Home Movie Transfers of 8mm, Super 8mm, 9.5mm, 17.5mm, and 28mm

Early 9.5mm home movies

The Colorlab Archives Division has identified the need to make available high-quality transfers of valuable film home movies. These film-to-tape transfers offered by Colorlab are of much better quality than sprocket-driven projector transfers.

Since Colorlab started transferring film to tape in 1987 (Colorlab was founded in 1972), we have applied our extensive experience in processing, printing, and transferring all gauges of motion picture film to making broadcast-quality transfers of film shot for television documentaries, episodic TV, commercials, etc. Colorlab does these film-to-tape transfers on non-sprocket drive Rank Cintel film-to-tape machines which ensures that no further damage is made to a film's sprockets. This non-sprocket set-up enables Colorlab to successfully transfer shrunken home movies that may have been stored improperly over the years.

With the introduction of DVDs, the family hoping for videos of their home movies on a format with more resolution than VHS and longer life than magnetic tape (VHS) now have the option of transferring or re-transferring the original and getting much better pictures.

With Colorlab’s transfers of home movies, families have the option of getting full color correction on a scene-by-scene basis, a feature not available with projector type transfers. This is important because of the wide variations in exposure typical in any one roll of home movies. Other fixes Colorlab can perform are correcting the fade that results from improper storage and increasing sharpness of the images electronically. Such full color correction can make the difference by revealing scenes that had been so poorly exposed they had never been seen before.

The earliest amateur films we find are from the 1920's, a format invented by Charles Pathé. This format is called 9.5mm and was popular in Europe but did find its way to the U.S. by the mid 20's. Its unique feature was that there was only one sprocket hole in the exact middle of each frame (on the frame line) and none on either side.

From top to bottom: super 8mm, 8mm, 9.5mm, 16mm

Colorlab’s engineer, Charles Brewer, has designed a gate for the Rank Cintel specifically for this format. Along with the introduction by Pathé of this amateur line of film cameras and film, a hand-cranked projector called the Pathé-Baby was brought to market.

After and before RePlasticizer Treatment

Families could watch 9.5mm home movies, as well as rent 27' and 50' cassettes of print-down newsreel and general interest films from Pathé. By the late 1920's, there were 350,000 such projectors sold. From a technical standpoint these 1920's 9.5 home movies are the most difficult to prepare for transfer because of the severe brittleness and curl usually encountered, again due to age, storage conditions, and the tightness with which they were stored on the tiny cassettes shown in the illustrations.

We can treat this condition chemically prior to transfer using our RePlasticizing Treatment (see before/after illustration). Using this treatment enables us to get a steadier and cleaner transfer.

Transfers from 8mm and Super 8 film, manufactured by Eastman Kodak, are usually less problematic to get ready for transfer due to their usually being younger and more stable, providing the film has been kept in reasonable storage conditions.

(Usual living conditions will do...film should not be kept in attics, garages, or wet basements.) Transfers from 8mm and Super 8 are more stable due to continuous perforations on one side. When Colorlab prepares such film for transfer, we inspect it, fix splices, put on head and tail leaders, and hand clean it back on 400’ reels. We also recommend that such films be kept on these 400’ open reels instead of rewinding on the small 50’ reels on which they came back from the original processing lab. The larger reels enable the film to breath, thereby slowing down aging and the increase of brittleness.

9.5mm home movies being assembled on an 800' flat for film-to-tape transfer.

Colorlab cannot recommend strongly enough the importance of NOT THROWING AWAY ORIGINAL FILM AFTER TRANSFERRING! Film is THE superior storage medium—far better than hard drives and magnetic oxide VHS tapes. The jury is still out on DVD’s, but given the higher resolution and the certain probability that they’ll last longer than magnetic tape, it’s a good time to consider transferring priceless film home movies to DVD. As technology changes and new formats are introduced, families are positioned perfectly to take advantage of new formats by having shot film in the first place. Film is a more permanent medium than any other medium introduced to date.

What is to be done if a family’s records are on VHS tape and no film was ever exposed? These images will eventually be lost completely! Some people may already be having difficulty playing them back. We would advise cloning them as soon as possible to a DVD or perhaps a digital broadcast quality tape such as Digital-Betacam. Cloning is not as great a situation as having film-originated records, but it is better than loosing them completely. Colorlab also offers tape restoration including tape cloning.

Remember the mantra of Film Preservation:

DON’T EVER THROW OUT THE ORIGINAL FILM!