In the annals of cinematic history, the 16mm, 8mm, and Super8 film formats stand out as icons of a bygone era. Though the advent of video technology in the late 20th century saw a decline in these film formats, their legacy is undeniable.

You or your parents probably have a number of film reels lying in boxes in storage somewhere.

Top 4 reasons you should digitize your film with Transfer to Digital now

  1. You currently can’t view them. Your family spent all that time and money in the past capturing those memories, yet it’s now likely that you no longer have a functioning projector to view them. What’s the point of storing film reels that no one can enjoy watching?
  2. Film reels can degrade over time. Without perfect storage, mold and other forms of corruption (like vinegar syndrome) can reduce the quality of playback of those memories. Why risk waiting?
  3. Family members captured on those reels are getting old and may soon pass away. Wouldn’t it be special to relive their youth and memories of long-gone family and friends with them in person? Grandma and Grandpa will be truly touched!
  4. Transfer to Digital has a high-end state-of-the-art film scanner so our film transfers are higher quality than what was possible in the past. While others may have transferred their film to the inferior VHS format years ago, we can offer beautiful high-resolution (2048×1536) transfers of your memories with our $50,000 German-made film scanner (MWA Nova). The sprocketless design ensures that even the most delicate of film can be transferred without harming it. It’s also capable of capturing magnetic and optical audio. The scanner’s proprietary software enables our technicians to find the best possible exposure and color balance to ensure the finest possible transfer of your precious memories.

Does your film have sound? Although not common, some film does have sound recorded to it. Our scanner is capable of capturing both analog and optical sound tracks.

Is your film extremely old and cracked? Our scanner has a wet-gate option that will enable us to reduce the visual artifacts created by these defects.

Want to reduce extremely noisy footage or excessive dust and debris on your film? Our Digital Clean service is a intensive computer post-production process that analyzes frames before and after to determine what is unwanted, and removes it.

Need your film transfers on a nicely formatted DVD with a menu and chapters for every reel? We can do that for you.

Want a format of your transfers that enhances your ability to edit and polish your film transfers further? We can provide ProRes and DPX image sequences of your film transfers.

Here is a list detailing all the film options that we offer at Transfer to Digital:

  • Audio Capture – both magnetic and optical audio capture is available
  • Digital Clean – software reduction of film noise and dust and scratch reduction
  • Wet-Gate Scanning – for optical scratch and crack correction
  • Over-scans of your film (showing the gate and content captured outside of the standard 4:3 frame) available on request
  • Alternate final delivery formats available, including ProRes and DPX image sequences
  • DVD delivery option – with menus and chapters for each film reel

Bring in your film reels today and your film will be scanned frame-by-frame and converted to a high quality MP4 video file, which is then copied to a USB stick, portable hard drive, or uploaded to the cloud – enabling you to share them with family and friends for years to come. Contact us now and start the process.