Dear Small-Gaugers & Amateur Film Groupers --

A new document providing guidance to people seeking transfers of their
home movies has been posted on the HMD Site:

http://www.homemovi eday.com/ transfer. html

Thanks for that great link! It addresses several issues concisely! A few observations:

"...VHS tapes, which are not yet fifty years old, are already becoming difficult to view..."

Mine aren't...sure I've got a few clunkers, but 99% of them play great. And the ones that barely play...at least they PLAY instead of being corrupted and seeing nothing. And believe me, most of those tapes have been subjected to extremes of all types.

"...The best we can do is determine which new formats we find most promising now, but remember that they too will probably become outdated sooner than we would like..."

Possibly the most brilliant statement in the article.


"...DVDs freeze just as often as VHS tapes jammed..."

That's just NOT TRUE. I can count on one hand the number of times a VHS tape "jammed." And I've had maybe 10 get eaten. This is all over a 30 year period. There is NO WAY you can say that DVDs are as reliable as VHS! And there is no way I'd trust any digital medium to record a once-in-a-lifetime type event. One small corruption and you lose the whole thing. A glitch on a VHS tape plays, then moves on. Even if the tape gets EATEN, you can still salvage SOMETHING.


"...no one knows how easy it might be to plug that drive into a device in the year 2075..."

Exactly! No format is perfect, no format is forever. Remember that, folks. Sure I'm slamming digital a lot here, but I also realize that no format is perfect. Sure, I use DVDs, they are currently coin of the realm and I have no choice. But that doesn't mean I have to toss my analog gear out the window!

Just transferred a Super 8 film, early 70s Kings Island amusement park. Cincinnati area. Came out great! Transferred to VHS and digital at the same time. Camcorder aimed at the screen as the projector rolled. No flicker whatsoever and got most of the color. One little trick I use is to let a little light peek into the festivities...cuts down on the flicker...I realize that you trade away a little image and color this way. I realize not all projectors will give those results...I think it has to do with the blade. Was using a steel, boxy B&H Autoload. I've also got a REAL REAL cheap Dual 8 plastic projector that does an excellent flicker-free job of transferring.

You can look at the Mona Lisa, or look at a picture of the Mona Lisa. No transfer can match the real film experience.

Art restoration and preservation can be a controversial issue! There is no perfect solution, and the owner of the piece gets to make all the decisions. The Lost in Space "stunt Robot" was recently restored and is in the Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle. Many fans say he was "over-restored." He was a fiberglass statue essentially, and didn't have as much detail as the main "hero" costume. But when the stunt Robot was restored, he was fitted out with full detail and ended up looking like the main costume. So...is that right or wrong? Whoever OWNS the piece gets to make those decisions.

If anybody's got any Kings Island footage, I'd love to see it!


Mike Warden