So what is a restoration scan and do I really need this for my home movie films.
We often get asked if a restoration scan is necessary for home cine films from old 8mm and Super 8 reels, the short answer is yes it can make a big difference.
Just giving the films a through clean makes huge a difference. The pictures look clear with much less of the annoying black spots flickering over the image.
Many of the old Kodachrome films have ageing effects such as the crazy paving effect from shrunken emulsion and damage from projection that can be significantly rectified by using a number of restoration techniques.
Obviously it requires a suitable machine like the HDS scanner and a competent technician to do this. Fortunately we have this scanner that can scan using a wet gate and our technicians have years of experience dealing with archival celluloid.
Wet Gate Scanning
The wet gate adds a waterless liquid to the both surfaces just before the image is taken of each frame. This has the effect of decreasing light refraction as the liquid fills the damage reducing up to 95% of any surface scratching and surface imperfections.
The results are pretty amazing as it even heals cracked emulsion, which looks a bit like a crazy paving effect where the emulsion has shrunken back and formed hairline cracks. As the film celll is so tiny this makes for improved viewing as any damage is greatly magnified if it is not treated in this way.
Old faded Kodachrome colour films.
Many older films from the 1950’s and 60’s have faded with muted colours, some print copies have also turned red so adjusting the colour bias colours and boosting them back digitally is all possible and brings back that lovely vibrant Kodachrome look which we all love.
Digital restoration tools.
There are a raft of other tools at our disposal, one that we see quite a lot is from incorrectly loaded 8mm films that can exhibit a flickering effect on playback. This can in many instances be reduced or totally hidden with a plug in filter that we use in the post production process to effectively tune this out.
Not only is a top end scanner required but a super powerful MAC Pro makes it possible to work with uncompressed files in real time. Together with a correctly calibrated monitor and the precision of a grading panel to make fine adjustments to the overall colour in the midrange, shadow and highlight areas.
This can often improve colours on the original film where they can look warm or cold on viewing.
So your thinking this all adds up to a much more expensive scan, while it’s true it is not as cheap as a budget transfer the difference in quality can be quite astonishing, and a sheer pleasure to watch, and let’s face it you are only going to do this once. It may cost slightly more but the difference can be chalk and cheese!
But don’t take our word for it with hundreds of genuine and glowing 5* reviews we let our customers speak for us. You can read some of them here: https://www.tvv.co.uk/reviews/