Cine Film to Digital (7-Inch Reel)

A 7-inch reel is the largest standard size commonly found in home cine collections. It holds approximately 400 feet of film, giving you around 25 to 33 minutes of footage at standard Super 8 speeds. These reels were typically used by more serious amateur filmmakers, or created by splicing together multiple smaller reels into a single compilation, a greatest hits of family holidays, birthdays, and Christmases all wound onto one big spool.

Because they hold so much footage, 7-inch reels often represent the bulk of a family's cine archive on a single spool. Losing one of these reels would mean losing a substantial chapter of recorded memories. Yet they are frequently found stored in attics, garages, and garden sheds: environments with extreme temperature swings and humidity, which are the worst possible conditions for film preservation.

At this length, chemical deterioration compounds. Vinegar syndrome (a breakdown of the acetate film base that produces a sharp vinegar smell) tends to affect the inner layers of a tightly wound reel first, where airflow is poorest. Colour fading is also cumulative. A 400-foot reel may show different levels of deterioration at the start, middle, and end depending on how tightly it was wound and where moisture penetrated. These are issues that require careful, frame-by-frame scanning with manual adjustments throughout the transfer.

We inspect the full length of film before scanning, noting any areas of damage, heavy fading, or fragile splices. Each frame is scanned individually, and colour correction is applied in sections where needed rather than as a blanket adjustment. The result is a digital file that faithfully represents the best possible version of your footage, from the first frame to the last.