Film Reels to Digital
Industry leading technology & safety protocols
100,000+
130+
locations
90,000+
converted per year
115+
employees
5 million
scanned per year
Our film transfer team digitizes more than five million feet of film every year. We specialize in all film reel formats and, unlike most services, can handle broken films, frayed reels, moldy footage or film with sound. We’re also proud to be offering 2KHD transfer services.
Our home movie conversion pricing is competitive since we do such a high volume. For most reels our pricing is lower than competitors even when they discount. We offer our best prices all the time, along with the peace of mind of a local film digitizing service. This project is important and we stand by our work. You should only have to do it once.
Our Mission
“By making the hard work of digitizing and sharing easy for our clients, we will preserve our world’s history before old formats fade and family stories are lost to time. Our ultimate goal is to make your best memories EverPresent in your life.”
– Eric, Jennifer & Winston
3 Easy Ways to Work with Us
HOME PICKUPS
Too many boxes to move on your own? Complimentary home and office pickups are offered along the East Coast from Maine to Florida.
LOCAL STORES
130+ locations available for convenient drop-off. See which store is closest to you. Our drivers personally transport projects to our local lab for digitizing.
FREE SHIPPING
We accept mail-in orders from across the U.S. We’ll email a pre-paid UPS label or apply a shipping credit if you ship on your own.
The Best Film Reel Transfers Start With The Best Equipment
Other digitizing companies use outdated film transfer machines. EverPresent is one of the only companies to use this state-of-the-art, German engineered NOVA machine for converting film reels to standard or 2k HD, with or without sound.
The NOVA Effect.
Watch the video to see the difference between an EverPresent Film Reel Transfer done on the NOVA and a competitor transfer.
2kHD Film Reel Transfers with Optional AI Enhancements
Our process combines true 2k frame-by-frame capture with optional AI enhancement tools.
Film Reel Transfer Pricing
8mm, Super8 & 16mm
$0.31 after your first 1,000 feetFirst 1,000 feet: $0.36 per ft
This 30% bulk discount will be applied automatically! Same price for 8mm, Super8 and 16mm formats
INCLUDED:
A $50 service fee applies to all orders. This service fee provides for safe handling procedures including: intake, item coding, physical & digital storage, quality checks by senior technicians and packaging.
Our App
Stop Searching. Start Sharing.
Still have more questions about converting film Reels to Digital?
866-363-3351
Call us or click Inquire below to get a free estimate.
Click “Arrange Service” to select the most convenient option to get us your film reels.
Comparing The Five Largest Digitizing Services
An honest comparison to help you choose the best company for your project.
Digitizing Film Reels
We recently upgraded our film transfer machine to the BMW/Mercedes of the industry – the MWA Nova. It’s a $100K machine that dramtically performs the equpment used by out competitors. We know – we used to use the methodology everyone uses until we upgraded.
|
EverPresent |
LegacyBox |
iMemories |
ScanCafe |
CVS, Walmart |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2KHD |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
Written Labels Transcribed to Filenames and DVDs |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
❌ |
|
Sound Strips Captured |
✅ |
❌ |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
|
AI Improvements |
✅ |
❌ |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
Restorative Services |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
Shipping & Drop-off Experience
All transport between our stores, your homes and our high-tech labs is handled by our private in-house logistics network that’s 100% devoted to safely transporting your precious photos and videos.
|
EverPresent |
LegacyBox |
iMemories |
ScanCafe |
CVS, Walmart |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Home Pickup |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
Local Stores |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
|
Inbound Shipping Included |
✅ |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
|
Flexible Shipping Approach |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
✅ |
Shopping & Service Experience
We are the only major national company that makes it 100% free to get us your project, counts everything for you, build an inventory, and provides a free estimate and personal consultation before you pay a dime.
|
EverPresent |
LegacyBox |
iMemories |
ScanCafe |
CVS, Walmart |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Inventory & Quotes |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
|
Order Approval |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
❌ |
|
Personalized Ordering Experience |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
✅ |
❌ |
|
Digital Delivery Options |
✅ |
❌ |
✅ |
❌ |
❌ |
*Information regarding competitors is based on public research and market knowledge available at the time of publication. Product features, and service offerings are subject to change. EverPresent does not guarantee the absolute accuracy of competitor data. Please verify all information directly with the respective service provider.
frequently asked questions about Film Reel conversion
8mm and 16mm film transfer may yield the biggest difference in result between poor vs. solid equipment of everything we see at EverPresent. Many companies still do versions of projecting film on old devices onto a wall or into a dark box and then re-record the film using handheld cameras. We don’t do this. Our transfer equipment is custom built, offers frame-by-frame scanning of the film, and the optical element can capture up to 2KHD resolution. Every film project at EverPresent experiences the benefit of tens of thousands of dollars worth of technology.
Critically, our equipment performs a sprocketless transfer. This really, really matters. The little sprockets on the outside of film reels are how old projectors and cameras grabbed the film and moved it along. This was perfectly adequate technology for handling brand new film. But over the decades, the sprockets have deteriorated. Most cheaper equipment still relies on the sprockets, and the result is jumpy transfers at best, or damaged film at worst. Our machines use advanced soft tension rollers to move the 8mm and 16mm film along without relying on the sprockets, which yield a safer and superior film transfer.
All that said, the way you maintain equipment is just as important as the quality of the equipment. When you are running old home movies through the machines, there’s wear and tear. That’s why we maintain the equipment diligently. That includes cleaning the rollers so that they don’t dirty your film, cleaning the imaging lenses, and replacing the lighting elements on a frequent basis. If you don’t do this, good equipment becomes bad equipment very quickly.
Lastly, to our knowledge we are the only large consumer film transfer company offering digitizing of film with sound or offering 2KHD conversions. Believe it or not, most other companies simply ignore the sound strips on your film, whether it’s the common magnetic audio on Super8 film or the optical sound found on 16mm films. We find ourselves constantly redoing the work of other companies in this area.
We certainly can. The types of repair we can do that tend to work well are:
- Replacing broken plastic casings
- Respooling magnetic film that has loosened
- Splicing back together film that has snapped
- Cleaning modest levels of mold
There are times when we cannot repair tapes sufficiently to be viable for our video conversion service. It is also worth noting that there are common flaws in tapes that aren’t a repair situation, but will affect the quality of the video transfer to DVD or digital. Below are the three common ones that can be frustrating and near-impossible to address, but generally do not compromise the ability to enjoy the memories. Every order comes with a Quality Letter that reviews what we found on these fronts on all of your tapes so that you are never surprised.
Digital Corruption: Heavy pixelation and nearly a complete loss of audio. Digital corruption can be caused by camera issues when the tape was originally recorded, as well as various forms of degradation or de-magnetism.
Tape Crease: A faint horizontal smear of distortion at the top of the screen during playback of the file. This issue is caused by a physical crease on the magnetic tape itself.
Frame Hold: The image on the tape periodically becomes shaky and unstable, with occasional thin lines emerging. This is due to deterioration of the magnetic tape itself.
When we transfer film to DVD we believe in charging for the work we do, no more and no less. A huge percentage of film reels are not full, and flat rate pricing greatly advantages the transfer company. Further, a secret in our industry is that over 80% of the film reels are the hockey puck-sized ones that have 50 feet or fewer of footage. The flat rate reel pricing at other film transferring companies was invented to take advantage of this dynamic. For example, a standard 50 foot 8mm reel at all of our major competitors, even discounted 50%, costs more than our superior film transfer service. We honestly don’t like how other companies price their film transfers and we’re proud of our transparent and high value pricing, even if it means we lose out on the business benefits that others glean from flashy, ultimately empty discounts.
Sound transfer requires additional equipment, a secondary transfer, quality check of the sound sync and some light optimization work. When we transfer films to DVD that have sound, this additional process is priced to break even, not make money. Sound is found on ~6% of the film reels we see, and clients often are unaware that sound was on their reels. As such, we’ve priced this service at the minimum level so that we can avoid unpleasant surprises all around while ultimately preserving the memories.
When we transfer film to DVDs or USB sticks the footage is exported in .mp4 files in the h264 codec. This format is the gold standard in the industry due to Mac and PC compatibility, ease of editing in common software, and high quality video quality in a space-efficient file (~1.6GB per hour of footage). All that said, if you are a film editor and would like alternative file types when transferring film, such as larger .avi files, you can let us know and we can accommodate most requests.
At any given moment we are doing multiple film transfer projects for institutions. Sometimes it’s larger catalogs of work where we are digitizing the whole collection for a department, library or even a whole campus. Other times we will be preserving film for a graduate student or individual faculty member for use in a research project or presentation. We often hear from alumni departments looking to digitize collections to re-engage with former students, including a recent project digitizing a full season of high school football films. We have worked with countless students over the years, usually film majors or students doing research for a history course. In general, we can handle large projects with ease, including projects with hundreds of thousands of feet of film. And we have deep experience helping institutions of all types, academic or otherwise, including businesses and offices of various kinds, and various governmental agencies. Our team can help with any info required to get a project going, including grant proposals, RFPs, etc. and we follow all of the relevant archival film preservation guidelines.
Yes. Our process of transferring film to DVD can optimize contrast, perform degraining and stabilize wobbly footage. That said, deeper film restoration, such as frame-by-frame edits to color saturation or to remove scratches in the film, is a different beast. If you have needs in this area, let us know and we can provide a quote or recommend a specialist with this ability. Be advised that advanced film restoration will cost many multiples of the cost of the initial film digitizing fees.
When transfer just about everything, whether it’s silent film or films with optical sound or magnetic sound, and whether the reels are in good or poor condition. The one format we don’t specialize in is the large format 35mm movie film. This is because these films are best handled by Hollywood-oriented film houses that have a history of working with this format. However, we’re happy to make a referral.
Our film digitizing machines are really good – so good that they can reproduce high definition footage of all of the dust, mold and blemishes that have accumulated on your reels over the last 50 years. For numerous reasons, the preparation of the film is just as important as the equipment chosen. Specifically, EverPresent’s film to digital transfer team does the following:
The film itself is cleaned by microfiber cloth and/or a special cleaning solution to remove as much dust, scuff and other surface matter as possible.
The film is inspected for any bends or breakage. Where possible, we repair splices. This is critical, because damaged film can lead to jumpiness in the final digitized version, or even damage, if we don’t address it up front.
We also inspect the reels themselves. If the reel housing the film is in bad shape, or the footage is wound poorly, it can lead to issues in the capture. We very often will replace the original reel with a new one, or respool the footage to get optimal tension of the film transfer.
Lastly, we evaluate the reels for other forms of compromise, such as mold or vinegar syndrome. Where we can, we remediate the issue before the conversion process.
A lot of what we’ve written on this page is about the technology and process of transferring film to digital (sometimes spelled film-to-digital), not the people. But people are the most important part of EverPresent’s service. We make an expert consultant available to you at the start of the project so that you can ask all of the questions that need asking before making big decisions. Your technicians are skilled and go through extensive background checks and apprentice training before we let them digitize your cherished memories. Senior technicians quality check every order to ensure the integrity of the footage, and even write you a letter reviewing how the process turned out. For those clients in the Northeast, all transport of your materials to and from our digitizing studio is handled by our full-time in-house drivers so you don’t have to worry about the overwhelmed postal services losing your materials.
The majority of film reels come to us in cardboard boxes where space was scarce to write a label or in a metal tin where a small piece of tape was used to write a label – again, with scarce space. Further, more than 80% of film reels are the three inch variety, and most people have a lot of them.
Our competitors tend to take the path of least resistance, which is to combine the reels together, skip the written labels, and create one master video file for all of the reels. This is not good! It means the films that may have been in order are certainly out of order, and there’s no way to navigate to footage you want in a DVD menu or USB drive folder structure.
At EverPresent, when we transfer film to DVDs, we transcribe the written labels into the DVD or USB menus. And after the transfer, we clip every unique reel into a unique file. So if you send us 32 reels, you get 32 files on your drive or 32 items in your DVD menu. This seems obvious, but we’re an exception in providing this level of organization.
