Posted by Bill Farnsworth on 10/14/06 05:40

"slugbug" <fuzzhead72@yahoo.com> wrote
> And when I say "home movies" in this case, I'm not referring to 8mm
> or
> Hi8 tapes. I mean the actual film, as in, you expose it to light,
> get
> it developed, and then project it on a screen.
>
> Well, most of the videos of my childhood are in this format. I think
> my
> Dad has a decent amount of family films from the mid 1960's until
> the
> mid 1980's. My Grandfather has some that are even older than that.
> My
> Dad's projector got messed up about 25 years ago, and we haven't
> been
> able to watch them since.
>
> I recently found a Sears 8mm movie projector, model 584 92000, for 5
> bucks at a thrift store. The thing was in excellent shape, in the
> original carrying case. I tested it out, and found that the motor
> and
> even the bulb worked fine.
>
> Today my Dad brought down a couple of reels of old film from 30
> years
> ago, and we finally tested the thing out. It works great!
>
> So, as part of an upcoming family reunion of sorts, I thought it
> would
> be fun to show some of these old films.
>
> However, I also figured that with my luck, the old bulb would burn
> out
> after just 20 minutes or so, ruining the presentation.
>
> I started looking for replacement bulbs, and the best price I could
> find for a new one was about $36. There are some used ones on eBay
> for
> about $22 including shipping, but I am a bit leery of those. I also
> don't really want to spend 5 times as much as I paid for the whole
> projector for a bulb that is rated to last only 15 hours.
<<<<SNIP>>>>
> So this is my question: Should I chance it and try out the cheaper
> $10
> model? Do you think it will work? Thanks!
>

Personally, I would forget the bulb and projector and send all the
footage out to be cleaned, polished and transferred to DVD.
Won't be cheap, but the memories are priceless.

If you are going to go the projector route, then buy the right bulb.
The film stock was designed to be projected through tungsten light.
If you don't, then all the footage will look rather orange with that
cheap ass wrong color temp bulb. And that just ain't right. A three
hundred degrees difference at the low end of the Kelvin scale is not
going to look "slightly different". The blacks will be dark red, the
underexposed stuff will look .....really underexposed and the stuff
shot under incandescent lights will look REALLY orange.

Besides, 15 hours of bulb life is an eternity in home movie viewing
hours.

Don't try transferring the footage to video using the 'ol Sears
projector. The results won't be very pleasing to the eye. Unless of
course, you like seeing an annoying flicker throughout your family
filmfest.

Again........ Send it out and converted to your favorite archiving
format.

Bill F.
www.billfarnsworthvideo.com

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