Verify the condition of your film. Inspect your film for water or heat damage. Dust and dirt may need to be removed from your film with a special solution before digitization can begin.
There are two methods used to transfer film --- flying spot scanner or charge-coupled device. For a flying spot scanner, light is shot through your film and the scanner rapidly scans each frame of film. Each reel captures the film frame-by-frame, guaranteeing each original frame corresponds to a new, uncompressed digital file.
A multiplexer is where a projector and camera are mounted on a table. Lenses and a mirror project the film image directly into the camera. Light strikes a charge-coupled device, CCD, or light-sensitive pixels. RGB (red, green, blue) components are separated before a digital image is created.
The telecine machine scans the image horizontally, creating 525 lines of information in NTSC, North American television standard, and 625 lines in PAL, the European television standard.
Color is restored to the project by enhancing the faded dye patterns of the film. A colorist monitors the project frame-by-frame, correcting any changes of color or by setting the telecine process on automatic. The intent of the color-correction process is to restore the images to their original color or better during the film-to-video transfer process.
The telecine process creates hours of uncompressed data. Codec compression of the information shrinks the digital files to a manageable format, enabling the user to edit the files on a Mac or PC computer instead of requiring a professional post-production editing suite.
Final inspection checks the film for undesired effects before the project is burned onto a disk or save onto a hard drive.