Old cine films

@Michael Hewett this is the machine my brother got:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-MovieMaker-Scanner-Digitizer-Machine/dp/B08LYHLBQC

 

It produces video that plays back at 30 fps, he uses the software to change the speed back to the original 18fps. Also this one doesn't record the sound, all our old family cine films had no sound.

After it's been digitised you need to give some thought about editing it, e.g. trimming off the bits where the camera is taking shots of the ground, or uninteresting sequences. There are some movie editing software packages out there to do that. You can just leave it as the original.

Over Christmas I extracted some video sequences from my old family cine films, for an old friend who wanted to see her children when they were playing with ours. I just use the standard Windows Photo app to trim off unwanted bits.

 

@pete I did this myself a few years back. I bought an SVHS player off ebay. SVHS was the best quality player format, it takes VHS and the smaller VHS-C cassettes (with an adaptor). I also bought a DVD recorder and connected them together via a Time Base Corrector (all off ebay). The TBC gives a much more stable picture.

I ended up with several DVDs, mostly there was one DVD per VHS tape, but some of my VHS tapes were extra long and needed two or more DVDs to store it all on.

I compared mine with a sample tape I had professionally digitised and I thought mine was better, plus the studio chopped off the start of my test video. So I decided to DIY, it saved a lot of cash but took a lot of time setting up. I sold the equipment back on ebay for about what I paid for it.

I had a quick look on ebay for the equipment I used and found this:
Daewoo DF4150P DVD Recorder Player VCR Combo - Transfer VHS to DVD & DVD to VHS | eBay

It's a VHS to DVD recorder all in one box, old but would be much easier to use I guess. The drawback is all this sort of equipment is going to be on its last legs. Maybe you can buy a new one?

 

You need at least two copies, don't risk leaving important files in just one place. Computer internal disks can fail and external memory devices can too. Even DVDs are vunerable e.g. if dropped or fire and flood. I keep an up to date copy of all my stuff at my son's house so I can restore everything if the worst thing should happen.

Once Mrs JWK's laptop got infected with a ransomware virus. All her files including photos were encrypted by the virus and not accessible, the virus put up a message saying to pay the ransom in bitcoins. I wiped her machine and restored from a backup so we recovered ok.. I have heard some people and businesses have actually paid the ransom to get their files back.

 

They do sound interesting Michael. You might be able to get help with digitising them as did my cousin, who has a big collection taken in the late 1950s to 60s. As well as family he took lots of film of the village show, steam railways and farming sequences. One particular film he took is the only movie of a train on a local line that was axed by Beeching, it's unique. The railway museum at York were interested (he lives near there) and converted all his collection. The deal was they have the rights to the local interest films when my cousin passes away. The family films are going to be kept private.

You might be able to find a local history group who could help you. I know you don't want to let someone else digitize them, maybe a trustworthy local institution would help.

My cousin has spent a lot of time identifying all the locations and most of the people. The films have still frames where the names have been added to the film. They do make interesting viewing as things have changed out of recognition since the 50s, clothes, cars and places.

 

If you don't trust them then don't part with them