ScanCafe converts your 8mm and Super 8 home movies into HD digital video, transferred in-house in the USA. Don't let your memories fade away. Preserve them digitally, forever.
3500+ Reviews20+ YearsDigitized in the USA
Many 8mm and Super 8 home movies are now brittle, and a vinegar smell is a sign the film is deteriorating. Digitizing your films sooner rather than later is the best way to preserve them. Here's what you get when you convert 8mm and Super 8 film to digital with us.
Your 8mm and Super 8 film is scanned in HD, full frame, with scene-by-scene color correction.
Every reel is cleaned and scanned in-house at our Indianapolis lab, never outsourced, and we guarantee the safe handling of your films. Your original film always goes back to you, on its original spools.
Old film is often dirty, and specks show up in the final image. Every reel is spot cleaned, and simple repairs like bad splices are included at no extra charge.
We've designed the whole process
to be as pain-free as possible.
Place your order online with an estimate of your film, then pack your reels in a sturdy box and send them to us.
Our technicians clean, view, scan and edit each reel at our Indianapolis lab.
Get your digital movies by download, Kinoke app, or on a USB drive for editing. Your original film comes back too.
Your 8mm and Super 8 film collects dust and debris over time, which can leave visible specks and imperfections in your digitized movies.
Every reel we process includes professional cleaning and restoration to help bring your films back to life:
Physical cleaning to remove surface dirt and debris
Digital cleanup to remove visible dust and specks
Minor film repairs to fix damaged splices
Scene-by-scene color correction for more natural, consistent colorsWhen our highly skilled technicians convert film to digital, they use cutting-edge tools to transform faded celluloid memories into forever digital formats. These include a German-made MWA machine, Swiss Agiscan software, and a Mac computer to convert analog to digital.
An autocolor feature is utilized for frame-by-frame color correction, and Adobe Premiere Pro is used for cropping and in/out edits. Whether your film has magnetic or optical sound, our sophisticated technology enables capturing and digitizing the audio.
But equipment is only half the story. Before any reel goes onto our machines, a technician cleans, repairs and splices it by hand and adds a leader.
Digitize Now
Choose the digitizing option that works best for your collection.
À la carte pricing
Flat-rate pricing
Have other photos, film reels, or videotapes you'd like to preserve? Explore our other digitizing services to find the right solution for your old media.
Film was costly in the early days of home movies, and 16mm was expensive for most families. Kodak introduced Cine Kodak Eight during the Great Depression to make home movies more affordable, and Super 8 followed in 1965. Super 8 came in black and white or Kodachrome color, and was silent until 1973, when Kodak added a magnetic sound strip.
If you've found old family films in a basement or attic, they may be 8mm or Super 8. Many of these reels are now brittle, and a vinegar smell signals deterioration. Most movie films made up to 1981 also had poor color stability, so it's best to convert 8mm and Super 8 film to digital soon. ScanCafe does the work in-house in the USA, never outsourced, with a safe handling guarantee.
Super 8 has elongated, rectangular sprocket holes and a larger picture area. Standard 8mm has nearly square, larger sprocket holes. The center hole on a Super 8 reel is about 13mm, versus about 8mm on a standard 8mm reel. We convert both.
Yes, both physically and electronically. Old film is often dirty, and specks show up in the final image. Your film is spot cleaned, and simple repairs like bad splices are handled at no extra charge.
Use the diameter of your reel to estimate the length of your film: 3 inches is about 50 feet (the most common size), 4 inches about 100 feet, 5 inches about 200 feet, 6 inches about 300 feet, 7 inches about 400 feet, 8 inches about 600 feet, and 10 inches about 800 feet.
Leave your film in its original packaging, and group and label your reels inside the box. Keep labels short, about 20 characters. You can also fill out the online titles worksheet, matching it to your reel labels, because those titles become your USB chapter titles. For example, label five 8mm reels 1 to 5, then write "Christmas 1954" on the worksheet or directly on the reels.
It doesn't matter. 8mm, Super 8, 16mm and 35mm film are all priced the same, by the foot. If your film is on a reel with sprocket holes, we can likely scan it.
Use a box, not an envelope. Choose a sturdy, double-walled box, like the kind used for shipping books, and avoid flimsy department store garment boxes and padded envelopes. Make sure your box is filled, even if you need to pad it, with bubble wrap, foam peanuts or crumpled newspaper so your film can't slide around.
Film digitization starts at $0.34 per foot, including cleaning, scanning, and digitizing. Your total cost depends on the amount of film you send and your chosen delivery option. Prices are subject to change, so please visit our pricing page for the most up-to-date rates.
Friendly, first-class service. My most recent project involving the scanning of a few hundred photos, many over 75 years old, was fantastic. The finished qualit...
When I started this process I was skeptical. How can I just pack up all my precious pictures and send them off somewhere? As it turned out this was the best thi...
I sent about 130 pictures in to be put on a USB stick, and very pleased with the result. Digital images look great, and I shared with my family. Very happy with...
ScanCafe was a great place to have my photo negatives turned into digital images. The images came out great and the negatives came back to me in perfect conditi...
I just finished downloading the digital files from a dozen old 16MM family films that I submitted. All of them were shot in the mid to late 1950's and were sure...
Scancafe delivered high quality 35 mm slide scan as promised. Customer service was effecient. Important memories were rescued :)
Helpful staff, careful treatment of our slides, great care with keeping slides in order, and packaging them for posting. Highly recommend
I have trusted ScanCafe (nee GoPhoto) with many, many treasured photographs over the years. They are always returned exactly the way I sent them and I am absolu...
Great service and quality wrt digitizing some of my APS film.
