Alternative to convert Super8, 16mm and 9.5mm films to digital video using inexpensive flatbed photo scanner and frame extraction free software. Now with optical sound extraction. There is also a new free software for 35mm films under development with a beta version. "As well as the seeds are planted in the earth and sprinkled with water to grow trees that give fruits to feed us, the silver seeds are planted in the film and sprinkled with light to grow on the screen forming images that tell stories to feed us too" Main advantages: 1 - The softwares are free 2 - The Flatbed Photo Scanner is inexpensive 3 - Great results scanning negative or positive films due to the scanner is improved to both. 4 - This method can keep the beauty of film grain instead of bluring it. 5 - Do not need time consuming and difficult projector modifications 6 - The scanner can do HDR scan and manual exposure with levels control 7 - Scanner is useful for other tasks like photo negative, slide and print scans, a good investiment 8 - The process can be automated if you build a film transport hardware 9 - The scanner is portable and works with notebooks 10 - The resolution is good for 720p or 1080p HD output. 11 - The software works on average computers 12 - The software has options for all aspect ratios, R8, S8, 9.5mm, 16mm, S16, U16, and also "All The Gate" 13 - The film guide to run the film through the scanner is simple and easy to build 14 - The scanner software has manual or automatic setttings for scan, so you can do image correction in post production or in the scanning moment making things easier and faster if you want. 15 - You can do other tasks in the same computer while you scan the film, you just need to run the film, click scan, wait scan, and do it again, file naming and file saving are automatic. 16 - This method keeps the perfect 24p frame cadence, something difficult to get doing realtime telecine with an unmodified or even modified projector. This method is the same thing of a frame by frame filmscan, a thing serious filmmakers dream about. You can get this with a projector, but you will need a frame by frame projector, or a very slow motion projector and rebuild the movie in video editing software. 17 - the scanner and software can extract all the image in the film frames, without cropping it 18 - new feature added: optical sound extraction Main disvantage: (the numbers presented here may vary depending on the scanner used) If you work with a big transparency lid scanner like the Epson V700 and V750 and low dpi setting, like 3200 dpi, you can scan one 50 feet super 8 cartridge in one hour work, and one 100 feet 16mm reel in two hour work, good for a DVD quality output or to share on internet. After some new tests i found 3200 dpi is the best quality/performance resolution for DVD and WEB. Also using unsharp mask in scanner software gives good quality and faster workflow to improve the image. You can chose low, medium or heavy unsharp mask in EpsonScan software. But, if you want Full HD quality (Bluray output)... Working at 9600 dpi for Super 8 or 6400 dpi for 16mm film, the highest quality possible, It will take 1 minute and 50 seconds do to each scan, counting the time to run the film manually, click scan and the scanner work itself, and the number of frames per scan will reduce signifcantly due to limits in file size, increasing the number of scans. So it will be about 8 hours work to scan one 50 feet Super 8 cartridge or 16 hours work to scan one 100 feet 16mm reel, if you do not stop. DIY work means you really need to work, so if you think you can do it, go on and read the full text bellow, all you need to know is here. (remember you can build the hardware transport to leave the system scanning all the reel alone, unsupervised). Then take a deep breath and go ahead... The history: When I was researching about negative / slide scanners I realized it could be used to scan Super8 and 16mm films, because the scan quality was good and a flatbed scanner could scan many frames at a time. But I realize the challenge would be how to extract the frames from the scanned filmstrips and how to build a movie with good stabilization and in a good / fast workflow? So I started google about super8 telecine / scan / scanning. I found some unsuccessful try outs but suddenly I was pointed to a German super8 enthusiast who developed a great solution to extract frames from scanned filmstrips with great quality and stabilization. I downloaded his free software and did some trys with the provided film strips he included in the software. The software was very mature in development, version 5, with the main features ready to do the job for regular 8 and super 8. The idea is simple and smart, the software uses the sprocket holes as reference to find, align and extract the frames. I became excited about the results I got and started talking to him by email about it, and I asked him to include an option to extract Max8 (Sup