Hey, we folks who just want our old 8mm films and 16mm films transferred to DVD usually have no idea of the high-tech stuff that goes into getting the job done right. If a person wants to risk ruining the old film and desires lousy results, just run the brittle old film through a garage sale projector and videotape what is projected on the wall. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there were still a few "professionals" out there doing just that.

Telecine (pronounced tele as in television and cine as in cinema) is the process of transferring film to a digital format. Imagine that—a science of transferring film into modern digital format. Yes, it is more complicated than what most of us generally think. So when Uncle Bob just rants about hooking up the camcorder and running the old films through the projector, we might want to rethink his logic.

Digital will perfectly render what is encoded. But what about what is actually being encoded (recorded) onto the digital media. We've probably all heard of frame rates in film. We certainly know what a film looks like when it is played too fast or too slow. We either end up with a version of the Six Million Dollar Man running in that slow-motion, or we get an old episode of the Keystone Cops where everything is a blur of speed.

It would be okay if there was just one frame rate for all film and video, but there isn't. Film plays at different frame rates. Most probably already know that film is a bunch of still images played at a certain speed with each frame of film appearing on the screen for a set period of time. That big reel of film is a whole bunch of individual pictures strung together that, when played at a certain speed through a projector, gives us moving images. Can you hear the clicking sound of an old projector as it is grabbing each individual frame of the long reel of film and pulling it over the bright lamp?

Films have different frame rates, video has different frame rates, television has different rates of how the images are put together to mimic real-life motion. Not only do the rates differ by whether it is film, video, or television, but there are different rates and formats used based on the country of origin. Film is absolutely beautiful when it is new. However, it is not an archival media meant to last forever.

True digital can last forever. Digital is computer ones and zeroes that will be the same ones and zeroes millennia from now. If the digital information is archived on sturdy media such as a DVD, the images could be an interesting find for archeologists of the future. Imagine a future professor watching the digital version of the old 8mm home movies mom and dad took of you when you couldn't even walk yet. Or better yet, imagine just showing those precious memories to your children and grandchildren without fear of ruining the original film.

Telecine uses very expensive specialized machines to protect and convert frame by frame the old films into modern digital. The equipment is an investment that real film-to-digital transfer professionals use to get the job done right. Even the lamps in these machines are super bright LEDs that do not get hot like old projector lamps do. Many of the telecine machines use guides instead of sprockets to further protect old film from being damaged in the conversion process.

Sure, you could run that old 8mm film reel through that old projector with a lamp hot enough to burn the old film in the blink of an eye. You more than likely will at least get the old film to break as it is pulled on old sprockets through the projector. Or you could let Got Memories staff of professionals using the latest and greatest transfer equipment do the job right.