How the transfer works

What actually happens to your film

Film transfer is one of those services where the words on the website are almost identical everywhere and the results are not. What follows is what happens in our building, in the order it happens, including the parts that are slower and less convenient than the alternatives.

Intake and chain of custody

Every item is logged at intake, handled by hand, and tracked through the lab under a full chain of custody before being returned. This sounds like paperwork until you consider what these reels are: usually the only copy, often of people who are no longer here.

Walking in or dropping off involves the fewest handoffs of any delivery method. If you are within driving distance, that is the lowest-risk way to get film to us.

Inspection and repair

Old film is rarely ready to run. Splices dry out and let go, film shrinks, and reels wound tight for forty years hold their curl. We check and repair before scanning, because a splice that fails inside a scanner damages the film and wastes the pass.

This is also the stage where we find out whether a reel has vinegar syndrome, which is the acetate base breaking down. It smells exactly like it sounds. Film that far gone can sometimes still be scanned, but the window closes, and no service can reverse it.

Frame by frame scanning

This is the step that separates a real transfer from a shortcut. The scanner captures a separate image of every individual frame. It is not a projector pointed at a screen with a camera recording the result, which is how cheap transfers are still done and why they flicker, lose the edges of the frame, and look washed out.

Resolution is true HD 1080p minimum and up to 2K, captured on Motion Picture Academy grade equipment. Scene by scene colour correction and grain reduction are available where a reel warrants it.

Return

Delivery is MP4 files on a flash drive for orders under 256 GB, or a hard drive above that. DVDs are available at $5 per disc for disc-only orders, or $15 per disc when a drive is included. Your original reels come back in the same shipment. Converting film does not harm it.

What we will not promise

We do not give an exact completion date, and the reason is honest: a reel that needs splicing or a tape that needs cleaning adds hours nobody can predict from an intake form. The queue we quote is our own, because every scan happens in our building rather than being sent out. Rush service is available at additional cost, quoted per order in the week you call.