High Definition

Some customers assume that a High Definition (HD) transfer is overkill for their 8mm, Super 8 or 16mm film. After all, it's old! The fact is that resolution is only limited by the film grain size and the size of the frame. 8mm and Super 8 film have a maximum horizontal resolution of around 900 lines. 16mm film has a maximum horizontal resolution of around 1800 lines. Standard definition video is limited to 480 lines (our Bronze, Silver and Gold process). Because of this, the Platinum HD process (1080 lines) is the only process that can capture all the detail on your 8mm and Super 8 film.

We were the first company to offer a High Definition (HD) film transfer in August of 2005 for your 8mm, Super 8 and 16mm film. Recently, a few more companies have started to offer an HD film transfer. Be careful, not all HD film transfers are the same. There are some companies doing a high definition Real-Time or Frame By Frame transfer. This is very different from a high definition Film Scanning process. Any film scanning process will produce 30-40% better quality compared to a frame by frame process or 50% to 80% better quality compared to a real-time process.

Even though high definition film scanning leads to an exceptional transfer, over 80% of the film we see today needs to be restored. Because of this, we've developed our exclusive Hollywood Restoration II technology. You wont find any other company in the United States that scans each frame individually at High Definition resolution with restoration like our Hollywood Restoration II technology.

High Definition Video Formats

We offer Blu-Ray DVD, 1080 HDV, HD-AVI, Apple ProRes 422 and HD 4:4:4 DPX master files. For details on these formats, click here.

*Quality of restoration is dependent upon condition of existing film stock; severely deteriorated original materials may be beyond the reach of even the most sophisticated restoration methods. Click here for more information.