So you have old film that needs to be restored and preserved for future generations. Our 8mm to digital conversion service can help. Maybe you inherited some film from a loved one, or perhaps you simply haven’t had a chance to have your material converted into a usable modern format. Whether you’re preserving film for a renowned archive or wanting to watch home movies on your television the process is similar.

The simplest method is to project the material onto a screen and record it with a digital camera. However, there are several other methods that yield far superior results. There’s frame-by-frame scanning which involves taking a digital snapshot of each frame and combining them to create a video sequence; simple, economic and effective. More advanced telecine machines use a flying spot scanner to convert each frame into individual lines which make up a digital frame. The output is very high resolution and when fed into a computer workstation can be captured to a variety of formats for editing or creating watchable media like DVD’s and Blu-Rays.

In addition to a high-resolution scan of the film, when converting 8mm to digital it’s important to pay attention to the exposure levels and color balance. The industry standard for color correction and level adjustment is a DaVinci system. CinePost uses a Rank Cintel Turbo in conjunction with a DaVinci color correction system and the WetGate dirt & Scratch Concealment system.

Older film often has some dirt, debris, and unsightly scratches. These issues can be reduced or completely eliminated using a Wetgate system. The function of a Wetgate system is to remove extraneous dirt and debris while concealing the appearance of scratches. The film goes through a fluid filled chamber that rinses off loose particles while filling in the physical scratches with a clear liquid temporarily; this prevents light from refracting and showing the scratch. When going from 8mm to digital with a Wetgate the scratches will be somewhat concealed if not completely hidden.

The system we use at CinePost can “Wetgate” Full Aperture 35mm,  Regular 35mm, Super 16, Regular 16mm, Super 8, and Regular 8mm.