The Kinetta is a custom-built, sprocketless film scanner capable of digitizing many film gauges, such as 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, and Super 8. Using Particle Transfer Rollers, a built-in camera lens, and proprietary software, the Kinetta produces high-quality scans of analog film for restoration and remastering. This station has been used for Home Movie Day 2022 and 2023, a community-partnered effort to digitize family memories; and independent study with Deserted Films, a non-profit organization dedicated to collecting, restoring, and providing access to films shot in the vicinity of Palm Springs.

The Video Transfer Suite boasts a variety of decks used to digitize analog video formats, such as Hi-8, miniDV, U-matic, and SVHS. Students utilize V-Record, an open-source program developed by the Association of Moving Image Archivists, to capture and preserve analog video information as digital files. Student projects completed at this workstation include personal home movie collections, U-Matic tape from the Skid Row History Museum & Archive, and VHS tapes from La Historia Society. The vintage playback decks at this station support the revitalization of moving image collections which might otherwise become obsolete.

The Video Editing Station allows students to perform restoration and remastering tasks such as trimming, color correction, and audio editing, for digitized films and born-digital video files. Students at this station utilize the video editing programs Davinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro. This station also features AEO Light, the pioneering program for optical film soundtrack extraction. This program allows students to digitize optical soundtracks and rejoin it to a digital film scan for exhibition purposes.

The Audio Transfer Suite offers a range of playback decks for analog and digital audio formats, such as quarter-inch open reel audiotape, digital audio tape, vinyl, and 78 shellac. Connected to a professional-grade turntable and audio monitoring hardware, the Audio Transfer Station offers robust options for recording, editing, monitoring, and digitizing audio information, through the WaveLab Pro 11 software. The PreSonus Monitoring Station allows four pairs of headphones to be connected to the computer at once during playback. This has been especially useful for group projects in Professor Vancour’s Audio Archiving class.

The Audio Editing Station hosts a robust suite of functions through WaveLab Pro 11, a professional-grade audio mastering and mixing program. This station allows students to digitize analog and digital audio formats, such as open reel audiotape, vinyl, cassette tapes, and Digital Audio Tape. Once the audio has been played back and captured digitally, it can be edited and remastered with a wide variety of audio effects and tools. This program allows students to closely examine audio information through its detailed visual displays of spectrograms, waveforms, and decibel levels.

The Digital Preservation Station offers tools for file recovery, digital forensics, optical disc imaging, and audio extraction. This station features two different optical disc drives, in addition to professional-grade preservation programs, such as FTKImager, IsoBuster, and Exact Audio Copy. Students have used this station to complete course projects for Prof. Gilliland’s class on Digital Preservation and Prof. Vancour’s class on Audio Archiving.

Schedule time to work with 8mm and Super8 film at the film inspection bench. This station supports winding, splicing, and inspection for 8mm & Super 8 film.

Schedule time to work with 16mm and 35mm film at the film inspection bench. This station supports winding, splicing, and inspection for 16mm & 35mm film.