The Process
FIRST: Lightly clean and inspect your film. This cleaning is intended to remove light dust and lightly lubricate the film. The intention is not to remove ground-in grit or rejuvinate degraded film. If required, we can quote rates for services to handle these conditions. The inspection is performed to look for damaged/failing splices and torn sprocket holes.
SECOND: We digitally capture your movies a frame at a time. This is the only way to maximize the capture quality and allow the regulation of playback speed to yield the best , most natural result.
THIRD: The raw captured video file is processed to convert from movie frame rate to video frame rate. This is what yields the natural motion instead of the fast, jerky motion usually associated with "silent movies".
FORTH: Tthe video file is converted to a format recognizable by your DVD player and necessary for recording to DVD media.
FIFTH: The files are written to the DVD media.
In our process we enlarge the area of the film which we view and digitally capture. This allows more of the image originally recorded on your film to be visible when your DVD is shown on a standard TV. This additional area includes the area along the sprocket holes on the edge of the film. We have found with our own film that there is a great amount of desireable image in this area which was never seen with a movie projector. By enlarging the entire capture area the top, bottom and edge opposite the sprocket hole is also visible on your TV screen. To accomplish this there will be some overlap and the top and bottom edges of adjacent frames may be visible. This result is intentional, to give you all that is possible from you movies.
The Future
If you have sound or 16mm home movies please contact us for information concerning when we will be offering these services also.