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Deity208



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Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital
#13947763 - 02/11/11 07:38 PM (13 years, 3 months ago) |
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Anyone have experience with this? I'm trying to convert a bunch of old 35mm slides and VHS tapes to DVD or whatever. My grandfather dug out a ton of this stuff from his garage and was going to pay a company to do it, but that would get pretty damn expensive, pretty damn fast.
I've done a little research and it looks like the most cost efficient way would be something like this for 35mm slides (pdf) and this for the VHS tapes (pdf). If anyone has a better way or opinions on those converters please let me know. Thanks
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It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. Also he got a race car. Is any of this getting through to you?
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argg
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Re: Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital [Re: Deity208]
#13947821 - 02/11/11 07:55 PM (13 years, 3 months ago) |
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pick up a used machine off ebay/CL and then sell it when you are done using it.
For VHS get a pci card with line in then record it from a a regular VCR into your pc.http://cgi.ebay.com/ATI-TV-Wonder-VE-PCI-TV-Tuner-Video-Capture-Card-NIB-/230583093642?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35afd2c98a
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Edited by argg (02/11/11 07:56 PM)
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Deity208



Registered: 09/03/07
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Re: Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital [Re: argg]
#13951215 - 02/12/11 01:06 PM (13 years, 3 months ago) |
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Thanks a lot. My current card has S Video already (never knew wtf it was for) so I just need to go buy the right cables for like $10.
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It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. Also he got a race car. Is any of this getting through to you?
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argg
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Registered: 07/20/09
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Loc: Nigeria
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Re: Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital [Re: Deity208]
#13951229 - 02/12/11 01:12 PM (13 years, 3 months ago) |
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I have a batch of slides to do too. If you want to sell the thing to me after you buy it let me know.
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Bacchus
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Registered: 10/10/06
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Re: Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital [Re: argg]
#13955934 - 02/13/11 01:39 PM (13 years, 3 months ago) |
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To convert the 35mm negatives on the cheap, just build yourself a back lit table (can be as simple as a CFL and piece of printer paper) and photograph the negative. Then just import to photoshop, invert, tweak the levels (auto is usually fine), and play with the brightness/contrast until it looks good.
Or you can just use a scanner... Yeah, that's probably better.
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Living on a no-Flash diet is way easier than you think. Give it a shot.
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bufoamericanos
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Re: Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital [Re: Bacchus]
#14161203 - 03/21/11 08:02 PM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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I looked into this before and its really a lot more efficient to just send the slides to an online scan service provider such as slides.com. Commercially slide scanning is done either on consumer scanners by people in India for extremely low wages or is done on an extremely fast super expensive scanner such as the hr500 from Kodak. Apparently this thing can scan 500 slides an hour. Given the cost of the equipment I would quality would be highest with this machine.
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
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Re: Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital [Re: Bacchus]
#14163067 - 03/22/11 03:50 AM (13 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Bacchus said: To convert the 35mm negatives on the cheap, just build yourself a back lit table (can be as simple as a CFL and piece of printer paper) and photograph the negative. Then just import to photoshop, invert, tweak the levels (auto is usually fine), and play with the brightness/contrast until it looks good.
This usually gives pretty good results, but the downside is that it's really tedious. I have reasonably good experiences with an old (by today's standards) Minolta Scan Dual IV. Resolution is good, and if you let it run on 'auto' it's pretty quick as well. On the downside, it has no ICE, which is something you might want if the slides are dusty and you don't want little specks on each image (or you don't want to remove the specks manually). I've also used an Epson 4990 (flatbed with transparency option) for 35mm slides, but the resolution appeared to be slightly lower than that of the Minolta and the workflow was a lot slower. It does have ICE though.
All considered, I'd recommend picking up a used transparency scanner as argg suggested. Skip the Minolta Scan Dual IV though if you're not too computer savvy, as officially it isn't compatible with Windows Vista and 7. You can still get it to work though with a workaround/simple hack, so it might be a cheap way to get a decent scanner, as people are likely to be dumping this model due to the compatibility issue.
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memorabledvd
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Re: Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital [Re: Deity208]
#14781471 - 07/17/11 12:20 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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If you are looking for a professional to do your 35mm slides, please let me know.
Thanks! Dave Owner Our Memories in Motion www.memorabledvd.com
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koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,729
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Re: Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital [Re: memorabledvd]
#14785059 - 07/18/11 05:48 AM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Nice work finding this thread dave. Too bad you needed to kick a 3 month old thread that pretty much nobody was interested in to begin with to spam your advertising.
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Deity208



Registered: 09/03/07
Posts: 1,763
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Re: Converting old slides and VHS tapes to digital [Re: memorabledvd]
#14787779 - 07/18/11 04:53 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
memorabledvd said: If you are looking for a professional to do your 35mm slides, please let me know.
Thanks! Dave Owner Our Memories in Motion www.memorabledvd.com
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It's just like the story of the grasshopper and the octopus. All year long, the grasshopper kept burying acorns for winter, while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But then the winter came, and the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. Also he got a race car. Is any of this getting through to you?
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