. I transferred lots of old 8mm to video tape . . . had the choice of that OR dvd; at the time I chose the tape. I edited the 8mm stuff myself ahead of time to get the washouts / blank etc stuff out; as the place I took it to charged by time. No sense in paying for reproducing wasted film ya know. They essentially projected it onto a screen and video taped it . . . could easily have been done to DVD instead. Well worth the time, VERY well worth it . . . to myself AND the rest of my family . . . but edit the raw 8 mm stuff ahead of time if it already hasn't been done . . . I was quite please with the results / quality of the whole thing . . . Bob

If you have the original 8mm, it is worth getting it converted to a digital format so that it can be put on a DVD or SD card. The quality is a lot better and you cna then edit it pretty easily on a computer. Where in Texas are you? I know places in San Antonio that do good work.

I hesitated to reply to this one, because mosaic on plywood outdoors is a bad idea, and from what you said, I take it that the mosaic has already been done, or at least a lot of it has. Is that correct? If there's anyway to transfer it to another substrate, then that's what you need to do. The outdoor sign I linked to below is done on Wedi board, which is weatherproof and does not warp. Then it was bolted to plywood, reason being that a plywood sign already existed and had the hanging mechanism already installed, so it worked out well to do it that way. But the tile mosaic was glued to Wedi, not plywood. I didn't try to get any tiles to stick to the edges of the Wedi; I covered the edges of the Wedi with thinset and then painted the edges of the Wedi and the plywood behind it with gloss Rustoleum enamel paint. The sign has held up extremely well. Now, if you have already glued mosaic work onto plywood, the only advice I can give is to seal your grout with Dupont outdoor grout sealer - saturate it well - and paint the edges thoroughly, then go back and check the work every year or so, looking for loose pieces. Since the work is on a wall (vertical surface) and not a horizontal surface (like a table or bench) the mosaic has a better chance of surviving. However, you need to just expect it to eventually fail or have to be repaired periodically. I sealed a wood table with a marine sealant, top and bottom, then mosaiced it, the client left it outside, and the mosaic came off in sheets; I had to re-do the work on a piece of Hardiboard. Here is a link that might be useful: Silva's blog, South Austin Music sign

Sometimes old film stock gets brittle. The big stores' processing is highly automated, someone not particularly knowledgeable loads the film on the machine and then may walk away. It might even be processed at something like a fast forward speed, a higher than normal film speed, which could lead to a greater risk of breakage. Yeah, film breaks can always be spliced, and missing a few frames in a sequence wouldn't be noticed. If capturing the films without damage is very important to you, I would pay extra to have them processed more manually (by a local shop). You'll probably not find anything suitable in a small town. Keep in mind, even a local shop could have one of the uber-automated machines, you may want to check around and ask first. Do you have a favorite camera store? That could be a good starting point.