September 3, 2019

Digital Conversions LLC Announces High Resolution Kodak Disc Film Digitizing

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Digital Conversions LLC, located in Glen Mills, PA, announces that they can now convert Disc film negatives to digital images with 9.5 Megapixel resolution. That is the equivalent of a scanner operating at a scan density of over 8400 dpi (dots/inch).

Millions of people who once owned models of the Kodak Disc Camera have found themselves in a situation where scanning those Disc films to digital images is prohibitively expensive, and produces poor results. Fortunately, there is now an affordable way to get those old Disc negatives turned into high-resolution digital images.

The Kodak Disc camera was a hot consumer item when it came out in 1982. It was small and compact, able to fit into a shirt pocket. It was easy to load – just drop in a plastic cassette, close the camera, and click away. Unfortunately, it did not last long – it was taken off the market in 1999.

Now, there are millions of small, round film Discs sitting in storage, with images that cannot be scanned and digitized using conventional film scanners without modifying (cutting) the film. In addition, the images are so small (just 0.41” wide) that a conventional scanner, operating at 2000 or 3000 dpi, results in a very poor photo image – producing a photo that looks much like the early 1MP digital camera photos.

Scanning Kodak Disc films presents a huge challenge because the film is not flat. The central plastic hub prevents the film from being scanned with a conventional film scanner. Some companies get around this by cutting out the central hub, which risks damaging the film.

Digital Conversions LLC takes a different approach to the challenge of producing a quality image from these small frames. They use a photographic technique, employing custom designed and built equipment, to re-photograph the film images on the intact Disc with a 16MP camera. This yields an image for each frame that, when trimmed, is over 3500 pixels wide. That is equivalent to a scanner having a resolution of more than 8400 dpi.

The most impressive aspect is not just that that they can produce this high-quality result, but that they offer this service at a much lower cost than the few other scanning services who are willing to take Disc films. Those other companies charge as much as $39.00/Disc.

Digital Conversions LLC charges just $10.00 for a set of “Digital Positive” images, which are the “raw” frames as captured by the camera . These images include some of the image frame – but have been converted to positive color images from the negative. For an additional $5.00/Disc, they will trim the edges of each image and significantly enhance the image quality, adjusting for film cloudiness (which is common in Disc film), exposure problems, color shifts, and dust and dirt shadows on the images.

They can process intact Discs (with the plastic hub in place) without modifying the film in any way – it is returned to the Customer “as received”. They can also process damaged Discs. Film Discs that have warped or curled, but have the central hub, will be processed at no additional cost. If the center hub has been removed, a small additional charge is added to the cost.