When I looked around at the various methods of film transfer, it became evident that many people are in the dark as to how a transfer is actually made. It was also evident that up to 95% of the film transfer industry either project film using standard store bought film projectors and then video tape off the wall or a mirror, resulting in a serious loss of quality from your original film.
There are a number of so-called “experts” out there who claim to be able carry out a HD transfer of your precious 8mm movie memories to DVD or other digital media. In reality, you will find that many of these operators use “real time” or “off the wall” methods of transfer and use a HD camcorder to film the image!
Old film is brittle. Just running it through that old projector you found at a garage sale can cause irreparable damage. The heat from old-style lamps in projectors can melt the old film in the blink of an eye. Our modern equipment uses LED technology that is brighter than old-style projector bulbs with no heat!
Here is a sampling of things that we do when transferring your precious memories from old silent film, or even film with sound, to an archival digital format that will not degrade over time:
That old projector lamp is unable to display the full brilliance that is still there in each frame of the old film. Our scanner will give you a transferred product that is full and bright from corner to corner. We use LED technology that is brighter than projector bulbs from long ago. Modern LEDs are brighter than bulbs with no heat to melt brittle old film.
Typically, old projector lamps are brightest in the middle. An amateur projecting old film on the wall and transferring it to digital format will have a problem with the finished product being brighter in the middle. Modern digital media doesn’t look like that.
There is a huge difference in the quality of movie film transfer methods. Many operators offer “real time” transfers. A “real time” transfer usually involves a projector operating at or near normal projection speed and a camera recording the projector's image at the normal TV rate of 25 frames per second (PAL). The classic telecine-chain (projector, condenser lens and camera) is an instance of this.
So too is the basic “off the wall “ transfer or similar methods involving rear-projection screens, transfer boxes, mirrors and a variety of other gadgets. There are also little all-in-one transfer units that are basically a projector with a single chip CCD pick up where the lens would be (this is a very common method of transfer out there, so be aware of this!).
Real Time Transfer is generally a low quality, amateurish method of transferring your precious memories. It will severely reduce the quality of your treasured film, resulting in lost colour, contrast and detail. It often introduces unnecessary flicker and can introduce hot spots, where whites become overexposed and flare, and streaks and blur where the camera films a moving frame. Be aware that many operators state they are scanning or transferring frame-by-frame when in fact they are just using a projector to project and refilm it. Wherever you see term such as “synchronising the film speed to the shutter speed of the CCD to eliminate film flicker”, think lower quality.
Many enthusiasts out there will want to preserve their memories themselves, even though the quality will not be very good. This will not usually give the desired results because flicker will still be evident and there will almost certainly be degradation in the image quality, clarity and colour.
However, for those who want to carry out an off-the–wall transfer themselves, the following tips may help:
This is an extremely accurate method of film-to-digital transfer with excellent results and no flicker. This method involves digitally capturing every frame in the film and transferring to a computer using appropriate capture software. After completion, the software converts what is essentially a series of still pictures of each frame of film into a digital movie file. Each frame of film will correspond to one frame of digitized data. Nowadays, it is also possible to capture the audio as well, although this is more common with 16mm movies.
Typically, frame-by-frame transfer used by us for smaller gauge materials is typically provided to businesses such as the Academy of Motion Picture Film Archives in Hollywood. In dealing with the vintage film, they require a system with no sprockets, no claw and no image area contact, which also means no traditional capstan or pinch roller.
More importantly to those of us in the archival field, this type of system with zero image contact produces excellent image quality, and minimizes the possibility of damage to precious and fragile film.