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Here are the reasons to consider capturing your film in 2K or HD instead of SD:

  • Film predates pixels and lines of resolution. The image on film is generated when one or more layers of a random pattern of silver halide crystals react to light, and are retained or washed away and replaced by dyes in the developing process.The image detail generated by this process can appear anywhere on the surface of the film.
  • The more lines of resolution we scan with, the more of this random placement of image detail is captured and converted to pixels. Standard definition (SD) captures 720x480 pixels of detail, high-definition (HD) captures 1920x1080 pixels of detail, and 2K captures 2560x1440 pixels of detail.
  • Sometimes, scanning with more lines captures more of the “grain” of the film, or the crystals that remain on the surface of the film. The grain is more obvious in film that was produced with larger crystals (R8), and less obvious in film that was produced with smaller crystals (S8, 16mm). For some R8 film, scanning in SD softens the detail of the grain making it less disruptive to the image.
  • These days, with HD, 2K and 4K viewing environments - and larger and larger screens - more, smaller pixels is always better because the smaller pixels provide more detail and a smoother image as the image is enlarged to a big-screen.

SD can never reproduce the full image detail on a film frame because SD video has a fixed pixel pattern with a density of 720x480 pixels, and the pixels that make up the image are always in the same place from one video frame to the next. But film has a random grain pattern, and the image created by the grains of crystals is in a totally different place from one film frame to the next. These random grains each carry a bit of the detail that make up the complete picture and, at running speed, the random grains overlap each other on the retina of your eye to significantly increase the amount of apparent detail. This is called “accumulative resolution”. If you transfer your 8mm home movies to SD video, even with the very best SD camera, your detail will be limited by the coarse, fixed pixel pattern inherent in SD video. Of course, HD and 2K have a fixed pixel pattern, too, but the number of pixels are so great and the pattern is so insignificant, that HD and 2K are like a fine silk stocking compared to the burlap weave of SD. 

Our high definition (HD) film capture offers resolution gains of 667% over a standard definition (SD) capture (more than 6 times better). Our HD capture is not a mere up-conversion from an SD source. Our HD film capture equipment uses a high definition image sensor to take in 5 times the square pixels per frame of film that our SD machine is not capable of picking up. For 8mm films the HD image sensor generates greater than 4000 pixels per inch. Thus, the accumulative resolution effect found in film can be more readily seen in an HD transfer than in an SD transfer.