Going through my childhood as I clean out my moms home. Any recommendations for digitizing these? I’ve checked legacybox but they charge per reel. These are short reels so would end up costing a fortune. Would it be worth somehow transferring to one larger reel which would count as one reel therefore much cheaper. If so, how would I do this? Or is there a company that would charge by foot instead? Amy advice appreciated.
Be extremely careful if you’re going to use any service.
You need to make sure you do not hand your film over to a company that will destroy/recycle your film after their digitization. Once the film is gone, it’s gone. Many companies destroy the film after scanning it and this is 100% avoidable. There are no methods of scanning that require destruction of the original film so you should never allow them to destroy or recycle your film. Besides that, many services just suck. Reviews are often useless because they’re either fake or come from people who don’t know the potential of their originals and are just happy to see something digital from them after their collections were collecting dust for decades.Here’s a video showing a comparison of a scanning service vs frame-by-frame RAW capture with a macro lens and DSLR.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kC2hc_GzIAWhen it comes to film scanning, there’s always room for improvement. Even if you get an okay digitization today I would still recommend preserving the originals because better digitization services can always come to the market and potentially at a better price. The ceiling for film scanning is quite high, but the floor is full of low tier trash services. If you look closely in the video you’ll see that the video he received was actually interlaced which is absolutely pathetic.
Thank you for all of your insight! I am new to this so certainly have a bit to learn. I am going to use a cheaper service for some of my “newer” films but for these older ones here I am going to look into the options recommended here. There are so many!! Thank you!
The biggest problem with these is that if they are the ones with sound, you’re gonna have a hell of a time finding a company that can do it. And when you do, your eyes are going to water when you see the price.
My parents have a projector for one of these and it would play sound. Unfortunately they are 3000 miles away and are not technical people. If I can get back there, I’m gonna see if it has a line out. If you can find one, and it works, you could capture the audio separate and sync it up in Avid or Resolve or some other NLE.