YOUR FILMS ARE UNIQUE - NEVER THROW THEM AWAY
Beware of companies offering to store or dispose
of your films after transfer just to save on postage.
As part of our services we ALWAYS clean and repair films before transfer
and after transfer they are returned to you in archival plastic bags
containing Silica Gel sachets to keep them dry.
Our policy is that ALL original media is an important record
of places, family and friends and when you have your films transferred
onto DVD, digital tape or copied onto computer files for editing,
we recommend that you keep your cine films for your
children and grandchildren to discover.
They will then have the option of transferring them to the
next generation of storage technology in the future.
The history of the moving image has taught us that images on film,
sometimes considered to be of no interest and subsequently destroyed,
can be of considerable importance in the future.
A POTTED HISTORY OF THE MOVING IMAGE
'Time marches on' as a famous old american newsreel once said
and so does technology.
From the birth of photography with the production of the first
permanent photographic image produced by a process called
'photoetching' in 1822 to the latest digital stills and High Definition video,
new technology has always strived to produce the highest quality
visual record of our history.
With the advent of motion pictures, the flickering image on a white screen
was perceived as magic for many people, there are even stories
of audiences frightened of the sight of a steam locomotive
on screen, travelling towards them.
For the first time in history, a true moving representation of the world
was available to everyone.
Live television commenced in the UK during the 1930's with the BBC
broadcasts and cine film was used to record
some of those early live programmes.
The late 1950's saw the introduction of Quad
reel to reel industrial sized video recorders for television.
Many of the programmes we remember from the 1960's and 1970's
were recorded on video but due to the high cost of videotape
at that time, many tapes were erased and reused.
When film became available in the form of Standard 8mm and Super 8mm,
a unique worldwide archive was created for future generations,
recording the daily life and times of the last sixty years.
In 1986 we started our service of transferring cine film to video.
Back then, we copied film to VHS and Betamax tape as they were the only medium of choice for people who wanted to watch their cine films on TV.
With the advent of digital DVD, customers regularly send in
those original films to us to re-transfer them to DVD to
replace their original VHS copies.
Over the years we have seen incredable unique images such as
King Edward VIII opening a Hospice in the 1930's, 1960's footage taken
by an American soldier in the Vietnam war, unseen film of the Beatles
arriving in London and many many examples of how
people and places have changed over the years.
Even now in 2011, super 8mm film is still available to buy and is used by production companies in broadcast programmes for that distinctive film look.
WHAT WE DO
Our cine film to DVD transfer process is completed as follows
. Firstly your cine films would be examined on a film rewind bench and any cine films that have damaged sections would be repaired and broken splices remade.
The cine films then go through an ultrasonic cleaning process to remove any surface dirt and dust due to years of film projection.
Colour, contrast and brightness levels are adjusted electronically to improve the quality of the cine film image during transfer.
Although most 8mm film orders we receive are silent we also receive films with an audio track and these are transferred at the same price.
The final stage is creating or 'authoring' the cine films to DVD, transfer to digital tape or encoded to computer files on a memory stick or external Hard Drive.
We are located in south Hertfordshire, near the M25 London orbital motorway, our courier and delivery service covers all of the UK including some overseas customers. You can of course make an appointment to deliver and collect your films personally.
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