Super 8, 8mm, 16mm, 35mm — every common motion-picture format scanned at preservation grade. Sprocketless transport for damaged film, magnetic and optical sound capture, ProRes and DPX masters. One lab, one preservation standard.
Each format has its own detail page with tier pricing, sample scans, and format-specific FAQ. Pick the one that matches what you have.
The most common home-movie format of the 1965 — 1990 era. 8mm wide with a single edge of rectangular sprocket holes — easier to identify than Standard 8mm. Most cartridge-loaded reels are Super 8.
Also called Double 8 or Regular 8. Same 8mm width as Super 8 but with smaller square sprockets on both edges. Dominant home-movie format from the 1930s through the mid-1960s.
Twice the width of 8mm. The professional workhorse for documentary, educational, news, corporate, and indie cinema. Silent has sprockets on both edges; sound has sprockets on one edge plus an audio track on the other.
The cinema standard. 35mm wide with sprockets on both edges, four perforations per frame. Pre-1952 35mm may be cellulose nitrate — chemically unstable and outside FPL’s scope.
Don’t know which format you have? The format identification guide walks through measurement and sprocket patterns — takes about five minutes.
The cheapest film transfer services point a video camera at a projected image. The process is fast and inexpensive but loses 40–60% of the detail captured on the original film. Frame-by-frame scanning captures each frame directly with a digital sensor at the film's full resolution.
Each frame is exposed individually at full sensor resolution. Projector transfer averages motion across frames, smearing detail.
Film is pulled by its smooth edges, not its perforations. Handles shrinkage up to ~2% and brittleness without further damage.
Native frame rate preserved (16 or 18 fps for home movies). Projector transfer locks to 30 or 60 fps and interpolates.
Up to 16-bit per channel at Archival tier. Lets us correct color shifts post-capture without banding.
Tiers differ in resolution, codec, bundled post-processing, and documentation — not in capture method. All three use the same Lasergraphics ScanStation with sprocketless transport.
For: Casual viewing of healthy reels — share with family, watch on a TV, edit in iMovie.
For: Home collections that matter, family histories, footage you want to edit or restore later.
For: Archives, museums, libraries, university collections, grant-funded preservation work.
Sound capture is +$0.18/ft on top of the per-foot tier rate — a separate workflow with different transport setup, audio sync verification, and bath cleaning of magnetic stripe. Per-format breakdown:
| Format | Silent | With sound |
|---|---|---|
| Super 8 | Clear edges, no stripe | Brown or rust magnetic stripe along one edge |
| Standard 8mm | Almost always silent | Sound 8mm exists but is extremely rare |
| 16mm | Sprockets on both edges | Sprockets on one edge only; audio on the other (optical or magnetic) |
| 35mm | Full-width image, sprockets both edges | Optical waveform alongside the image (most cases) |
For visual cues that distinguish silent from sound on each format, see the sound-vs-silent guide.
Most damaged film that conversion services reject scans cleanly here. The sprocketless capstan transport pulls film by its smooth edges — tolerates shrinkage up to about 2%, handles brittleness without further breakage, and doesn't catch on torn perforations.
See the film restoration page for per-intervention pricing and the deterioration guide for what each failure mode looks like.
Every reel moves through the same workflow — whether it's a single Super 8 reel or a 400-reel institutional project.
Every reel logged, barcoded, condition-reported. You receive the report before scanning begins.
Hand cleaning at every tier. Splices repaired by hand. New plastic industry-standard reels at Preservation+.
Sprocketless transport. 2K or 4K capture depending on tier. 16-bit RAW acquisition.
Scene-by-scene color, full QC against original, delivered to your Vault. Original media returned.
For the full 7-phase walkthrough — including how condition reports work, how surcharges are quoted, and what each delivery includes — see Inside the lab.
Transparent per-foot pricing. Sound capture is the only film surcharge. Order minimum applies once across the whole film order.
| Format | Access | Preservation | Archival |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super 8 / 8mm / 16mm | $0.42 / ft | $0.98 / ft | $1.65 / ft |
| 35mm | $0.68 / ft | $1.45 / ft | $2.35 / ft |
| Sound capture: +$0.18 / ft (any format, any tier). Order minimum: $150. Handling and prep: $50 base + $6/reel. | |||
The questions that come up most often about film digitization. Format-specific answers live on the individual format pages.