Tag: microfilm conversion

September 30, 2011

16mm Cartridge Microfilm Conversion

Microfilm conversion is pretty much a catch all phrase that describes transferring roll film to digital image, such as PDF, TIFF, JPEG, or PNG. Most people visualize roll film as being like small versions of movie film in a mini-spool. Although the bulk of roll film is indeed like that, reels can also be enclosed in plastic cartridges.

There are a few kinds of 16mm roll film cartridges. Some are completely enclosed in a hard plastic, and are held together by screws and a snap mechanism. These were perhaps made famous by 3M, although other companies have produced and continue to sell these hard plastic film cartridges. Completely enclosed, they provide better protection from air, pests, and shipping.

Other 16mm cartridges are made of a lighter plastic and are open, and were created to be inserted into a large roll film shelf.

Generation Imaging has the capability to perform the microfilm conversion of 16mm cartridges. Let us know if you have any file format and naming preferences. Otherwise, we will digitize the cartridges using standard microfilm conversion parameters, such as 200DPI bi-tonal TIFFs.

Generation Imaging has expert microfilm conversion scanner operators with the experience and technical know-how to convert roll film to digital images in a timely manner.

Most of the time it is more cost-effective to send G.I. your cartridges instead of purchasing a microfilm scanner. If you prefer to deal locally, and are located outside of South Florida, you may be disappointed in the quality of the final product and microfilm conversion pricing you are offered, so give Generation Imaging a try.

September 29, 2011

Microfilm Conversion Steps: How To Start the Process

Getting Your Microfilm Conversion Started

Identify the media for microfilm conversion. Roll film can be 16mm and 35mm. You can measure the width of the film to determine this. 16mm can be on spools or cartridges, while there are no 35mm cartridges. Roll film is not microfiche (small flat cards), aperture cards (PC cards with a rectangle cut out for film), color slides, or movie film.
The term microfilm conversion refers to creating digital images from roll film. So choose an output format, such as PDF, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, or other standard image file formats. Do the folders or images need to be named a certain way? Will the files be single page or multipages?
Get an estimate as to how many reels are in the collection and around how any images are on a roll. To do that, you can use a rule of thumb of 2,000 frames for 16mm or 500 for 35mm, or you can measure an inch and count how many frames are in that inch. Then multiple that number by how long the film is (it may be indicated on the roll label). Otherwise, a rule of thumb could be 100 feet for thick film and 200 feet for thin film.
Contact Generation Imaging for your microfilm conversion quote and turnaround time.
Pack your film up and don’t leave any room for movement. Use any mail carrier you are comfortable with to send it to G.I. If you are local to South Florida you can drop it off or have us pick it up to perform your microfilm conversion.

September 27, 2011

The Florida Microfilm Scanning Company

Our Florida microfilm scanning company was used to resolve a microfilm scanning need for a local government agency. In this case, the county had a requirement to digitize 35mm microfilm and create gray scale pdf files and index the files according to specific criterion. With the experts at our scanning company, the project was a success. The county made many requests along the way, and it was a learning experience for the county participants as were able to help communicate various options out scanning company offers.

This is a typical development a scanning company should expect to run into during a microfilm conversion project. The experts at our scanning company have resolved similar issues for many years. If you have a need for a microfilm or microfiche conversion process and are interested in contacting anyone of the experts at our scanning company, please let us know. Some of the most productive events happen at he very beginning of the process, when you are just becoming informed of the options and possibilities available from the scanning company.

A good scanning company will find out what your needs are by asking questions related to your project. Whether you have the right answer or not, this feed back set the stage for additional line of questioning that will ultimately inform you of details that may be crucial to you. The idea, from our scanning company point of view, is two-fold: One, we what to make sure you make the best possible decision that will generate the best results for you. Second, we want to make sure we as a scanning company fully understand your needs.

August 25, 2011

Microfiche To Digital Plus OCR

Recent trends in the Microfiche to Digital imaging has included an additional process called OCR. This process adds significant value to a microfiche to digital conversion because of the increased functionality of the final product. OCR refers to the Optical Character Recognition and involves the process of reading information from an image after the microfiche to digital conversion has taken place. The software that is designed to perform the OCR then creates a text layer of the information it gathers from the image.

After the microfilm to digital and the OCR process has completed, you should be able to work with the file just as if the image had been created using a text editor. This means that the microfiche to digital process creates a picture of the image and the OCR creates a text version of the same image. The benefits from this conversion are immense. For example, if you where interested in finding information about a person listed in the document, you could do an automated search and a text editor would locate the name for you. This would not be possible without an efficient microfiche to digital conversion.

Consider the following, Last year, a historian approached us for a microfiche to digital conversion. He had been working with a local library gathering information from old newspaper that had been microfilmed years earlier. Without a microfilm to digital conversion, he was limited to viewing a frame at a time on a viewer and looking for information by reading off the screen. Needless to say, he was wasting lots of time. After performing a microfiche to digital and OCR process, he was able to work from his own computer and perform searches instantly.

December 6, 2010

Get your Microfilm Conversion Project Test For Free

At Generation Imaging, we’re doing all we can to help our customers take care of their microfilm conversion projects. As a part of our efforts, we have now established a free no obligation testing process, where we take a sampling of the microfilm conversion project and perform a microfilm conversion simulation test