Digitizing old film

Be extremely careful if you're going to use any service.
You need to make sure you do not hand your film over to a company that will destroy/recycle your film after their digitization. Once the film is gone, it's gone. Many companies destroy the film after scanning it and this is 100% avoidable. There are no methods of scanning that require destruction of the original film so you should never allow them to destroy or recycle your film. Besides that, many services just suck. Reviews are often useless because they're either fake or come from people who don't know the potential of their originals and are just happy to see something digital from them after their collections were collecting dust for decades.

Here's a video showing a comparison of a scanning service vs frame-by-frame RAW capture with a macro lens and DSLR.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kC2hc_GzIA

When it comes to film scanning, there's always room for improvement. Even if you get an okay digitization today I would still recommend preserving the originals because better digitization services can always come to the market and potentially at a better price. The ceiling for film scanning is quite high, but the floor is full of low tier trash services. If you look closely in the video you'll see that the video he received was actually interlaced which is absolutely pathetic.

Saving Tape out of Minneapolis is great. I’ve used them for several things. They’re not cheap, but they do great work, they’re professional, and they clearly love and appreciate old media.

https://www.savingtape.com/

bit expensive but cheaper than most services of similar quality. Nikki Coyle at TheNegative.Space is my go to. Amazing quality and She charges $0.40 per foot for HD, $0.50 for 2k and $0.60 for 4k. (a single reel is usually 50ft)

If you want to DIY: https://moviestuff.tv/

I used a wolverine 8mm film converter. It was around $400.

It stops the film and takes an image, so the film needs to be in decent shape. It only runs at 2 captures per second, so 50 foot reels take ~30 minutes.

I captured around (20) 50 foot reels, and (25) 400 foot reels with just a few issues. Sometimes damaged film prevents it from moving properly and repeated frames occur, or the machine will jam up, but these are resolved easily.

Once captured, you need to stabilize the frames because the raw video is very shaky and the frame rate is captured at 24 fps when 8 mm film is closer to 18-20 fps.

It helps to setup a film cleaning system to keep dust off the captures. I setup a few brushes and passed the film through them. Professional setups will use fluid baths.

Overall, it was worth the purchase. The digitized quality is very good. There is slight room for improvement which are definitely solved by $2000+ setups.

I considered paying for professional services but it seemed I was looking at $1000+. Also considered recording from a projector, but that produces very poor results.

The biggest problem with these is that if they are the ones with sound, you’re gonna have a hell of a time finding a company that can do it. And when you do, your eyes are going to water when you see the price.

My parents have a projector for one of these and it would play sound. Unfortunately they are 3000 miles away and are not technical people. If I can get back there, I’m gonna see if it has a line out. If you can find one, and it works, you could capture the audio separate and sync it up in Avid or Resolve or some other NLE.

Thank you for posting this and getting the conversation going. Its encouraging me to research how to get all my film converted...

These guys are doing legendary work with this effectively DIY scanner.

The Gugusse Compact

4K scanning, 8mm reels all the way up to 35mm reels.

Way better than buying some cheap junk scanner on amazon, or sending them off to a cheap film conversion place (where chances are they're likely doing the conversion are using the same amazon junk product anyway).

With the Gugusse, you have full control over scanning and processing, to ensure the best possible scan, meaning the best possible base for further restoration of the scan.

Thank you for all of your insight! I am new to this so certainly have a bit to learn. I am going to use a cheaper service for some of my "newer" films but for these older ones here I am going to look into the options recommended here. There are so many!! Thank you!

I have a machine to do those lol

Years ago (~10) costco digitized 8mm It was through a third party. Don't know if they still do it.