Don't Let Your Memories Fade Away. Preserve Them Digitally Forever. Get Started Today!

Estimate the home movie footage you're sending

x $0.34 =
$0.00

Choose what you get back?

Digital Download

x $10.00 =
$0.00

USB Drive

 x $19.00 = $0.00

Hard Drive

 x $80.00 = $0.00

Total = $0.00

super8

Super 8mm film cameras were introduced by Kodak in 1965 as an easier and more affordable option to shoot amateur movies, thereby sparking the home moviemaking craze during the next two decades. Super 8 camera film was available in black and white or Kodachrome color and was silent. This changed in 1973 when Kodak added a magnetic sound strip on the side of the film. Of course, due to its small size, movies shot on Super 8 were often grainy and lacking fine detail.

Like many people who grew up in the mid-1960s to late-1970s, you may have fond memories of taking family movies with your Super 8 camera. And perhaps some 40 odd years later, you’ve discovered several boxes of old Super 8 film reels. Unfortunately, many of these films have become brittle and you may have noticed a telltale vinegar smell indicating the film is deteriorating. Moreover, most movie films produced up to 1981 had poor color stability. All of these are good reasons why you need to convert Super 8 to digital now rather than later.

What's Different About Our Super 8 Film Transfer Services

If you’re looking for the highest quality Super 8 to digital conversion service, ScanCafe has you covered. In the hands of our dedicated team of trained technicians, you no longer have to worry about losing your memories to the vagaries of time. And unlike many companies that outsource your precious celluloid memories, we perform Super 8 film transfer at our state-of-the-art lab in Indianapolis.

How Converting Super 8 Film to Digital Works

We know how important it is to preserve family memories, so we use the most powerful and cutting-edge scanning tools available to transform fading film reels into a forever digital format.

At ScanCafe, we’ve designed the whole process to be as PAIN-FREE as possible!

super8

Send

All you need to do is ship your Super 8 film to us and we’ll take care of the rest for you.

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super8

ScanCafe's Technicians

We assess the data on the super 8 films and digitize the content frame to frame. Your movies will be transferred at our Indianapolis lab with a 3-4 week turnaround time.

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super8

Enjoy & Share

The end result is memories safely transferred from super 8 film to your choice of a digital download or USB drive.

Super 8 vs. Standard 8mm Film

Once you know what to look for, it’s fairly easy to distinguish Super 8 from standard 8mm film reels. Standard 8mm film has larger, nearly square sprocket holes compared to the elongated, rectangular ones on Super 8mm film. As a result, the picture size on Super 8 film is larger, which likely equates to slightly better picture quality. In addition, the center hole on Super 8 reels measures about 13mm in diameter vs. the smaller 8mm hole on standard 8mm reels.

Delivery Options

After we digitize your Super 8 reels, you can choose from several different delivery options. Our standard delivery method is a digital download with a link that remains active for 30 days from the time of "Checkout". You can also select from any of these options to relive your Super 8 memories to your heart’s content:

  • USB Drive
  • Slightly Compressed H.264/MPEG-4 Files
  • Lightly compressed digital files on a hard drive for editing with video editing software

If you wish to continue downloading your digitized content after 30 days, simply contact our customer service team prior to this date at [email protected] or call us at (866) 234-3909. Please note that if you don’t contact us, our servers automatically delete content after 30 days. And also keep in mind – after we reactivate your link, it’s only valid for 7 days.

Check Out Our Other Services

We convert 8mm and more!

FAQs on Converting Super 8 to Digital

We do clean your movie film, both physically and electronically. This is an important quality step, because old movie film can often be amazingly dirty. Each speck of dirt will show up on your final image, and it can make watching your old home movies less enjoyable. Your film will be spot cleaned and simple repairs like bad splices will be handled for you at no additional charge.

When you place your order, we will make available a film calculator that helps you estimate the footage that you have.(This is just a ballpark calculation.)

The actual length of the film is calculated using this formula: Total Run Time (in minutes) x 16.67. So if you know the total run time please use this calculation.

Please leave film in the original packaging. If you group and label your originals inside your box, we will scan your order accordingly and your USB if opted will be organized as such. If you choose to label film, we ask that you keep the copy relatively short (20 characters or so). You can also fill out a titles worksheet we have available online when you place your order. Make sure this worksheet corresponds to how you label the reels, because we’ll use your information to make chapter titles on your USB.

For example, if you send in five 8mm reels, you could label them 1,2,3,4 and 5. Then on the titles worksheet, where it indicates reel #1, you could write "Christmas 1954", and so on. Or you could simply write "Christmas 1954" on both the reel and the titles worksheet. For additional packing tips, click here.

The best answer is, it doesn't matter! For nearly any conceivable movie film format that you have, chances are it's either 8mm, 35mm, Super 8mm, or 16mm. And our price for all of those is exactly the same.

A quick way to check: if your movie film is on a reel, and it has sprocket holes, then chances are excellent we can scan it.

The cost to convert super 8 film to digital with ScanCafe is $0.34 per foot of film. This cost includes the scanning of each frame and the digitization of the content. After the film is digitized, you have the option to choose what you would like to receive back. The options are a digital download for $10.00, a USB drive for $19.00, or a hard drive for $80.00. The total cost will depend on the amount of film footage you have and the delivery option you choose.

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