DC Creative Inc: Saving Brittle Film

We’re talking to several companies that specialize in film transfers using a process called “wet gate scanning”, that has been a standard for years when dealing with old films. But a group in Burbank, California, called DC Creative Inc. has an exclusive and proprietary scanning process utilizing The Reflex Technologies film scanners and the digital restoration workflow developed by DC Creative, has set the new gold standard for high resolution motion picture scanning. Their mission is to provide an end to end workflow to clean, scan and restore aged, shrunken & brittle film previously thought to be un-scannable, obsolete, or worse yet, EXTINCT. This is achieved using the combination of cutting-edge hardware and software, not available anywhere else.

According to DC Creative Inc., this patented film scanner is “sprocketless”, so it can handle films which are severely shrunken, brittle, or shot on un-perforated film.

There are no pull down claws or registration pins to cause film damage as it moves film continuously through the scanner. The full-frame CCD image sensor (developed by Kodak) produces stunning 16-bit images at 5K+ resolutions.

During the scanning process, audio soundtracks are optically captured to create 24-bit, 96kHz WAV or AIFF files. As well, Reflex Technologies film scanners are capable of scanning all “standard” film formats: 8mm, Super 8mm, 16mm and Super 16mm, 16/32 and all 35mm formats. You can check out The Reflex Technologies scanner at the link below:

Potato Chip Brittle : Reflex Technologies

The system uses pinch rollers instead of the traditional pull down claw to avoid ripping the sprockets of dry, brittle film.

DC Creative and their exclusive partnership with Reflex Technologies have positioned themselves to change the way film is being scanned, archived, and restored.

David Courtice and his teams at both DC and Reflex are active outdoorsman, and nature enthusiasts In fact, David emailed over the weekend that he was hunkered down in his cabin with his family in Big Bear, and fished the absolutely deserted Jenks Lake with his son on Sunday in the snow. He didn’t say if they caught anything but that’s the way to isolate!