I used to make this offer each year in November/December on the old alien site before they lost their minds and I deleted everything and left. Over the past decade, I’ve digitized 100+ hours of video, and close to 1000 photos.
I can digitize the following formats:
- 35mm negative / slides / négatif / diapositif
- 8mm film (8mm & Super 8) (without audio)
- VHS-C “compact” video tape (not full size VHS)
- MiniDV video (not HD… yet)
- 8mm Videocassette (“Sony” 8mm / Hi8 / Digital 8)
- Audio cassettes
Reasonable limits apply - one of:
- Up to 80 frames of 35mm negatives / slides (2-3 “rolls”)
- Up to 5 reels 8mm film
- Up to 5 VHS-C videotapes
- Up to 5 MiniDV cassettes
- Up to 5 8mm videocassettes
… or some reasonable mix of each.
Output is in JPEG or MPEG4 format. For MiniDV/Digital8, I can provide the original .dv files, but they’re gigantic - 20+GB/hr. 35mm slides/negatives are usually returned in plastic sheets suitable for storage in a binder.
Turnaround time is usually 72 hours.
Process: Pack up your media in a box, include your ID on Lemmy on a piece of paper, a USB stick for storage (about 1GB per hour of video). Drop off at my office in St. Henri, and pick it up in the same place a few days later.
People often ask why I do this. Freeing cherished memories from old media is a hobby of mine, I don’t do this for a living, but I’ve accumulated a lot of equipment over the last 10 years of doing this.
EDIT: Formatting.
Wow, for real?!
I hope so. I’ve spent a lot of money on equipment to do this.
That’s great! People who take OP up in this offer need to keep in mind that they’re exchanging one problem for another one. Instead of running out of playback devices they’ll have to contend with storage impermanence.
Storage media, especially HDDs, aren’t forever. Storage blocks can become unreadable, disks die and bitrot is real. For long-term storage you’ll want a redundant setup like RAID and maybe a filesystem that can detect bitrot.I actually work in digital archival work, and this is true… Do NOT trust ANY technogy, you have to have a PROCESS for keeping data safe… Multiple copies, in different places, preferably using different technologies. RAID won’t save you if your house burns down!
RAID won’t save you if your house burns down!
Obviously, lol. But yea, magnetic and electronic media don’t cut it for long term storage. Optical media like BluRay is better, if the storage conditions are right, as I recall. Intel’s project silica also looks promising.
Optical isn’t better, unless it’s magneto-optical which induces a phase change in the material itself - but even those drives had issues where static discharge would blast the media if the drive itself wasn’t properly grounded… Bit rot is real.
Can I ask what do you use for digitizing slides? I have a few hundred from my parents and the tools I’ve used haven’t given very good results and are very tedious to use.
This is a “pro-sumer” level device. Images come out around 3-5megapixels, the software removes lint and restores faded colours based on the make/type of film. If you have a selection of slides you’d like me to re-scan for you (e.g. pictures you’d like to have better copies of) package them up and bring them by. I’ll lay down a caveat that sometimes the image quality is crap because the original image is improperly exposed – in the old days, photography was tricky, calculating exposure was difficult, and consumer grade lenses were awful.
A few years back I paid over $300 in Montreal to have several VCR and Super 8 tapes digitized. I’m not complaining, it was worth it to me and my family. I just wanted to say I think it’s amazing that you are offering to help people out like this, and you are an awesome person!
This actually started with a friend complaining that digitizing old 8mm videotapes from when his kids were young was being quoted at $500-800. I told him that if he paid to buy an old player off eBay, that I’d do the work as long as I got the player at the end. The player was about $250, but got damaged in transit. I got refunded, and sent it off for repair… In the end, it only cost about $50, and he got two dozen videos of his kids growing up.
Aw that’s so kind of you. This year you might not get many responses (I’m on the West Coast) but I’m sure we’ll grow as a community over time.
I’m curious if you would happen to have Betamax player equipment still (*though it appears you are primarily targeting portable camcorder form-factor video)
Nope, no Betamax (too rare, too expensive). And you’re right that I focus on camcorders – before my full-size VHS player died, I found that what people were bringing me were mostly old TV shows you can find on YouTube, and terrible quality pirated movies.
Check your local library, some also offer this
