Convert Your 8mm Video Tapes to Digital.

Usually, yes, and often they look better than you expect after color correction. Some film is degraded beyond a perfect image, but we deliver the best result the film can give.

Gold HD is a clean HD scan. Platinum HD adds scene-by-scene color correction and grain reduction and is our most popular. Professional 2K is the highest resolution. See the film hub for full pricing.

Regular 8 has larger, more frequent sprocket holes and a smaller frame; Super 8 has smaller holes and a bigger picture. You do not have to know, we identify every reel for you.

From $0.28 per foot at the Gold HD special (regularly $0.40). A typical 3-inch reel holds about 50 feet, or roughly $14. You pay only for the footage we actually transfer, never per reel.

MP4 files by default (MOV or ProRes on request) on a flash drive or hard drive, and optionally on playable DVD or Blu-ray for $15 per disc. One disc holds about 1,250 feet of film. Your original reels always come home too.

Yes, a $50 order minimum, not counting drives.

With the current discount, transfers start at $0.28 per foot ($14.00 per standard 50 ft. reel) on the Gold tier. Sound film adds $2.00 per reel. Larger reels are simply more feet: a 200 ft. reel counts as four standard reels, a 400 ft. reel as eight. Use the online estimator for a down-to-the-penny quote; it assumes full reels, so most clients pay slightly less than their estimate.

The main reason you want to put your family memories on DVD is that DVDs last forever right? WRONG!! All DVDs have a shelf life and do fail eventually. And, once a disk starts to go bad, it becomes unreadable. So, instead of the picture fading or degrading a little at a time, you go from perfect to nothing in one step.

Most services like ours use regular disks. They are said to last 2 to 5 years. We don’t think that is acceptable so we use the top of the line long lasting archival DVDs available. These disks are superior for two reasons: First, the construction of the disk is much more durable. It can take punishment and age better than any other disk. Second, the recording layer is built to a true archival standard.

This archival layer holds information far better than the dyes and metals used in ordinary disks. The result, a disk that is thoroughly tested and rated for a shelf life of over 100 years. These discs have been tested against every major maker of DVDs. They stand out as far superior in every case. That’s why we insist on using them, and that’s why you should insist on getting them.

Why doesn’t our competition use them?

Because they are many times more expensive than any other disk. When you want your data to outlast your grandchildren, insist on the best long lasting archival DVDs on the market. And to play it safe, we recommend that you order a backup copy to keep at a second location just in case. (Blu-ray discs are not made to the same archival standard, but we do use the highest rated Blu-ray discs available. Again, backup copies are highly recommended.)

Regular 8 and super 8 mainly differ by the type of reel they are on. The center hole on a regular 8 reel is too small to fit a pencil through. On Super 8 film, the center hole is almost as large as a dime. If your Super 8 has sound, it will have chocolate brown stripes along one or both edges of the film.

8mm film of any type has holes on only one side and is skinnier than your finger.

16mm film is about as wide as a man’s index finger. If it has holes on both sides (make sure you check the actual film, not the white leader) it is silent film. If it has holes on only one side, it is sound film. 16mm film can come on reels as large as 1600 ft (about the size of a giant pizza).

The result you will get from your film transfer can vary greatly depending on the type of process you use. At the bottom of the list are services that will run your film on a projector and videotape the screen for you. This would represent the poorest quality process. This would be about a 2 on a 1 – 10 scale for quality.

The next step up would rate at about a 5 to 6 on the scale. This process is commonly called a telecine transfer. This machine looks like a projector, but instead of having a lense, it has a video chip that captures the image from the film. This yields OK results, but the original resolution is one fourth of what a dvd is capable of, and if you capture the film that way, you cannot take advantage of the full quality a dvd is capable of showing.

Our process would rate a 9.5 on the scale. The only way to get a better quality picture is to go to the high end Hollywood type transfer houses that usually do work for the studios. They can charge 10 to 15 times more than our prices and are certainly out of reach for family budgets.

When we transfer your film to dvds, we take the time to do it right. First we clean and recondition your film. We use the same film cleaner and process that motion picture studios use on their archival footage and master prints. (Watch out for the guys who use isopropyl alcohol. It is a drying agent and will damage your film in time. This saves them about $60.00 per quart, but the person who pays the price is you.)

We then scan your film frame by frame directly to lossless computer files. This frame by frame capture gives you superior results, it is much safer than other methods, and has much better color, contrast, and clarity. Frame captures are done by a high definition 1080p optics system that will trump other telecine systems every time. Frame scans are also natively high definition, 1080p resolution so there is no attempt to upscale inferior footage.

Before we burn your files to disk, we take the time to go through the footage and adjust color, contrast and brightness to enhance the picture quality even further. We can’t always make old film perfect, but we can make it look as good as possible.

We use only the best professional, long lasting archival DVDs for top of the line performance and longevity (Blu-ray discs are not made to the same archival standard, but we do use the highest rated discs available). These top of the line disks are tested and rated for an over 100 year shelf life. Don’t believe everything you hear about dvds lasting forever, the disks you use make all the difference. These disks are the longest lasting media of any kind. They also cost us about 10 times more than other disks.

That’s why most people don’t use them, but again, the person who pays is you. Our disks are also NOT copy protected. You are welcome to make copies of your product all you want. I recommend at least one backup copy on the long lasting archival DVDs, but you will not have to wonder if I am still in business 5 or 10 years in the future if you want another copy. You will be able to do it yourself.