The Federal Archives of Germany use their DFT Polar HQ Film Scanners for Flagship Project Metropolis

31. March 2026 News

DFT is pleased to announce that three Polar HQ scanners have been fully integrated into The Federal Archives' digitization workflow. The Polar HQ scanners provide high-quality digitization for archival films across a range of conditions, including those that are damaged or fragile.

In addition to Polar HQ, three Scanity HDR systems are in operation at The Federal Archives, enabling film digitization at exceptional quality and high throughput. All six scanners feature the latest dry gate and wet gate technology, offering versatility for digitizing archival films in varying conditions and supporting a wide range of preservation and restoration workflows.

Having a film scanner like Polar HQ is of extraordinary importance to us in our mission to digitally preserve German film heritage. In the past, the digitization of damaged and fragile material required extensive and costly mechanical preparation, says Dr. Christian H nger, Head of Archive Technology at The Federal Archives. Polar HQ helps us to significantly reduce such preparation time and substantially increase our ability to preserve the damaged and fragile part of our film collection.

Developed in close collaboration with leading film archives, Polar HQ is designed to meet the needs of film archives. It enables even the most delicate and degraded materials to be digitized safely and efficiently, expanding the scope of what can be preserved. With Polar HQ, more titles can be processed within a standardized, high-quality workflow, ensuring that valuable cinematic heritage is saved from total loss.

The biggest challenge in developing a scanner for damaged and fragile film is the huge variety of possible film conditions the scanner must be able to master. The development process does not only require new concepts and sophisticated software, but extensive testing and numerous adjustments far beyond systems built for film in good condition, says Norbert Hinckers, CEO of Digital Film Technology (DFT). We were very fortunate to have The Federal Archives not only as a key customer, but as an invaluable partner in this process.

Showcase Project: Scanning Metropolis - Dry Gate vs. Wet Gate Technology

As one of its first major Polar HQ digitization projects, The Federal Archives selected an iconic film: Fritz Lang's silent Sci-Fi film Metropolis (1926), a landmark of German cinematic heritage. This important work is representative of many other vital historical films preserved in the archive.

The Federal Archives hold the original 35mm nitrate negative version of Metropolis that had been specifically created for the U.S. market. The digitization and preservation project is especially significant ahead of the film's 2027 centennial, marking 100 years since its original premiere.

In preliminary testing, the team evaluated the scanning performance of Polar HQ using both dry gate and wet gate technology. Although the image content remained largely intact, scans with the dry gate revealed a subtle flicker from fine, multidirectional scratches embedded in the film base. Therefore, the team decided on DFT's WetGate technology on Polar HQ, which eliminates surface scratches and defects to deliver superior image quality. Scanning the 12 individual reels of the Metropolis nitrate negatives took four days and produced 124,239 film frames, requiring over 15 terabytes of storage. Each frame delivers 4K resolution for the active film area, resulting in a total edge-to-edge frame size of 5,763 3,966 pixels in 16-bit depth. Although the original negative is a black and white film, it was scanned and saved as RGB files to preserve all color information inherent in the image and base material.

The deployment of three Polar HQ systems in conjunction with three Scanity HDR systems significantly expands the Federal Archives' scanning infrastructure; according to H nger, this enhances digitization and preservation capabilities and lays the groundwork for achieving the Federal Archives' goal of digitally preserving Germany's film heritage.

LINK:	https://dft-film.com/the-federal-archives-of-germany-use-their-dft-pol...
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