appeared.
Press the "Stop" button on the program's screen to stop the digital camcorder.
10. Disconnect the Firewire cable from the digital camcorder and from the Firewire port of the computer. Turn off the digital camcorder and put it away.
Making the DVD
11. Put a blank, recordable DVD into the computer's DVD drive.
12. Press the "Burn Now" button on the main window of the DVD Burning Xpress program.
13. Wait as the DVD Burning Xpress program burns the digital file of the Super 8 movie onto the DVD disc.
14. Press the "OK" button on the window that appears when the burning has been completed.
Quit the DVD Burning Xpress program.
15. Eject the DVD disc and archive or delete the digital file of the Super 8 film that is on the computer's hard drive.
Tags: digital camcorder, Super movie, Burning Xpress, Burning Xpress program, glossy white