8mm Film Conversion
Do you have a bunch of old 8mm films that you want to convert to digital so you can keep them safe and access them easily? Videotapes can take up a lot of space, and many of us no longer keep VCRs in our homes to play them as we want.
If this sounds like you, convert your 8mm film to digital with our team of experienced professionals at DigMyPics. We offer a wide range of services for converting 8mm footage to digital formats, including DVD and Blu-Ray.
Continue reading below to learn more about our services and professionally curated process for converting 8mm film to digital!
Transferring 8mm Film To Digital
It's critical to understand that we're not just scanning a movie when we engage in your 8mm film conversion. We're preserving your family's history. We detail our complete steps below to help you understand how we do this.
Inspection and Cleaning
We first splice smaller reels on to larger reels, separating each small reel’s footage with a white leader so we can separate the reels back out digitally later. We will return your film on the larger, archival reels. This splicing of your reels together makes the rest of the work proceed more quickly and is crucial in allowing us to keep our prices low.
While splicing we inspect the film for any damage or dirt that may affect the quality of the video. We follow up our inspection by cleaning the film using a unique cleaning solution to remove dirt and other contaminants.
Once we finish the cleaning, the film is lubricated to prevent any clumping or sticking during the transfer process and to ensure smoother playback in the finished product. The lubrication also helps fill in fine scratches
After cleaning and inspecting, our team scans the reel in its correct order to convert it into a digital format suitable for editing or viewing.
Film Conversion Transfer
digmypics.com uses a method called Frame By Frame Transfer for capturing your 8mm and 16mm movies. Some companies use a less sophisticated method of projecting the video into a video camera, but that method has a lot of disadvantages that get solved by using the method we employ.
Sprocket damage is a frequent occurrence in old home movies and causes jitter in playback. By scanning each frame individually, we can ensure proper registration of the frame and we aren’t dependent on the sprockets being perfect.
Captured With Specialized LED Lighting
Anyone who has ever used a projector knows that those bulbs got very hot and sometimes melted the image if the project stopped for even a few seconds. LED lighting solves this problem, too. The LED light stay relatively cool during the process and allows us complete control of the brightness on the fly.
Transferring the Film by Hand
To provide the best possible experience for our customers, we monitor the 8mm film conversion in person and without an automated approach. This process ensures that your film is transferred with the utmost care and attention to detail and avoids any hair or debris sticking to the film and affecting the image.
Color Correcting Edits
Once scanned, we can use special software to color correct the video and reduce grain.
Manual digital color correction helps to ensure that your 8mm film converts to the best possible quality. It allows for precise adjustments, such as correcting color casts or enhancing contrast.
This step ensures that your converted film footage will look more vibrant and detailed, with better contrast and less noticeable artifacts such as noise or flickering frames. It also helps to preserve the mood of each scene so that your memories stay intact when viewing them in the future.
Final Products
Once everything is perfect, we transfer your 8mm film to either a USB drive or a digital file that you can download, view on our website, or received on a USB drive or DVD.
Conclusion
With more and more people moving to digital formats, it's crucial to have a way to store your old movies. DigMyPics can help with your 8mm film conversion to a digital format so you can keep them safe and easily accessible.
Our service lets you keep your films handy without worrying about storage space or losing files. If you need help converting your old movies, contact us today!