Film Transfer Services
We Digitize Film. We convert 8mm, Super 8mm, and 16mm film using high fidelity digital transfer technology. Our aerial-capture process produces uniform lighting, unmatched clarity, and stunning color depth. Your film is converted to digital video in the form of uncompressed video files and/or a playable DVD disc that is compatible with almost all DVD players.
Preparation
Prior to digitizing your film we fix minor repairs, add leader, and splice the film as necessary. We then carefully clean your film with anti-static solvent and visually inspect it for dust and lint. Multiple small reels are consolidated into larger reels for ease of transferring and storage.
Transfer Process
Our process uses an aerial capture method and a 3CCD camera. This combination produces extremely high quality, flicker-free video with uniform light distribution and perfect focus. It has the following distinct advantages:
Frame-by-frame process (instead of real-time): film frames are digitized one by one, then reassembled into a digital video file that operates at the correct frame rate without any frame blending or interference.
Color correction
We use a digital process to remove color casts (typically red, yellow, or blue). We also try to compensate for under- or over-exposed film.
See more detail and transfer options in the Economy vs. Regular vs. Enhanced Transfer section below.
Sound Film
The sound track is captured real-time and married (synchronized) to the video file. Audio quality on 8mm film is fairly limited. On 16mm film audio quality is better and has more enhancement potential using our video editing service. Since original sound track on film is mono, we split the signal and create simulated stereo so that the sound will come from both channels.
Final Product
After your film is digitized we edit out leaders and blank spots and perform a detailed quality check. We then burn to high quality DVD-R discs that are compatible with almost all DVD players.
By default we set up your DVD for auto-play and we install a chapter point at the beginning of each reel so you can quickly advance or retreat to any point in the movie. A single DVD disc holds up to 2 hours of video, which equals about 1600' of 8mm film or 3200' of 16mm film.
We do not install any copyright protection, so you are free to make copies of your DVD.
If you plan to do any serious editing it is best to use full qulity digital video files ("uncompressed" AVI or QT). We can provide these on mini-DV, DVD-ROM, or better yet an external hard drive. Note that uncompressed files occupy about 15GB per hour of video at the default bit rate of 4Mb/s and resolution of 720x480.
Even if you don't have immediate plans to edit your video we recommend that you preserve an uncompressed master copy of your film. It will be invaluable in the future.
We can prepare your clips in the proper format and upload them to Phanfare, YouTube, and MyspaceTV. Please provide your user information and note that clips may be up to 10 minutes long and up to 100MB in size.
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