FILM SAFETY
The film's speed is monitored by the MetaSpeed Digital Servo System. The system is simply the best in the world. It maintains film speed with the accuracy of .001 second. Any film speed is possible. There is no hot projector bulb in the machine, and there is no starting and stopping of the film on each frame (like you would find using a projector). Your film will scan with perfect continuous movement. Even bad splices will run through without damage. There is no pressure plate that can scratch your film (a constant risk with inferior scanning methods using film projectors or frame-by-frame machines).
The constant motion of the film scanning, combined with the lack of pressure plates and hot bulbs has also led us to become an industry leader in preserving and salvaging deteriorated film. If you have film that has become slightly brittle, warped, or otherwise deteriorated, we'll be sure to handle it safely and try to restore as much of the film as possible.
OVERSAMPLING
Depending on your film format, we scan anywhere from 2-6 times higher resolution than 1080p - and down-convert within the scanner to your desired resolution. This creates a better image that looks truer to the original film. While the film is at this much higher resolution, initial color correction is performed by one of our experienced colorists. This color correction also benefits from the initial higher resolution and uncompressed data at this point. Shrinking the larger original will have more inherent quality than simply duplicating a picture of the same size. This is the same principle that occurs when a larger image is reduced to a smaller one on a computer screen. Often times, the smaller image looks simply better. So where other companies might scan in 1080 High Definition - or worse, they might up-convert from a lower resolution - we scan at a much higher resolution and pass those benefits on to you.
DYNAMIC RANGE
Any given frame will contain a multitude of colors, from the deepest blacks to the brightest whites. We refer to this spectrum of color and brightness as dynamic range. Scanning film usually means sacrificing one end of the spectrum for the other. For example, if a colorist is scanning a 16mm scene involving two people - one in the bright sun and the other under the shade of a tree - the colorist will have to choose which person to transfer with full detail. By scanning with our extremely high dynamic imaging sensor, we eliminate that choice. Both people in the scene will be transferred as they are in the film.
The details that are captured on the film - the nuances of a person's face, their hair, their clothes - will be transferred. This is the same for color. Our imaging sensor allows us to recreate the colors to remain true to how they were originally shot. It is important to understand that original photography and film condition will play an important role in your film transfer. Simply stated, better film in, better film out. All scenes go through brightness and gamma correction. Color correction is not scene by scene at this price point.