Some transferring services will project your film on to a screen and capture the image with a digital camcorder. As you might expect, those results are mediocre at best. Our process is a true frame-by-frame transfer which results in a much better final product.

Each reel is individually cleaned and lubricated with Edwal Anti Static Film Cleaner. The film passes under a microfiber cloth that removes dust and debris that may have built up over the years. This helps keep the film hydrated and pliable, as well as filling in small scratches and giving the film a light protective coating, which gives the capture a "wet gate" like appearance.

During this process, we inspect the film, add leader if necessary, and repair tears or bad splices. Also, at no extra cost we will combine up to 8 small 50ft reels together onto one large 400ft archival reel(s) for more compact and safe storage. See our Movie Film Transfer FAQs for more information!

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Your film is then captured frame-by-frame as each frame passes through a projector with an enlarged gate with specialized light source in front of a half-inch 3CCD camera.

The enlarged gate allows us to capture the entirety of the frame. As each frame passes through the projection gate, a picture is taken. These individual frames are put into specialized software that interpolates the frames into a movie, resulting in a solid, smooth, flicker-free capture. This produces a higher-quality transfer and you will not loose anything from your original film.

Unlike super bright projector bulbs that tend to blow out a picture, our specialized light source provides a softer and more realistic light. We also have the ability to control the brightness of each scene during capture of your film so that your darker scenes are brighter and your brighter scenes aren't blown out.

The bulb also puts out much less heat than a projector bulb to eliminate the chance of film burn or hot spots on the movie. See our Movie Film Transfer FAQs for more information!

Unlike an automated setup, we monitor your film as it is captured to be sure no dust or hairs get into the transfer. We watch the transfer on an LCD TV Monitor and keep clean, compressed air ready in case any debris gets into the film gate. This is a huge advantage over non frame-by-frame methods!

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We then take your film into our professional editing consoles and convert your captured film to play at it's original speed for your modern home video equipment. We will delete any blank footage and place any chapter titles that you've stated in your printable transfer worksheet and add a title menu to your DVD.

Once completed, the same files that we send back to you on DVD along with your original film reels, are uploaded to our secure photo and video storage service, EXPO, where you can preview and share with family and friends.

You will receive an email letting you know when your film is ready and how to view it online. Your newly transferred movie DVDs will play on your DVD player as smooth as they did when you first filmed them to play on your projector. See our Movie Film Transfer FAQs for more information!

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Affordable Pricing

Our goal is to offer the most affordable and best quality product possible. Rather than automating everything to cut costs and produce an impersonal product, we have set up our process to incorporate manual quality control. Our pricing is per foot of film and we have no minimum charge!

Although most home movie film is silent, we can transfer sound for an additional 20¢ per foot. See our Movie Reel Transfer FAQ for more information.

DigMyPics is the leader in a broad base of personal digital archiving technologies. No other company offers the breadth of expertise, experience, offerings and technology to help you preserve your personal archives. We do all the work from our sole location in Gilbert, Arizona, so you can feel good about supporting the American photographers and artists that work at DigMyPics! See our Movie Reel Transfer FAQs for more information!

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Edit Your Digital Movies At Home!

Did you know you can also get your movie reels in an editable file format? We will transfer full quality uncompressed .avi files from your 8mm and Super8 reels to a 320Gb USB 2.0 External Hard Drive! This hard drive does not require a "wall plug" to power it up. You only need your computer and the USB cable that comes with it.

Alternatively, you can use a ripping and converting software such as AVS Video Converter to convert the playable DVDs we make into editable files. The resulting files will not look as crisp as the uncompressed .avi files we provide, and conversion time may be lengthy depending on the speed of your computer. See our Movie Film Transfer FAQs for more information!

Please Note: Every 1000 feet of film uses approximately 20Gb of
hard drive space in an uncompressed .avi format at 720x480 resolution.

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