Dissimilar Solutions | Edmonton, Alberta | 8mm.film.scan@DissimilarSolutions.ca

Dissimilar Solutions uses a unique digitization process focusing on optimizing the exposure and the stability of the image using high quality optics.  The process follows these steps:

Step 1- The 8mm movie film is gently advanced through the optical scanner where the film is cleaned by a micro fiber cleaning system and each frame is captured as a high resolution lossless png file.  The film is stopped before each image capture to ensure the highest quality capture.  The exposure of the film is continuously adjusted during the process.  The final capture is done using High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography which combines multiple pictures taken at different light levels to make one balanced photo. It keeps bright skies from turning pure white and dark shadows from turning pure black, matching what your eyes actually see.  The raw images are captured at a resolution of 1936x1216 pixels using a Teledyne Dalsa G3-GC11-C1920 camera with a Nikon Macro lens.  A typical 50 foot film produces approximately 4500 high resolution images.

Step 2 - Once the entire film has been captured the images are analyzed by image processing software and frames are selected and cropped to give optimal resolution for the final product.

Step 3 - The old 8mm movie cameras typically had a significant amount of frame to frame jitter.  In our process each scene from the film is analyzed and processed to significantly reduce the camera jitter and camera shake that comes with the old home movies.  This makes the movies much easier to watch.

Step 4 - Finally the png images are recombined as an AVI movie using a high quality jpeg compression.  The final product can also be provided as a MPG file.  This provides the best quality when playing the movies back on your computer or a smart TV.  Our standard output resolution is 1440x1080 pixels which matches the 4:3 ratio of the frames recorded by the 8mm camera.