The Colorlab Archives Division is a telecine facility servicing producers requiring film-to-tape transfers of the huge film archives holdings of the various government and private film archives in the Washington, DC area.

It is also a full-service Film Preservation laboratory. Colorlab has three telecine suites running two shifts each day to guarantee swift, highly expert order fulfillment for producers from around the world who need quality film-to-tape video masters. We bring to this thirty years of offering comprehensive laboratory services -- 16mm, super 16, and 35mm color and black and white negative original and intermediate timing, processing, and wet-gate contact and optical printing; small-gauge services, including broadcast-quality transfers from 8mm, super 8, and 9.5mm, and full Film Preservation services in all formats. That means high quality liquid gate fully timed and color-corrected optical blow-ups from 8mm and super 8 to 16mm, super 16, and 35mm.

Colorlab offers tape-to-tape restoration specializing in 3/4" and 1" time-base corrected mastering to Digital Betacam in NTSC and PAL.

All our Film and Tape Preservation work is performed on an as needed basis, which means very affordable Preservation work. Our fundamental business approach is to get as much film and tape preserved at the highest quality possible. For instance, when doing Film Preservation, if the original film’s shrinkage is not extreme, we’ll perform the mastering using contact liquid gate technology and not optical printing technology. The cost savings can result in much more film being able to be preserved. We are dedicated to getting as much of clients' archival holdings in front of the public’s eyes by not performing unnecessary Film Preservation steps.

General inquiries about home movie transfer, costs estimates for work to be funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation, and the transfer and preservation of material from private collections should be directed to our regular customer service staff: Jake Kreeger, Kevin Fallis and Rachel Craven (tel: 301-770-2128/fax: 301-816-0798/email: info@colorlab.com).   

Queries about transfer of material from the U.S. National Archives, the various Presidential libraries, University of Maryland Archives, or the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum should be directed to the Archival Film Services Department (tel: 301-770-7281/fax: 301-770-7284/ email: archivalfilm@colorlab.com).

If you are planning to order material from National Archives for the first time, we suggest that you review our FAQ list.

Archival Film Services Division
Table of Contents:

NARA Ordering FAQ

Connect with Kannapolis, NC through the work of H. Lee Waters

Colorlab Preserves First Motion Image of President Taft

Home Movie Transfers of 8mm, Super 8mm and 9.5 Film

Showa-kan Film Archives Preserves a Vital Piece of World History

Okinawa Prefectural Archives Finds Pieces of its History in the National Archives

Put It On Silver or Let it Rust

Colorlab Partners with National Preservation Film Foundation