Celebrating 40 years of loyal film transfer service to you

Answer:  We do not recommend using your old projector to run your home movies, for several reasons. If the projector has not been used in many years, it may not be in proper operating condition. The rubber drives may be worn, the belts cracked, the heat shield broken, etc. You run the risk of permanently damaging your film. Also, projector bulbs are very expensive and hard to find these days and the old style lamps only lasted a few hours. You may go through several bulbs just trying to view your old movies. The preferred method and the safest, by far, is to use a film editor or viewer to look at your reels. Since the editor has to be cranked by hand and uses a very low wattage lamp there is no possibility of tearing or burning the film. If you are local to our area and do not have an editor of your own, we have them for loan! Just call us to reserve one for the week.

Answer:  Yes, if you have a projector that is still running well and you're certain it will not eat or burn up your precious home movie film you can try to use such a device to convert your home movies. A couple of things to keep in mind, however. The "transfer box" is really nothing more than a frosted screen and a mirror. You are simply doing what is called a rear-projection onto the back of this frosted screen. The mirror is used only to reverse the image, left to right. The box does nothing to eliminate the flicker you will get from your projector and nothing to eliminate the hot spot you will see in the center of the picture. Since there is that frosted screen between your movie film and video camera you will lose a great deal of image resolution. Remember, you are actually focusing on the frosted screen...not on the film image itself. There will be no contrast to the picture to speak of and you should expect to be able to see the screen pattern (along with any dirt or dust or scratches) in your final transfer. Of course, you will have no control over changes in exposure (density) as the scenes shift from light to dark. As horrible as all this sounds, there are many so-called "professional" transfer firms that use this very device to convert home movies to videocassette!

Answer:  We use an industry-standard system called a "telecine" to properly convert your home movies to DVD or digital. The system is composed of a TK-28B telecine camera and multiplexor made by RCA, of New Jersey. Specially modified telecine projectors... one for each format... are optically aligned with the field lens of the unit. The TK-28B uses an aerial-image process to convert film to video. That is, the film image is actually focused in air...there is no screen to separate the telecine camera from the movie film. The result is maximum clarity and contrast. The TK-28B stands six feet tall and weighs over 1500 pounds. It has only one purpose in life... to convert a film image into video image!

Roll of "Double-8mm" film.
Circa 1956.

Answer:  The TK-28B is a "three-pickup" telecine. This means it separates the film's picture into its Red, Green and Blue elements before scanning and processing the signal. Primary color separation allows the system to provide highly accurate, deeply saturated colors. The TK-28B is equipped with automatic color balance, automatic black balance, automatic gamma (grey scale) balance and automatic light level control. This may not mean much to you right now, but it will if you have your film to digital transfers done on equipment that does not have these capabilities.

Answer:  The TK-28B has several special features that enable us to give you the very best transfers possible. The first is the ability to precisely monitor and correct for any changes in the peak light level of the picture over a range of five "F" stops (500%). This allows the system to pump a tremendous amount of light through your film to bring out those dark, underexposed scenes everybody has. If you were able to see the image on your movie screen you will see it in your video! The second feature of the TK-28B is a device called ChromaComp. ChromaComp allows the telecine operator to precisely tailor the color variables of the system to the particular film stock being transferred. Our ChromaComp has been calibrated for Kodachrome film, by far the rest popular home movie film ever used. This allows us to give you a color picture that matches your movie film frame for frame. Skin tones will be perfect, reds will be the reddest, blues the bluest and so forth. Your films should retain the same clarity in the video transfer as you were used to seeing on your movie screen. 

Answer:  Old 16mm and 8mm home movie film was originally shot at between 15 and 16 frames per second (FPS). When Super-8 was introduced in 1965, the speed was adjusted up to approximately 18 FPS. Many transfer houses run their orders at 20 FPS causing the picture to appear much faster in speed than originally filmed. We use specially modified telecine projectors that are carefully calibrated to produce the most natural-looking home movie transfers.

Answer:  The average home movie film we handle is from the 1950's. That's already over 65 years old. Many of the 16mm reels we work on go back to the early 1920's... making them nearly 100 years old! It takes great care to work on these priceless time pieces. Someone who has been doing such work for a long time and has the skill to do it safely and correctly.

Your movie film is of paramount importance to us. Every foot of your film is inspected and repaired as necessary. Your small reels will be loaded onto larger reels to give you an uninterrupted transfer. All unexposed or clear sections will be removed, as well. Finally, your film is treated with the only solvent ever made to safely and thoroughly clean movie film to remove surface dirt, fungus and finger oils before it is transferred.

Answer:  Our transfer services are all-inclusive. That is, we do not charge separately for the preparation time required to assemble, load, splice, repair, and clean your film before it can be transferred*. All of the labor and the supplies necessary (the movie reels, the film leader, our special anti-static and anti-fungal film cleaning fluid. the lint free cleaning pads, repair patches, etc.) are included in the transfer charge. For this reason we feel the fairest way to charge for our work is by the final total running time of your transfer order, rounded up to the next 1/4 hour.

*Please note, these extra fees can be a significant part of your total bill if the transfer house charges for them!

Question:  What about getting copies of my transfer?

Answer:  The transfer process converts the movie film image into an mpeg2 digital file which is then sent on to one of our servers. After all the film is converted to digital, the various reel segments are edited and combined into a final, fully authored DVD. This becomes your film transfer master. It should be stored with the film for safe keeping. Therefore, it is advisble to have at least one duplicate DVD(s) made from the master for playing and sharing with family.

We can provide inexpensive DVD duplicates of your movie transfers from the master DVD. When making duplicates from digital originals like DVD's there is no generational loss. All duplicates will be exactly the same as the master.