What are the technical specifications?

First and foremost, if you have a special request for the types of files you or your organization need to get back from us, let us know. We can deliver just about any video format under the sun.

All files we produce are DRM free, unlocked, and unrestricted. You are free to do anything with your files after we hand them back to you.

By default, we deliver H.264/AAC MP4 files. They are YUV 4:2:0 progressive, Main, at level 4 or level 4.1, depending on the type of tape. For these files we use a bit depth of 8 bpc and a variable bit rate of around 8 Mbps, defined by a CRF value of 18, although sometimes we go even higher quality if we think the transfer will benefit it. We will never drop the bit rate lower than that (unless you specifically want that).

All analog capture is done in 10-bit 4:2:2 interlaced lossless for video tapes. This means that our computers are capable of discerning over 1 billion unique colors coming from a tape. Audio is captured at up to 24-bit 96khz/sec, although sometimes we will capture at 32-bit floating point if we think your tape would benefit from that. Some lower fidelity tapes are captured at 16-bit if their noise floor is high enough to not benefit from a higher bit depth. All analog video tapes are time base corrected.

Motion picture film is scanned lossless at 8-bit 4:4:4 or 12-bit 4:4:4 depending on the film gauge, although we apply best-light shot-by-shot color correction on a 32-bit floating point timeline, so exports can be done at that extreme level of quality, including 16-bit DPX or even full float OpenEXR, should you want that.

Slides are imaged uncompressed in 16-bit, ProPhoto RGB at 7500x5000 with approximately 14 stops of dynamic range. We can deliver either 8-bit JPEG files or the full quality 16-bit ProPhoto RGB TIFF files. We can also deliver to you a PSD file containing the raw, linear scan, plus our dust and scratch removal and RGB corrective curves applied as layers, so you can reverse or tweak any enhancements we have done.

For born digital tapes, such as HDCAM, DVCPRO, DVCAM, Digital Betacam, or others, we use a fully digital pipeline. Our competitors often will use the analog outputs from digital tape decks and do an analog capture. Not us. We capture DV25 tapes (which includes DVCAM, DVCPRO 25, Digital8, and standard MiniDV) directly over Firewire/i.Link to get the exact bit stream off the tape. For all other digital tape formats where this isn’t an option, we capture the raw SDI or HDMI stream right out of the deck to V210, FFV1, or a similar lossless format.

Our Archive Package includes a lossless 4:2:2 10-bit FFV1 file for analog video tapes, or a 12-bit ProRes 4444 file for film. If any color work was done after the transfer, we can export at up to 32-bit full-float 4:4:4 if needed. Contact us for a quote if your organization requires files at that high of bit-depth.

If you need other codecs, such as ProRes or DNxHR, those are always sourced from our full quality lossless capture.

Color correction for analog tapes, when requested by the customer, is performed on a ProRes or DNxHR transcode due to Resolve’s inability to read lossless FFV1. As soon as Resolve offers support for it, we will switch to doing color correction directly on the lossless capture. Shot-by-shot, best light film transfers are done directly on the lossless image sequence from our scanner.

DVDs are burned onto solid white, single layer DVD-Rs. The DVDs are NTSC (unless you ask for PAL discs).